Dreamt of trading your teaching career for something different? Meet Melissa Chapman, a middle school teacher turned international project manager, who skillfully made this bold transition. She'll walk us through her journey, sharing invaluable insights on how teaching skills can cleverly be repurposed into the project management world. Melissa's personal story promises to inspire those considering a career switch or those simply curious about project management.
Switching careers is no small feat, but Melissa stayed steadfast and attacked each hurdle with enthusiasm and a drive to succeed. From preparing for the PMP certification exam to handling the technical aspects of project management, she's got a wealth of knowledge to share.
Our conversation takes a broader turn as we delve into the escalating trend of teachers moving towards project management roles. Why is this happening and what opportunities does this hold? Melissa shares her take on this and introduces resources like free LinkedIn optimization courses for teachers contemplating this transition.
Favorite Tool(s):
Books Mentioned:
- John Connolly - The Unready Project Manager
- Jerimiah Hammon - The Project Management Pathway
Links:
PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills - Strategy/Business Acumen (Learn More)
Get your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource/
Dreamt of trading your teaching career for something different? Meet Melissa Chapman, a middle school teacher turned international project manager, who skillfully made this bold transition. She'll walk us through her journey, sharing invaluable insights on how teaching skills can cleverly be repurposed into the project management world. Melissa's personal story promises to inspire those considering a career switch or those simply curious about project management.
Switching careers is no small feat, but Melissa stayed steadfast and attacked each hurdle with enthusiasm and a drive to succeed. From preparing for the PMP certification exam to handling the technical aspects of project management, she's got a wealth of knowledge to share.
Our conversation takes a broader turn as we delve into the escalating trend of teachers moving towards project management roles. Why is this happening and what opportunities does this hold? Melissa shares her take on this and introduces resources like free LinkedIn optimization courses for teachers contemplating this transition.
Favorite Tool(s):
Books Mentioned:
- John Connolly - The Unready Project Manager
- Jerimiah Hammon - The Project Management Pathway
Links:
PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills - Strategy/Business Acumen (Learn More)
Get your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource/
It's interesting that people you interviewed, like Jeremiah and Logan and Scott Henson, are all people that I've like connected with also, you know, through the LinkedIn network and it's just been. It was really fun to see you interviewing all those people that I've been like connecting with outside of you know, just through LinkedIn. So Lots of good people.
Intro/Outro:Welcome to the PM mastery podcast. This podcast is all about helping master your project management skills by sharing tips, tricks, tools and training to get you to the next level Was sharing the stories of other project managers on the journey and project management, and now here's your host. What's falling?
Walt:Welcome everybody to the current edition of PM mastery, and today I have with me Melissa Chapman. Did I say that right?
Mellissa:You did.
Walt:Awesome. So Melissa is just outside of Portland and she is an international project manager. So, melissa, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Mellissa:Well, I am a mom of three girls. Before getting into project management, I was a middle school teacher. I taught Spanish and dual language, social studies and language arts For several years, and before that I actually did several other things. I worked in nonprofit, so I was a director for a country program in Guatemala. I worked and lived in Rwanda for a few months. I also Was a manager for an after school program. So I've done quite a few different things sort of in the nonprofit sector up until pretty recently.
Walt:Tell us a little bit about your more detail, about your actual day job.
Mellissa:My job now. So I work for a company called HCM unlocked and they've been around for about five years. They're based in Florida, but they do a human capital management, technology implementation, payroll processing, benefit administration, all kinds of things. So we'll work with a client and help either trans, help them start a new payroll system, for example, or and then manage those those kinds of things. So I'm specifically working in the international department and that part, the international section of this company has only been around for a year, so it's brand new. In fact, I'm the second person In the department, the first being my boss is the VP of the international side. So we're just starting the international department, which is exciting. So we're working with clients that maybe have employees in four or five different countries and so managing projects and these implementation processes with Singapore and the UK and Brazil all at the same time.
Walt:Wow, that's pretty cool.
Mellissa:Yeah.
Walt:International PM from a teacher.
