Finding the perfect job can be tough. How are you supposed to know what you want when you haven’t experienced it yet? I have over 15 years of professional experience and have worked at more than 5 companies, but it’s only over the past 3 or 4 years that I have really discovered what makes a job the right fit for me. In other words, I found my sweet spot.

I joined Meltwater Group just four weeks ago as the new Executive Director of Communications, a role that previously didn’t exist. Still fresh! Getting here has been a long and interesting path. Originally hailing from California, I thought I wanted to be an Engineer. What was I thinking? Oh, I remember. I was good at math and science. That was the logic I used to determine my major, and what I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Oh, and I had another ingenious idea: I wanted to live on the space station. Brilliant! So off I went to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to study Aeronautical Engineering. After graduating, I wanted to make myself even more marketable. Expand my opportunities. So I moved myself to Tennessee, where I didn’t know a soul, and got a Masters in Chemical Engineering at the University of Tennessee (Go Vols!). So what about that sweet spot? It was nowhere to be found… not yet. I still had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew my future experiences would help me figure this out.

At this point in my life, I gave up my dream of living in space and took a job in Georgia with Kimberly-Clark as a product marketing manager. I discovered that I liked marketing and found product marketing to be a great match for my skill set. It required a creative thinker, but also someone who could understand the technical aspects of the product. Sweet! I’m an engineer and I’m creative. This is it! Right? Well, not quite yet. But I was getting closer. I could feel it.

I wanted more and I wanted to do more. I felt that I had a lot to offer, but I needed the credentials to get me there. How was I going to do that? Get my MBA. I spent five years working at Kimberly-Clark, three of which included going to Georgia State University in the evenings. With my degree in hand and five years of experience under my belt, I was ready to make another change. I was hearing a lot about Silicon Valley and the growing high tech market. Maybe I could ride this high tech train to the border between “sweet” and “spot”. It was possible right?

First stop, Denver, Colorado and Agilent Technologies. It was at Agilent that I discovered my passion for marketing communications. I was growing as a professional and had discovered a lot in ten years. I loved communications and I was good at it. Now I needed to find the right environment and culture to foster my growth. I got lucky and found a great opportunity at Ikanos Communications. My assignment? Build the marketing communications program and team from the ground up. I was in heaven. This was it. I loved the challenge so much that I did it again at Accuray. I had found my sweet spot.

I absolutely loved building teams and programs. I reveled in building the corporate communications plan, positioning a company for IPO, building, leading and mentoring organizations. I wanted to do it all over again, but finding a company that had the right opportunity and culture wasn’t easy. I’m an Engineer by training, so I am very methodical when it comes to making decisions. I’m structured. A planner. I don’t make decisions lightly. The search for my next opportunity took time. And then I found Meltwater, a SaaS startup. Risky, maybe? Controversial? Possibly. Opportunities? Endless. I dove in head first. Why? Because Meltwater is a blank canvas. I’ve been tasked, once again, with building the Communications program and team from the ground up. But that wasn’t the only thing that got me excited about this Norwegian company. I was also won over by the culture and the people. I met a variety of Meltwater employees, at all levels, during the interview process. And they all had one thing in common, drive. I’m sold.

So here I am, four weeks into my new job. What’s the moral of my story? Everyone’s sweet spot is out there. It just takes time and experiences to really understand what that means for you. I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re looking for when they search for their first job, but just know that it is out there somewhere. Keep looking, and seize opportunities to experience everything you can. More importantly, commit yourself to developing as a professional, learn everything you can and ask a lot of questions along the way.

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