#TheHustle: Melissa Kariuki - Associate Product Marketing Manager @Google

Like many of us, Melissa checked all the right boxes and, in her own words, expected that the right opportunities would find her because she was deserving. That didn’t happen. Melissa has had to be bold and aggressive - and that energy radiates throughout this episode. Melissa shares her professional advice and experiences on Instagram @melichi_bliss and on her website at melkari.org.

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Transcript

#TheHustle: Melissa Kariuki 

Associate Product Marketing Manager @Google

Halle Rubera (00:03):

Hi, and welcome to The Hustle. A Professional development podcast series in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars program. I am your host, Halle Rubera, an alumni of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars program at Wellesley College. And with this series, I will share the stories of accomplished African professionals from different backgrounds currently working in investment banking, management consulting, big tech and more. Each episode discusses the wide area of career opportunities and provides listeners with advice about working at top firms, such as Goldman Sachs, Facebook and Novartis.

Halle Rubera (00:39):

The title of this podcast, The Hustle, is an homage to my hometown of Nairobi, Kenya, which I love and where the spirit of the hustle, hard work and resilience shines bright. Today I have the pleasure of hosting Melissa Kariuki, who is an associate product marketing manager at Google in Johannesburg. Prior to her current role, she earned a bachelor's degree in business management and entrepreneurship at the African Leadership University in Mauritius. She graduated in 2019.

Halle Rubera (01:10):

Her past experience has been as a strategy and innovation consultant at H & M in Berlin, an associate consultant intern at Bain, and business intern at Google in Dublin. We're so honored to have you on the podcast today, Melissa. And before we dive into your work at Google, I'm curious to know whether growing up, you thought you'd be in marketing at this point in your life. What did you envision as your future career and how has that changed over time?

Melissa Kariuki  (01:38):

Great. Thank you for the introduction, Hollie. And hi everyone. Thank you for having me on this podcast. I'm excited to speak to you today. When I look back to what I wanted to be as a child, I think like every child, I went through different phases of wanting to be everything from a pilot, to an air hostess, to a vet. But I think the most sustained vision I had throughout my childhood was that of being an entrepreneur specifically in the space of fashion design. So I think that's a dream that I started maybe when I was below the age of 10 and it stayed with me actually all the way until I went to university. So no, I did not foresee that I would be working in marketing.

Halle Rubera (02:23):

Well, that does explain your role or your stint at H & M and also at the Connected Fashion Challenge in Berlin. How did you even get into that? How did you find out about the opportunity and what kind of pushed you to pursue it?

Melissa Kariuki  (02:38):

Yeah, sure. So initially when I was deciding what I wanted to study in university, I told my parents, you know what, I think I want to study fashion design. I was super into it. Every time someone asks me what gift I wanted for my birthday, I would say a sewing machine or some sort of sewing equipment. And it actually wasn't until my first year at African Leadership University, when I hosted a fashion show and designed the collection that I realized that. And You know what, I'm not sure if this is what I want to do as a full-time profession, but I never really fully let it go. And so, as I went through the years I worked at H & M in my final year, actually. And at that point I'd done a number of internships already. And it was like my final summer before I graduated.

Melissa Kariuki  (03:30):

And I just wanted to do something that was fun. I wanted to use this time to explore and to just do something different. And so I was just browsing the internet. I think at the beginning of the year, I came across this opportunity that said, "H & M is looking to design a wearable collection and they're looking for a variety of people with different experiences to help them do that." And I thought this is so cool. Okay, let me put myself forward. My sewing skills were not the best, I guess, in comparison to people who had studied fashion, but I kind of just pitched myself from the strategy perspective and that's how I got the opportunity.

Halle Rubera (04:14):

Oh, wow. So no referrals, just saw an online listing of a job opportunity or internship opportunity and you kind of sent your resume and that was that.

Melissa Kariuki  (04:24):

Yeah. So finally, I always get this question of like, how do I get different opportunities? And honestly, most of the time I find them online and I put myself forward. I don't usually get things through referrals. So with this one, I remember they asked for the video in the application and they also asked for a one pager that outlined some of our initial ideas about what the fashion collection could entail. So I think what differentiated me is that I really did put a lot of effort into my video and I did take the time to research what ideas they could explore. I think I put forward a strong application. And I think they accepted around one to 2% of applicants. So it was a long process, but...

Halle Rubera (05:15):

That's impressive.

Melissa Kariuki  (05:15):

We got through it.

