Gemma White had two career choices in mind when she finished high school: flight hostess or real estate agent.
After realising the main appeal of the former was simply a love of travel, she decided upon the latter.
โMy interest initially stemmed from Mum and Dad,โ she says, explaining how they have done a lot of property renovation.
โAs a little kid, I would spend a lot of my weekends at properties they were renovating.
โI mostly remember going and feeding the ducks and buying lollies at the corner shop – but I was there a lot of the time, watching what they were doing.โ
Gemma obtained her real estate licence with the goal of building her own property portfolio, and one day owning her own agency.
She initially worked at a sales-only office, then fell into property management, where she remains.
Throughout her career, she has taken periods off to travel, but always returns to property management.
โIโm at the point now where I am re-evaluating my career, and, as of next year (2021), I want to go down the line of sales,โ she declares.
โItโs just been a very rewarding career, and thereโs just so many avenues it can go down as well.โ
During the early months of last year, Gemma took three months off work and disappeared, telling nobody at the office where she was going.
Of course, they know now that she was headed into The Bachelor mansion.
โI had spoken to my boss, and I couldnโt tell anyone where I was going, because we signed so many heavy contracts,โ she says.
Gemmaโs plan was to take the full three months off, and if she โdidnโt walk away with my fairytaleโ, she would travel for the remainder of the time.
โWe werenโt allowed to post on social media, we werenโt allowed to tell anyone where we were,โ she says.
Then COVID-19 hit.
โAs soon as I came out, Iโd had numerous missed calls from the girls at work, and our boss, and even Mum and Dad had received calls: โWhen is Gemma coming back, we know that COVID has hit, and wherever she is, we know sheโll be coming home and we want her backโ,โ Gemma explains.
โSo, as soon as I was back from The Bachelor mansion, I went straight into working from home.โ
Although most of her contact with clients post-The Bachelor has been remote, Gemma feels that giving out her mobile number for work has added an extra level of perceived intimacy, on top of the recognition from The Bachelor.
โPeople feel like they now know me a little bit better, having that direct communication rather than calling an office number, so Iโll get text messages from clients, โWe watched The Bachelor last night and, oh my gosh, youโre on itโ.โ
Thankfully, Gemma hasnโt seen any negative impacts from appearing on the show.
โWhen you go onto something like that, you question whether people are going to take you not-so-professionally in your job,โ she reasons.
โIโve worked so hard in my career, Iโve been in it for 10 years.
โYou work so hard towards something that you donโt want an edit or something so minor to impact your career.
โI think, because I have been in my portfolio for long enough, and because I know a lot of my clients, everyoneโs just been really supportive.
โI havenโt had it affect me at this point in time, in terms of my career.
โHopefully, it stays that way.โ
Look out for other agents in our agents x reality TV series and find out what they got out of it and how the experience changed them for better or worse.