I thought opening up the first office of Meltwater News in New Zealand would be a challenge, but right now I am faced with even a bigger challenge: how to start my very first blog post???
Introducing myself seems like a good idea…
So here goes: my name is Kathrin – called Kathi though by everybody – I am 27, and I started working for Meltwater in Berlin in February 2007, right after graduating with an International Business and Cultural Affairs degree from the lovely University of Passau in Germany.
After graduating I was open to doing a lot of things but I did have two “must have” criteria for my first job:
1. Responsibility soon - no wasting time with photocopying, entering data, writing reports, etc.
2. International experience ASAP
Since a lot of graduates with my degree would look for jobs in marketing or PR within big, well-known companies, I went to those websites as well, but found them rather disappointing.
I also felt like I wasn’t quite finished with learning, and I looked for hands-on training within a traineeship.. There wasn’t a lot out there, I can tell you that. So one day in January after spending hours on a dozen different career sites (why do I need 5 years of experience and have to work for almost nothing in order to be a Trainee??) I found the ad for Meltwater News. I liked the content a lot, it was young and different, challenging and it said international (check criteria 2) and quick promotions (check for criteria 1)…. And no, I had no idea what media monitoring was at the time. ☺
This changed quickly after I had my phone interview with Angela from the Berlin office and I remember how nice the chat was with her. I had a good feeling after hanging up the phone, but I wasn’t 100 % sure about Sales. Was this really something I wanted to do? When I was invited to Berlin for the interview session, I figured it doesn’t hurt to look…
But from the minute I walked into the interview room, I was hooked by the energy of the people across from me, the plans this company had, and also by the fact that this job would be something I thrived on: a challenge.
Sure enough the session itself was a challenge. It doesn’t happen every day that your individual interview is conducted by the CEO of the company, who asks you straight away if there’s enough maturity in you for doing this kind of business. Something that Jorn Lyseggen, the CEO, emphasized quite a lot was ”personal growth” through the IMT position. This was exactly what I was looking for.
Three days later, I finally got a call from Nora, the HR lady in Berlin – while standing in front of a café in Munich, in the windy, cold weather. During the last few days I had been getting more and more nervous, debating with myself whether I could really do sales and if the company would actually see my potential. When Nora finally said: “congratulations, we would like to give you an offer!” I jumped into this challenge with a very relieved: “Great, and I would so like to take it!”
It sure was, and still is a challenge, but I can say that my two criteria were definitely fulfilled – more about this in my next posts. For now, and to end this introduction, (wasn’t so hard actually after all) greetings from Sydney, soon to be writing to you from Auckland, New Zealand! ☺
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kathi, it feels great to read through your article ! thanks for sharing hope you have a good time in newzealand. i am kally,nice to meet you here!