Halle Rubera (05:17):

Yeah. I mentioned at the beginning that you've done so many different internships and you've touched a bit upon it by mentioning that you thought you wanted to be in fashion design and kind of be an entrepreneur. And that explains the strategy innovation consultant at H & M, but you also tried, dipped your feet into consulting at Bain business internship at Google. What was your thought process as you kind of pursued different internships over the years?

Melissa Kariuki  (05:45):

Sure. Yeah. So, I didn't have my whole career plan mapped out. I kind of just tried to figure out what I wanted for my next few steps to be. And so when I started at the African Leadership University, and they said, "Okay, at the end of this year, you're going to have to do an internship for three to four months." And I thought, "Okay, what type of internship should I do?" And so I went to our career development head and I said, "I don't know what type of internship I want to do, but I really want to be an entrepreneur, so any industry or internship that can help me with relevant skills, that would be great." And he said, "What about management consulting?" And to be honest, I really had no idea what it was. I hadn't heard of consulting before, but he put that forward. And actually what many people don't know is that at the same time, I pursued an internship at a fashion startup that was actually owned by a former McKinsey consultant in South Africa.

Melissa Kariuki  (06:51):

And so what ended up happening is that I got both offer. I got the offer to be one of the first few employees at this fashion startup. And I got the offer to intern at Bain in the South Africa office. And it was a difficult decision, but I guess after consulting a lot of people I just learned and it became clear that through consulting I could learn a wide variety of skills that would be widely applicable across industries. So I opted for a consulting.

Halle Rubera (07:25):

So why did you never go back?

Melissa Kariuki  (07:25):

So I did consulting in 2016. That internship was great at the end of it. So Bain generally takes interns in their third year. So either you're third to final year. But they made an exception and they took me in my first year. Instead of what they normally do at the end of the internship, which is give you an offer to come back when you're graduating soon, they said, they'd give me an offer to come back in my third or final year to intern once again. And then if I maintained, then I could get a full-time office. So I thought, okay, great.

Melissa Kariuki  (08:03):

So in between, at the time I thought, you know what I think consulting is great. This is probably where I'll end up, but I'll just use the time before I go back there to explore all sorts of other different opportunities. And of course they wouldn't have wanted me to do anything conflicting. So I didn't do any other consulting internships. That's why I went to Japan, I went to Google and I just did a whole bunch of different things. And then I actually returned to Bain in 2018, the year before I graduated to do another internship. And I think I got to a point where I felt conflicted between, do I want to go the consulting route or do I want to go the marketing route?

Melissa Kariuki  (08:48):

Because I also really enjoyed my internship at Google and felt like that might be a good fit for me. And so ultimately it was a difficult decision for me to make. But when I found out about the product marketing management role during my internship and I read more about it and I spoke to more people who had done it, just sounded like it was a really great fit between, I am saying the analytical side, because we do have to consider numbers and return on investment et cetera, but also incorporating a creative aspect. So, thinking about marketing campaigns, thinking about connecting to users and it just felt like a great overlap and a great fit for me. And so that's why ultimately I pursued this product marketing role and what's called the APM program at Google.

Halle Rubera (09:44):

A lot of us come into college feeling almost bound to one career path, but I think that the recurring theme with the different guests that I've had so far on the episode is, on the podcast is that exploring is also beneficial for ensuring that you're doing something that you know is worth it for you so.

Melissa Kariuki (10:07):

Yeah, sure. So I completely resonate with what you're saying and that exploring for me has been the way that I've been able to figure out what I want. And I always say that the first step is to figure out what you want right because it's hard to achieve something that you don't desire.

Melissa Kariuki (10:24):

You know, it's hard to go further than your vision is. And so for me, I've just tried to be intentional about my journey to challenge myself and to expose myself to things that I didn't know before. And just try to like broaden my view. As I said, when I had to decide on my first internship, I knew I didn't have the information to decide on that. And that's why I consulted someone who could give me input.

Melissa Kariuki (10:55):

And I think from there, I just always kept asking myself, "Okay, what can I do next that would challenge me, what can I do next that will excite me?" And I know that sometimes, especially as you're in university, and even as you get closer to finishing, they can be this pressure to know exactly what you want, to know which company you want to work for and just what your next five, 10, 50 years will look like.

