His resourcefulness got him a job at Lalamove

In 2018, Aaron Yesudian had his eyes on a driver operations associate role at Lalamove, which had just entered the Malaysian market at the time.

However, he had just graduated and obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering the year before, and he had no experience in or knowledge about the logistics industry.

On this episode of How to Get a Job at a Unicorn, Yesudian recounts how he had to go the extra mile when he applied for a position with the logistics startup and shares some advice for fresh graduates looking to score a gig with a billion-dollar company.

Timecodes:

00:00 – What did you want to be when you were a kid?
01:34 – How to get a job at a unicorn as a fresh graduate
02:10 – Aaron Yesudian’s days in school
02:47 – Dashed dreams of becoming a pilot
04:16 – Looking for a job in the tech world
05:10 – Applying for a role at Lalamove
06:22 – Going the extra mile to know the ins and outs of the logistics scene
07:54 – Cinching the gig
08:55 – When Covid-19 hit
10:17 – Getting recognition – and a promotion
11:49 – Advice for anyone interested in joining Lalamove
15:30 – Plans for the future of his career

Host:

• Peter Bithos, CEO of Seek Asia, the parent company of JobStreet and JobsDB in Southeast Asia

Featured Interviewee:

• Aaron Yesudian, driver operations manager, Lalamove Malaysia

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JobStreet by Seek Asia is Southeast Asia’s leading online jobs portal. Visit JobStreet now to find your dream job.

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Episode Transcript:

Peter Bithos (VO):
What did you want to be when you were a kid? Or, if you’re still a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I wanted to be a diplomat, working for the US State Department, traveling from country to country, in exotic places – maybe even an ambassador one day.

For Aaron Yesudian, when he was growing up in Kuala Lumpur, he wanted to be a truck driver.

Aaron Yesudian:
As a kid, around the ages of six to seven, I wanted to actually be a truck driver.

Peter Bithos:
A truck driver?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, yeah.

Peter Bithos:
Like, one of the big, like, 18-wheeler trucks?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, correct. I think that was purely due to my fascination with Optimus Prime at that time, right? And I remember going down to Penang, which is in the North of KL here, and I always used to count how many trucks we used to pass, right? Just due to my fascination with trucks at that time.

Peter Bithos (VO):
But, as most of us know, childhood dreams don’t always come true. So instead of driving a truck today, Aaron manages fleets of delivery truck drivers in Malaysia for Lalamove, one of Asia’s top same-day delivery and courier service providers.

For the uninitiated, Lalamove became one of Hong Kong’s first unicorns in 2019 when its valuation hit the US$1 billion mark. But today, the company’s valuation has grown even further. And Aaron managed to get a job there right after graduating from university.

From JobStreet and Tech in Asia, this is How to Get a Job at a Unicorn, a podcast where I talk to employees at Asia’s top tech companies to find out exactly how they landed their gigs.

I’m Peter Bithos, the CEO of Seek Asia, the parent company of JobStreet and jobsDB around Southeast Asia, and in this episode, I’m going to tell you the story of how Aaron got to work for Lalamove as a fresh graduate.

Peter Bithos:
So let’s go back, Aaron, way back. What did you do in school? What did you study? And what were you hoping to do when you, like… I don’t think you woke up in the morning and said, “I wanna work for Lalamove.”

Aaron Yesudian:
Haha yeah, true, true. I think, growing up, what career and what profession I wanted to pursue was a lot of things, right?

Peter Bithos (VO):
As we’ve established earlier, Aaron had a fascination with trucks and wanted to become a truck driver as a kid – who doesn’t? Though that affinity for large vehicles evidently remains until today, teenage Aaron had a different idea of who he wanted to be.

Aaron Yesudian:
And then along my teenage years, I decided to pursue a career as a pilot.

Peter Bithos:
A pilot?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, correct. And this was because my dad used to take me for all these air shows that used to be in Langkawi or… back then it was quite a lot of air shows at the Subang Airport.

Peter Bithos:
Oh, yeah?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, so I used to go and I’m very fascinated with airplanes as well, right? Until today, it’s always like I’m seeing it for the first time and it always excites me, and then I’ll just take my phone, open up flight radar, and see what aircraft is flying over, where its destination is.

