Meet our featured beauty with brains Shilpa Bhatia, a real estate professional based in Sydney, Australia. Here is her story.
“My name is Shilpa Bhatia. I came to Australia after I got married when I was 25, to start my new life in Sydney from Dubai. The only conditions I put in place when I received a marriage proposal was that I will not compromise on my clothes and want to work after marriage, which luckily was acceptable to my husband.
I never realised I was so career oriented or that I had so much willingness to grow, until I came here. Being from a middle class family, I have always adjusted to things like average job, average clothes, average home, and not having enough money to buy the stuff that I like.
I refused to have an average life in Sydney, I wanted to live life on my own terms, wanted to be able to buy all the things I wanted. I started applying for jobs two months after I arrived and got a job in customer service to gain local experience.
I continued my way through this, kept changing jobs to get the maximum exposure, worked with majority of the government departments and finally cracked a role in Compliance. Even after I got this job, I still wasn’t satisfied, I thought of giving my passion (Real Estate) a try. I started contacting all the real estate gurus in the market to get an idea if it’s a good idea to leave my current role (9-5 job) to start my passion. I was clearly advised by someone that it’s a male oriented industry, women wouldn’t be able to survive, to start a career in real estate from scratch is a lot of hard work etc.
Being challenged on my capability, I thought of it as a great opportunity to prove myself and started my role in Real Estate and sacrificed my 9-5 job in compliance which had taken me a good 5-6 years to get.
It was a hard way, you have to make contacts, build trust and there was lots of competition. But I did it. After a year of struggle, I can say I now get contacted by clients to sell their homes, and feel extremely proud when that happens.
Today (It has been 9 years since I came to Sydney) I’m a mum of two beautiful children, wife of an extremely cooperative husband and have a good life and career.
My story proves that we women can overcome the hardest of challenges, we are not scared of taking risks and majority of the times we just do it because we can.”
Here is an interview with her.
1. How hard was it to start your life and career from scratch in a new country?
It was quite difficult but if you have got the urge to prove yourself and have a “just do it” attitude, you will overcome the difficulties in some way or other. That’s how I overcame all difficulties which came my way.
2. Did you face any gender related roadblocks in your career? If so, how did you deal with them?
Even though Real Estate is a male dominated industry, if you’ve got the right knowledge and the skills, people would be keen to deal with you, regardless of your gender. Since I had the right knowledge and skills, I didn’t face any roadblocks.
3. What is your advice to women who are just starting out in a male dominated industry and want to be successful?
Embrace the opportunity. One of the great things about being a woman in a male-dominated industry is standing out. I did not enter the Real Estate industry because I wanted to challenge anyone, I felt I was good at it and passionate about properties. My advice to all the women out there is just go for it, If you’ve got the skill and the attitude, you will be successful, regardless.
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