Melissa Kariuki (11:20):

But I try to not put that pressure on myself and I just say to myself, "Figure out the next thing that you want." And if that next thing that you want, you pursue it and you get it and then you don't want it anymore, that's okay as well. But for me, it's like through that journey of setting a goal and achieving it. Setting a new goal, achieving it, altering the process. That's how I'm able to refine myself and get closer and live in a way that's true to me and exciting. And yeah.

Halle Rubera (11:56):

Now to, I guess what the guests really want to hear about is, what's your role as an associate product marketing manager at Google? What do you do?

Melissa Kariuki (12:04):

Okay. Yes. So, normally when people ask me what I do, I would say I work in product marketing. And I know many get a confused look, like what is product marketing? It's essentially just what it sounds like. It's like marketing, when you focus on a particular product. In my case, I focus on two Google products, which are a Google my business, which is, do you know when you search restaurants near me or something near me, and then you see like those restaurant names pop up those a Google, my business profiles. And they actually, don't just miraculously pop up there as I learnt.

Halle Rubera (12:43):

Interesting information.

Melissa Kariuki (12:47):

Yeah. You have to be quite intentional about getting businesses on there. And the other part of that I work on is Google Ads. So because I am based in South Africa and have a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, a lot of my focus is just on working with businesses that are offline and just getting them online and getting them to grow their online presence and be able to find new customers and ultimately be to grow their businesses.

Melissa Kariuki (13:15):

My day to day, it's honestly a whirlwind. I guess I joined Google at a very interesting time. As you know, three months into my job it was working from home. It was complete strategy shifts because you have to adapt to COVID, but I've really, I think thrived in the ambiguity and just the uncertainty of what we do.

Melissa Kariuki (13:39):

So I don't really have a typical day to day, but I would say if there's an underlying theme that encompasses my work. It's always just about helping small and medium sized businesses to grow and to flourish and to just grow online and get new customers. And so we try to do that in a variety of ways, we try to adapt to the environment and what's needed. So at this time it's businesses recovering from the negative effects of COVID.

Halle Rubera (14:10):

So why work at Google? Because I think I had mentioned this to you when a lot of us think about big tech like Google and I had another guest previously who works at Facebook, asked him the same question when we visualize big tech, we think of just programmers. So how did you even learn about non tech roles at Google?

Halle Rubera (14:33):

I know you've mentioned a little bit about your career services at ALU. [inaudible 00:14:38] they're the ones who kind of pointed you to those opportunities, but then you also did mention that you had taken time to speak to people about this kind of role. So I'm curious about how you found out about it, what pushed you to it and the importance of speaking to different people in the industries that you're interested in?

Melissa Kariuki (14:57):

Yeah, sure. Happy to share. So generally the way I go about things is that I think of a really large goal. And then only after that I try to figure out how to attain it. So sometime after my internship at Bain, one thing that made the long hours fun and just like the old consuming culture of consulting, what made it bearable was just that Bain has a great culture. And so I think I was very cognizant of the fact that culture is important and it can make your work and your day-to-day life fun. So I thought to myself, "You know what, I want to work at a company that has a great culture." And obviously I knew about Google, I'd watched the movie, The Internship. And then I just had this idea of like, "Oh my goodness, it would be great to do an internship at Google."

Melissa Kariuki (15:45):

And I remember saying this to my auntie and my cousin of like, "You know what, I really want to intern at Google." And they were kind of just like, "Okay." And my auntie mentioned it to my uncle. And then he said, "Oh, you know what, I know of someone who knows someone who used to work at Google, so maybe I could set up a phone call with between you and them." And I was like, "Okay, great." And I was so excited and I spent a lot, I spent all this time just like researching how to do a great cover letter, how to do a great resume. And I remember I designed this resume, and I wrote this cover letter and I used the Google colors in my name. And I was like, "Okay, cool."

Melissa Kariuki (16:27):

And I emailed it to the guy before I was scheduled a phone call. And we had the phone call and he told me about his experience at Google. And he just said, "Yeah, you do it cool, you should go for it." And that was like, okay, that's it. I was like, "What happens now? Are you going to send my resume to HR? Or where do we go from here?"

Melissa Kariuki (16:50):

But no, that wasn't the case. So I guess this was me learning that, I kind of just had to figure it out. So I went online and I looked up internships at Google and I saw they had this role called, The Business Intern. And I was like, "Well, here I am studying business." This is a business internship position, let me try. Right? So what was interesting is that the way my school term was currently scheduled, my internship period was in the fall.

