Her Story
About Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn Bochard is the customer support representative lead at Vision Menu, a company specializing in F and I menu software for car dealerships. In this role, she leads a team of representatives who assist dealerships across the nation in using F9 Menu software to present products such as vehicle service contracts, gap coverage, and tire and wheel protection to customers. Bochard joined the company after discovering the opportunity on Indeed, bringing computer skills learned from her father, a computer programmer, and mechanical knowledge from her brother, even though her college studies were not in this field. She has built trust within the automotive industry as a woman, noting the challenges of gaining recognition in a male-dominated space. Bochard attributes her professional drive to a personal commitment to success in her career, family, and relationships, motivated by her nontraditional upbringing in which her mother passed away when she was young and her father was frequently absent due to work. She values fostering personal relationships through communication with friends and coworkers, as well as prioritizing her own time for mental and physical well-being. Among the advice she shares is to persist through starting positions and build from there, drawing from guidance received from a college professor, and to maintain confidence when entering the automotive industry despite potential skepticism.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kaitlyn
01What do you attribute your success to?
I set a personal goal for myself to become successful in my career and my family and my relationships because I don't want to just lay everyone at every everything else. I want myself to be at a higher level than others might accept. Seeing I didn't really have a formal traditional growing up, my mom passed away when I was little. My dad was always working, and when he wasn't working, he just wasn't around.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received is from one of my professors when I was in college. They stated that no matter what, just keep going. The position that you have is not what you want. Start somewhere. You can't expect getting out of college directly and getting a $100,000 job right off the bat. You start somewhere, and you build. The people you meet along the way will help you.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
For a woman entering the automotive industry, it's going to be a struggle. There are going to be people who might not necessarily think that you know what you do because you're a woman. It does happen. But having confidence in your ability to provide a good service for other people, but also not letting those performance and those actions of other people influence your work is gonna get you way farther.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
It's a competitive market. There are many other F&I menu software companies, there is many other agencies and providers, that are wanting to provide services for car dealerships. It's a tough market, however, we are my company, Vision Menu, what they are doing is they are creating new products, new ways to operate and provide a good service for dealerships. We're becoming more online, and that something that we are trying to utilize right now with AI and hardware, and trying to make it all streamlined online for our customers.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I value the personal relationships as in friendships, coworkers, putting effort into having that communication with people, I value that because it does help you mentally along the way. And then I also value my own time, in the sense of making time for myself, making sure that I'm taken care of both mentally and physically.
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