Peter Bithos (VO):
Aaron was determined to become a pilot – even after finishing his chemical engineering degree at university. But that dream was dashed as well.

Aaron Yesudian:
So when I graduated, I think this was about four years back now, right? And I continued to apply for cadet programs as a pilot as well, and I got through to Singapore Airlines, right? And I went for the interview, right? And it was there that I decided halfway through the application program that I did not want to do this anymore for two reasons.

One was because I didn’t know I had an eye issue until I went for the interview, right? So my right eye is a bit bad and they said, like, “Woah, you might need to consider another career option.” And the second was I decided, like, I wanted to do something more in a leadership role.

Peter Bithos (VO):
With a new goal in mind, Aaron set out to find a job. But the first few months of his job hunt proved challenging.

Aaron Yesudian:
I did consider a lot of companies related to what I studied, right? In fact, I actually sent in my resume in person, right? I go to the company and I send it in. But actually, to be frank with you, what happened was I did not get any response from the industries that I was relevant to at that time.

Peter Bithos (VO):
That’s when Aaron turned his attention to the tech startup world. At the time, the innovation scene was already bustling in Malaysia with several homegrown startups – including yours truly at JobStreet – cropping up and many more startups from overseas setting up operations there.

One of those startups was Lalamove, which had just entered the Malaysian market in 2018. And at first glance, Aaron was sold on working for the company.

Aaron Yesudian:
So I did a bit of homework on them and what Lalamove is and what they stood for. And when I looked up – because it was available on YouTube and there was a lot of articles on Lalamove at that time itself – I think the thing that actually attracted me to Lalamove was the flexibility they provided to the potential delivery partners to choose their own jobs, right? They were flexible to do it at their own time, at their own pace, and they could choose what jobs they wanted.

I sent in my resume, and then I got called up. So they called me and they spoke to me, and they said, like, “Hey, here’s a case study you’ve got to do,” about the local logistics landscape in Kuala Lumpur at that time, right? “You go and just do the pros and cons of local logistics landscape, and then you get back to us.”

Peter Bithos (VO):
Here’s the problem: Aaron had a degree in chemical engineering – not logistics. But rather than be deterred by the challenge, Aaron decided to take that challenge up.

Aaron Yesudian:
They wanted to know the friction points for the local logistics companies right here and what do they face on a day-to-day basis, right? So to be honest, right, when I got the case study, I was, like, “Oh, where am I going to find a driver?”

Peter Bithos:
I was just going to ask you, like, how did you prepare for that case study as a chemical engineer?

Aaron Yesudian:
Correct. I did not know where to begin with, right? So when I saw the email, I was at the gym, right? So I was, like, “Oh, where am I going to find a logistics driver?” So as I was exiting the gym, I saw this truck – it was a logistics company. So I told myself, “OK, I’ll just follow this truck. If he doesn’t stop in 10 minutes, then I will go home.”

So I just followed him and, in three minutes, he stopped at one of the offices nearby, the loading bay. So he stopped and he was doing his thing. Then I approached him and said, “Hey, do you have five minutes? Can I just interview you?” And he was kind enough to actually take time to speak to me very quickly on what friction he faces on a day-to-day basis.

Peter Bithos (VO):
So let’s just take a pause. You know what? Props to Aaron because I love that story. You know, I’ve conducted a few interviews in my time and you have no idea how few candidates actually take the time to do that kind of research when interviewing. Like, it sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But who just thinks to walk up to a stranger and say, “Hey, talk to me for a while, will you?”

And what would you know, it paid off. Just over a week after presenting his case study to Lalamove’s city launcher who came in from Hong Kong, Aaron was hired as a driver operations associate.

Aaron Yesudian:
When I got the job, I was actually really happy, right? Because at that time, I think it was already five months since I finished my studies and – you know, moms being moms – on a day-to-day basis, she never failed to remind me that, “Hey, you’re still not working.” So I was really happy and I couldn’t wait to start.