Melissa Kariuki (17:22):

But the internship that I was targeting was in the summer. But I was like, "You know what? I'll find a way to make this work. Let me just apply." So I applied, I had to do aptitude tests, submit a resume and yeah. I honestly just went through the process. And then at some point they had an opening in the South Africa office and in the Dublin office and they asked me which one I would prefer. And I thought, why not go somewhere I've never gone. So I chose Dublin and that is how I got that internship. I just found it online and applied.

Halle Rubera (18:11):

Congrats in your proactivity. It's also visible in you taking some online classes in marketing prior to starting out I think. I'm curious what prompted you to take the online class? One, and two, how do you even figure out what's a good online class? Because there's lots of resources out there, but deciding what's useful and what's relevant is also a challenge.

Halle Rubera (18:35):

So I just wonder what was your thought process behind the specific course that you took or even just like taking online classes? Why did it matter that you had to go in with some sort of technical knowledge?

Melissa Kariuki (18:47):

Yeah, sure. So I think I've always had an interest in marketing and when I started my degree at ALU and they kind of shared the whole course syllabus for a whole degree, I noticed that there wasn't enough of a focus on marketing or any real focus on marketing. And so initially I was a bit frustrated and disappointed and then I decided I'm just going to supplement that with online learning. So I went to Coursera, which is my favorite and I looked for different marketing courses. And in terms of how I decided which ones, I would look a combination of who is teaching the class.

Melissa Kariuki (19:33):

And so, some of the classes that I took on marketing were by, also some books that I had known of and read of before, and that had been considered bestselling books with really powerful theories. So I do that, but I'd also just always make sure to take it at a credible institution. So most of the courses I've taken are at Walton or the University of Pennsylvania.

Melissa Kariuki (20:01):

I guess what I did at the time, I didn't want to ask my parents for money for these courses and I really couldn't afford them. So I used to just apply for Coursera scholarships. So at Coursera, if there's a course that you're doing and you want them to fund you, you can apply for that and if you just write them a great story about how this course is going to change your life, they will fund the course.

Melissa Kariuki (20:28):

So that's what I did. And it was just a great way for me to follow my curiosity. I didn't really put a lot of pressure on it. It was just something that I wanted to learn more about. And so I did.

Halle Rubera (20:39):

And did you find it useful?

Melissa Kariuki (20:41):

Yeah, I think it was useful. I wouldn't say that I got any particular internships or jobs because of doing that course. I'm not sure if it's something that ever really came up. I would say that what's been the most useful for me in terms of getting internships and even getting my first internship when I had no prior formal work experience. It's just outside projects that I've done, but the course was useful to me just in terms of helping me think, teaching me how to think about certain things.

Halle Rubera (21:11):

Yeah. That's so interesting. You mentioned your outside projects and I think my question is, when should students start to think about internships and how can they curate a good portfolio or a good profile before they apply for any roles or internships or jobs?

Melissa Kariuki (21:30):

Yeah. So, I mean, I'll start by saying that the first resume is always the hardest, right?

Halle Rubera (21:35):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melissa Kariuki (21:37):

I remember having to do a resume in my first year and being like, "I'm in my first year, I really do not know what you want me to say." I think that was my initial reaction. I know that's a lot of people's initial reaction of feeling like, "I don't have anything to put on here." But then I think from that, I just try to broaden it and what I do even until this day, in addition to including formal work experience, I also just include experience about projects, different projects that I've worked on or different initiatives that I have led.

Melissa Kariuki (22:20):

And sometimes even in my very first resume, I referenced kind of school projects that I've particularly performed by then. I think the key thing to do when you're trying to position yourself and sell yourself in your resume is, one, to make it clear what your unique contribution was.

Melissa Kariuki (22:44):

Great, the team might have achieved this, but what was it that you did that enabled the team to do that? And two, it's always really important to include numbers as far as possible that can illustrate your impact. So even if your experience is with being a barman, but you've worked on efficiency and increased the number of drinks that can be made in 30 minutes from 15 to 70, whatever it is. I think just try to incorporate numbers that show, "Okay. I did x, y, z and that resulted in this growth or in this change.

Halle Rubera (23:29):

Earlier on you had mentioned that you spoke to a couple of people when you were deciding between either going down the Bain route or taking the marketing route with Google. Who exactly did you speak to? Did you reach out to alumni from ALU? Did you reach out to... Did you cold call people at Bain and Google just to hear their experiences? Who did you reach out to for that insight?

