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Entries Tagged as 'Career Reflections'


 

Sales and Management at Meltwater: understanding the playing field

Posted March 18th, 2010 By Guest Blogger  | 7 Comments

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One of the most interesting aspects of working at Meltwater has been truly understanding the difference between sales vs. management. On our sales “playing field” here at Meltwater, we basically have three roles—Sales Consultant, Sales Manager, and Managing Director. I like to refer to these roles in sports terms: Player, Team Captain, and Coach. Our goal as a company is not to hire just sales coaches or salespeople—we hire future managers who first have to master the sales process.

In many aspects of life, you can pretty much spot the difference between a player and their coach. Sometimes, coaches were not good…

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My thoughts on MEST and explaining “the dis tin”

Posted March 9th, 2010 By Guest Blogger  | 8 Comments

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MEST's First Graduating Class

“The dis tin,” or “the this thing”, is a phrase frequently used in Ghana to describe something that either is difficult to describe, does not have a name, or a name that the speaker has just momentary forgotten. (Disclaimer: Please forgive me, all Ghanaians if I am translating this somewhat incorrectly.)

In 2008, I worked at Meltwater Entrepreurial School of Technology (MEST) as a Teaching Fellow – more on that later. This past January I was fortunate enough to go back to Ghana and attend the graduation of the first class of trainees.

So what is “the dis tin” that is…

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Your Academic Degree: Does it limit your opportunities in the job market?

Posted February 23rd, 2010 By Guest Blogger  | 2 Comments

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Meltwater employees are derived from a broad range of academic disciplines, including business administration, economics, cultural studies, journalism, law and even theology. In Germany this is very unusual, as it is common only to look for a job that relates to your education, just like it is standard for companies to only offer jobs to candidates with relevant educational backgrounds.

I studied Art History and after my master’s degree, I completed a PhD financed by a scholarship from the German Research Foundation. This educational focus reduced job opportunities rather than widened them. The only possible jobs I could find were within the…

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Can Failure be Success?

Posted February 16th, 2010 By Guest Blogger  | 9 Comments

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I’m going to do something incredibly original here, and open with a Winston Churchill quote. The late Nobel Laureate once said: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” This assertion resonates with the deepest part of my being, especially my business being. I’ve been working in the business world for the past seven years since I finished college, and I’ve had my fair share of successes and failures. Up until last year, I would say there was a little more weight on the side of success. However, over the last year, failure has…

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A Typical Day, Ping-Pong Included

Posted February 11th, 2010 By Jason  | 19 Comments

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In our recruitment and interview sessions for the Sales Consultant position, candidates often ask us to describe a “typical day” at work and I think that this is an important discussion to set reasonable expectations. Well heck, I’m a pretty typical guy. So here is my typical day as a Sales Manager selling Meltwater Buzz:

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7:35: My primary job is to manage a sales team and to pitch our social media monitoring software to companies and organizations in the U.S. The office typically starts its day at 8:00 am, but like any responsible manager (who also happens to be documenting his…

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