So what I did was, when I got offered the role by HR at that time, I did ask her, like, “Hey, is there anything I can do? And I can come in earlier to help out as well,” because I know they were already setting up and I wanted to be, like, in the hole from ground zero kind of thing, right, and get the whole experience. But at that time, she said that they had sufficient manpower so I could come in at the start date that they already had communicated to me.

Peter Bithos (VO):
And so Aaron began at his new gig at Lalamove, managing delivery driver partners, taking charge of driver acquisition and training, and helping the team shape the company into the decacorn it is today.

But while he had a great time during his first two years at Lalamove, 2020 was a huge challenge because of a little thing called Covid-19, maybe you’ve heard of it. Despite that, Aaron says that 2020 was when he accomplished his biggest achievement at the company.

Aaron Yesudian:
There was a lot of people getting retrenched and whatsoever so here in Lalamove, we were a source of replacement income, right? Because if you work in a company for six to 10 years or for a long period of time, I think if you suddenly get retrenched, the first thing is you’re not sure of what to do. You don’t even know where your resume is, you don’t know how to… and you’re all over the place, right? So Lalamove was a platform for them to find replacement income until they could find something maybe more stable or they’re more inclined to. Because as soon as that happens, you’re all over the place and you need something just to go, like, on a day-to-day kind of thing. So the biggest milestone, I think, the biggest achievement here will be providing a platform for these partners, right, when the pandemic hit.

Peter Bithos (VO):
Heart of gold, this one. You just want to give him a hug, don’t you? Actually, you probably want to get a hug from him. And I’m sure his bosses recognized his passion because in 2021, Aaron got promoted to the role of driver operations manager – well deserved – attaining the leadership role that he’d sought when he graduated from school all those years ago.

Peter Bithos:
Do you have a team now reporting to you? Are there little “Aarons” going around?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, I have a number of colleagues now reporting to me on a day-to-day basis, weekly basis, you would say.

Peter Bithos:
How do you like that jump? Because you mentioned earlier you were thinking about being a pilot, which is a very solo kind of career.

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, correct, right, right.

Peter Bithos:
Now you’re managing people. So now you’re doing the thing that you didn’t become a pilot because you wanted to do. What does it feel like to lead people? How are you finding it?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, actually, I find it quite interesting because I’m still learning too, right? I have a long way to go for that and speaking to them and seeing what actually motivates them.

I think that the hardest thing, I’d say, is finding the time to actually speak one-on-one, right? To speak to them and getting them to see what motivates them, where they see themselves maybe in three to five years’ time, and how I can help them achieve their intended goals, right, based on what they set out to do.

Peter Bithos (VO):
On top of that, Aaron is now in a position of hiring people to join his team. Having been with the company since it first launched in Malaysia and helping build that company to the logistics giant that it is today, his advice for anyone – anyone – who might be interested in joining him is to be a little bit like he was just four years ago.

Aaron Yesudian:
The two words that come up straight to my mind is proactiveness and hard work, right? But it’s a bit hard to gauge, right, during an interview –

Peter Bithos:
Right, how do you… what do you ask or what do you do to help suss that out?

Aaron Yesudian:
So when we speak to them first, of course, there is the whole onboarding process that we follow, right? And when we first speak to the potential candidate as well, what we do is we give them a case study to do. And of course, the case study covers quite a big range of things that they need to do. And when they come to us, they will need to present. So they need to be able to have and hold a conversation.

And it’s not about the case study that they actually prepared, right? Because most of the time, we already have the information that they are going to bring to us. But it’s more to how they actually carry out the case study.

When going for an interview, I think the candidate has to do their own homework, right? They need to actually read up more on the company itself and know what the company stands for and what they are potentially going to do. Don’t come to an interview not prepared. I mean, being nervous is one thing, right? It’s OK. It’s part of it. They just need to come in and have a conversation, right? Hold the conversation, speak. So for them to know, before coming for an interview is always to do their homework.

I think what fresh grads can actually do is to always be better prepared, right? I mean, sometimes we do have people with experience, and based on what we are hiring for. But I think what’s very important coming into the job is the soft skills, right? The communication aspect, the teamwork aspect, because everything else can be taught, we can learn together, and we can grow into it, right? Of course, if there is a sudden business need for a certain role, of course, we might need to hire someone with a little bit more experience, right? But I think, of course, fresh grads will always be given the chance. And if they can come in during the interview and prove themselves to us, then, hey, why not, right?