Melissa Kariuki (23:53):

Okay, so I didn't cold call anyone. But, what I did was that I initially just focused on understanding the opportunities independently as opposed to focusing on the comparison. So, when I interned at Google, I interned in the sales team. So I didn't intern in the team that I'm currently in or anywhere near the role that I'm currently in.

Melissa Kariuki (24:18):

So while I was doing my internship, then I identified this role, I just made an effort to reach out to people all across the company who had this role and just ask them about the experience and ask them about what's great, what's not great, so that I can understand what this role entails irrespective of how it compares to potentially being a consultant at Bain.

Melissa Kariuki (24:43):

So that was different because now with my time at Bain, I'd interned there twice. So I had kind of a better idea, I had relationships with people that all have worked there for a few years. So I was able to just observe what working there might be like. But then in terms of who I spoke to, I spoke to a number of people. I spoke to my parents, I spoke to someone who had worked at Bain before. I spoke to people who had worked at Bain and Google before. And in terms of how I found these people, they were just mostly people in my network or people that I would meet. It's not something that I publicized or like spoke about very widely I guess. But It just feel like if there's someone that I could trust to get their input, then I would ask them.

Halle Rubera (25:36):

You also volunteered with organizations like, The Gates Foundation and the World Government Summit. And I'm curious to know, how does one get their foot in the door at such organizations? How would you volunteer for Gates, and why is it important to plug into different communities even through volunteering?

Melissa Kariuki (25:54):

Sure. Yeah. So I think for me, as much as I enjoyed my time in corporate, I always had curiosity just about the nonprofit sector. And so when I did my internship in Japan, that was actually with a nonprofit organization. And I just wanted to explore that space a bit more. So with the opportunity with the Gates Foundation, there was basically somebody who was looking for interns and reached out to the ALU community. And we were able to apply [inaudible 00:26:31] a small group of people to actually do the job.

Melissa Kariuki (26:36):

So I think with that, a lot of people were interested in the opportunity, but I think that's one of the things if you just always focus on growing yourself and challenging yourself, then you end up preparing yourself for opportunities that you don't know exist yet.

Melissa Kariuki (26:53):

When this opportunity came up, I was able to position myself really well for the role. And I was able to stand out because of previous internships and previous work that I had done. But it's not like I couldn't have started preparing for that role when I found out about it. Yeah. I was lucky that, that opportunity it was someone who really trusts the ALU network and wanted to recruit from there. And so I was lucky that, that opportunity found me and I was prepared when it happened.

Melissa Kariuki (27:28):

And similar with the World Government Summit, this was a summit that the founder of the African Leadership Group, Fred Swaniker was invited to. And he wanted to bring some students along with him as delegates to represent different SDGs. So how that worked was, again, it was like the applications were open to all students at the African Leadership University in Mauritius and in Rwanda. And then the World Government Summit team was selecting three students that they best felt could participate.

Melissa Kariuki (28:09):

One thing that I've been passionate about for a long time and done some project since work around, has been women empowerment, and promoting gender equality. And even with the fashion show that I did and that I ran for a number of years, the seam is always impacting women and trying to do that through the arts. So when this opportunity came along, obviously one of the UN SDGs is gender equality. I just positioned myself to represent that SDG. And yeah, that was what I was selected for.

Halle Rubera (28:46):

You've had that so many different experiences, whether in the nonprofit sector or in different aspects of the private sector. And so currently you run a paid professional development program with the aim of supporting young and upcoming professionals in their careers where you share what you've learned, and you had dealt it in the beginning a little bit when you talked about kind of how to curate a good resume. And can you tell us a bit more about it, where we can find more information. Feel free to share any information that you have on it.

Melissa Kariuki (29:21):

Sure. So mostly my Instagram page is dedicated to helping people navigate their careers and just sharing my journey, navigating my career and using my career to travel. So my Instagram handle @melichi_bliss, if you're looking for me. So I basically do a combination of things. I do have a blog where I answer a lot of frequently asked questions about how to create a resume, how to ace an interview, how to write a cover letter. My story, getting internship in Japan, getting internship at Bain, working at Google et cetera.

Melissa Kariuki (30:10):

But I think most of them that I really tried to stay just to engage with my Instagram community. And I frequently do like Q&A sessions and answer people's questions and share a job opportunities, share learning opportunities, internship opportunities et cetera. And I also give free resume feedback on my website. So anyone can go to my website, which is MelKari.org and submit their resume get free feedback, or ask a question that you need support with.

Melissa Kariuki (30:44):

But I do also have a resume template that you can buy. You can buy my personal resume template that comes with the video where I just walk you through how I go about crafting my resume. And I walk you through my resume and give you some tips for yours and share the template that I use, which is under $10. And then I also offer one-on-one coaching. So if there's maybe a specific job opportunity that you're targeting, and you want me to walk you through that process, or if you just like to target an internship or you don't know where to start those are all the things that I help people with.

Halle Rubera (31:23):

That's really good. Thank you for sharing that. I will also add that to the description of the... I will add the name of your website and your Instagram handle to the description of this podcast episode so everyone can find it. So thank you for sharing that. And final question is, what would you say you wish you had done better when you think about your professional career journey? And what do you think, what's one thing that you've done well, and you would pat yourself on the back for it?

Melissa Kariuki (31:52):

Okay. So I think the thing that I've done well has come from this thing that I didn't do well initially. And I think that's just, I think I started with kind of this naiveness to life that if I work really hard and if I just make sure that I am actually good at a certain skill or certain something, then opportunities will just fall into my lap and life will work out, life will work itself out and I'll do well and be successful and all of those great things. But I think I've learned the hard way that you have to always keep fighting for what you want. And it's never just handed to you no matter how deserving you are of it. You do have to be proactive and sometimes even aggressive in pursuing it.

Melissa Kariuki (32:47):

And I'll share a story about this. So during my time at ALU, one of the things that I did was I interned in the Career Development Department. And so as part of that departments one of the things that's done there is internship opportunities are sourced for students. And then the department tries to match students to certain opportunities, and sometimes filters students to decide who should go for an interview where et cetera, et cetera. And there is normally a set of criteria that you need to meet to be pitched for what we call Top Tier Internships. So they're the internships that Fortune 500 companies or international opportunities.

Melissa Kariuki (33:33):

After interning at the Career Development Department for a while, and even after, you have to make sure that your academic record is straight. Your financial record is good. You don't have a disciplinary track record et cetera. When I decided that I wanted to pursue this internship at Ashinaga in Japan. And I saw that our career development team had a pre-existing relationship with the organization, I thought, "Okay, perfect, I've met all the criteria. They should be willing to pitch me forward and put me forward for this opportunity." And I thought," You know, I've been great. I've been a good intern. I have a good internship track record. My academic record is fine." You know, I thought this should be fine. This should just all work out, just as I'd like it to. And then the career development team decided not to pitch me for that opportunity. Yes. And I remember I was truly shocked. I even had to go to inquire.

Melissa Kariuki (34:35):

I just didn't expect, I thought I'm deserving. Of course I should be put forward. And I remember that's when I learned that you know what, if there's something that I really want, I can't depend on other people to get it for me. I have to go out there and get it myself. So that time I went onto the Ashinaga websites and I saw that their internship openings had closed already. And I was like, "Oh no," Then I was like, "This is not going to stop me." So they had this contact section on their website, and the way they had like this open text box where you could write a note to them. Where people ask different help or whatever the case may be. So I used that section which had like a word count limit, but I just used that section and I wrote them this pitched about how I wanted to intern at the organization and why I was qualified to do so and why they should consider me, even though the internship applications are closed.

Halle Rubera (35:39):

Impressive.

Melissa Kariuki (35:41):

And I wasn't able to attach my resume because it was a contact text form, but I told them I'd send them my resume as soon as they emailed me back. And the funny thing is that they did email me back and they asked me for my resume. I think it was like about one month before the internship. I went through the interviews and I ended up being the only person selected from my university to intern at Ashinaga that year. And they didn't take any of the other people that were pitched. And that's how I got that opportunity. And so, I guess that was just me learning that I had to be proactive and I had to fight for what I wanted and me being deserving of it wasn't enough for me to get it.

Halle Rubera (36:29):

Melissa, I don't think there's a better way to summarize today's episode, better way than the story that you just gave. Thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you for being on this podcast. I really enjoyed interviewing you. I really enjoyed learning about your professional journey and I'm certain that this episode is definitely going to be useful for a couple of people out there who are thinking, "Should I make the first step? Should I push myself?" Yes, you should. Even if you get opportunities, if you're deserving and you don't put any effort, probably not. So thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us.

Melissa Kariuki (37:01):

Thank you so much, Hollie. And thank you so much for having me here and all the best everyone listening with their career journeys, and please do feel free to reach out to me if there's any way that I can help.

Halle Rubera (37:12):

Thank you.