Peter Bithos (VO):
Honestly, that might sound like overly simplistic advice, but even at my level, while I’m interviewing, you’d be surprised at the number of senior tech execs who come in without doing any homework on the company or the job that they’re applying for. So for all you fresh grads out there, mid-career, great managers, or even execs or people listening for whatever set of reasons: Do your homework.

Anyway, back to Aaron, who’ll now be celebrating four years at Lalamove this year, I wondered whether he had any new plans for his career, but he told me he’s not going anywhere – at least not for now.

Peter Bithos:
So just, you know, just to close out with a last couple of questions: Lalamove in general, you still love it?

Aaron Yesudian:
Oh, I’ve loved it from day one, right? I think Lalamove is kind of my home.

Peter Bithos:
Aw, that’s very nice. And what makes it… you mentioned the people earlier and the mission in terms of giving people opportunity to make income. So is there anything else that, like, makes you stay there and be such a good ambassador for Lalamove?

Aaron Yesudian:
I think it’s as you mentioned, Peter, the people and the culture that we have here, right? It’s constantly helping one another whether it’s in day-to-day tasks, whether it’s something else outside of work as well. It’s a cohesive unit here, right? Everyone looks out for one another, everyone is ever willing to help, they’re always learning together.

Peter Bithos:
That’s fantastic, yeah. So what are the plans? You still want to be a pilot one day, far-off in the future, you think?

Aaron Yesudian:
I think I’ll pass on that, actually, Peter.

Peter Bithos:
So what’s the future of Aaron’s tech career? What’s it look like? Like, if you fast forward five, 10 years, do you have an idea of what you’d like to do? Or what you see yourself doing?

Aaron Yesudian:
Actually, I do. I’ve actually told myself that, maybe in five years, I want to start my own business.

Peter Bithos:
Really?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah.

Peter Bithos:
A young and aspiring entrepreneur. What would you… do you have a concept you’re working up in your head or…?

Aaron Yesudian:
Actually, I want to do something that’s easily available in everybody’s homes, right? Something… because it’s always about selling, right? Whether it’s a product or a service. So something that’s available in everybody’s homes and in terms of… I’ll get recurring orders as well.

Peter Bithos:
Yeah, yeah, a good business model is important.

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah.

Peter Bithos:
So in between now and then… so let’s say you start a business five years from now, right? You come up with your great idea and you’re off and running. Are there additional skills or do you think about what skills you need prior to doing it?

Aaron Yesudian:
Yeah, actually, I’ve thought about it. And whatever decision that… I’ve told myself, whatever decision that I have to make, to achieve that goal in five years is to build towards that. Maybe now, in Lalamove, I already know how to operationally run a company, right? And see if the next decision I make is to go somewhere fresh again, completely new, right? Maybe before even raising capital or something, right?

Peter Bithos:
Fantastic.

Peter Bithos (VO):
You know, I get the fortunate opportunity to interact with so many people across industries, and it was so fascinating hearing Aaron’s story. He’s got a great career, and the best part is that he’s only just getting started. Who knows? We could someday hear about Aaron Yesudian, the entrepreneur, in a few years.

But until then, that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for listening. How to Get a Job at a Unicorn is a podcast by Tech in Asia, produced in partnership with us over here at JobStreet. If you’re looking for a job, find us at jobstreet.com and, hopefully, we’ll get you started at your own dream job real soon.

Special thanks, of course, to Aaron Yesudian for sharing his amazing story. If you wanna find him, we’ll include some links to his LinkedIn profile in the show notes down below.

Don’t forget to give us a follow and, if you’re feeling up to it, why not give us five stars on whatever app you’re listening on? Make sure to check out our other episodes too – we’ve got people from Grab and GoTo Group talking about how they landed their jobs and sharing tips for anyone who wants to join them.

That’s it for this episode. My name’s Peter Bithos. Thanks for joining, and I hope you join us again soon.