Mellissa:Well, you know, and because I have the international background I think that's what kind of appealed to me about this position is I lived in Africa for a while, I lived in Latin America. I speak Spanish fluently, and so this idea of getting to connect kind of on an international level with something I was already comfortable with.
Walt:Well, in the one of the things we had talked about a little briefly earlier is the seems like this exploding popularity of people going from teachers to project management.
Mellissa:Yes, yes, that's. That's a big thing. You know, teaching is hard in a lot of different ways, for a lot of different reasons, and for me, you know I wasn't a traditional teacher that just started teaching as soon as I got out of college. I've had my teaching license for 15 years, but after college and grad school I did all these other things and then started teaching full time for five years ago.
Mellissa:Actually, my first year of teaching was COVID year, so that was a rough first year of full time teaching, but it I just found, as a mom of three kids, it felt pretty unsustainable for me to be able to do the things I wanted to do for my kids.
Mellissa:I would come home from work every night at five or six o'clock, exhausted, without much energy left to give to my own kids, and then I'm working on lesson plans and grading in the evenings and on the weekends, and one of the things that has been so interesting about transitioning out of the classroom in just the last two months, my daughters have said to me several times mom, you're just so less stressed, so they, they for sure, notice the change, and you know a lot of my colleagues in education, when I told, started telling people that I was leaving, they just said take us with you. How did you do that? Like I feel like I can't do anything besides teaching, and that's actually kind of a myth or a big exception, I guess, about a lot of teachers don't know what they can do outside of teaching and so, like LinkedIn, for example, has a huge community of transitioning teachers, and I started listening to podcasts about transitioning out of the classroom and that's where I started realizing how there are so many possibilities and, specifically, I was really attracted to the project management episodes that I listened to, where two former teachers would come on these podcasts and talk about what it was like to be a project manager, and I just kept thinking I feel like I have all those skills. I've done parts of that in the past. It just seems like such a natural transition. Teachers are project managers and we manage 10 month projects every school year, and so I started looking into all the different things I would need to do to upskill and certifications, and that led me here.
Walt:Good deal and I'm glad we ran into each other. Yeah, so we've been on the program or a project management group within LinkedIn. So we know a little bit about you, what you do, why. I know you shared a little bit, but what really draws you to do this?
Mellissa:I've been thinking about this question. So a lot of things that I really loved about teaching. I loved connecting with people, I loved encouraging people and helping people make sense of things, and I think that that's at least part of what project managers do right Is help make sense of things. You know the saying about making an organization out of chaos and those kinds of things, so that was kind of one of the things that I thought wow, I do that all the time and I actually really relish that. So that's one thing that I really like.
Mellissa:When I got on LinkedIn in January, teachers don't use LinkedIn, so it's one of the few industries, I feel like, where you don't need LinkedIn at all.
Mellissa:In fact, it's not used at all as far as applying for jobs and networking within education, and so that's also why you see a lot of teachers get on LinkedIn and they don't really know how to utilize it very well.
Mellissa:They use it more like a Facebook where they just don't quite know all the tips and tricks and kind of etiquette. And so that was one of the first things I had to learn was how to use LinkedIn, and when I got on LinkedIn in January, I'd had an account for years and maybe had like 200 connections, and so I just started kind of writing I've always enjoyed writing and sharing as I was going and I wrote a blog or not a blog post. I wrote a post, maybe in March, about how I had changed my resume format from kind of a typical format to really highlighting project management skills. And what I did was I took different pieces of all of the other jobs I've had, never having had the project manager title, but I kind of made a highlight section at the top of my resume and immediately started getting interviews. I had like five interviews in one week after I changed my resume to this format and so I posted on LinkedIn that I did this.
Mellissa:and that post went viral and had like 350,000 views and like overnight I just people just really wanted to know what I did. And it was a little overwhelming, to be honest, because I, up into that point I, you know, maybe had 50 people look at my posts. And so that's actually how I ended up connecting with Scott Hinson. He helped me kind of come up with like what can I do, how can I, where can I put my resume so that it's available to people? So go back to your question about why I do what I do. I mean, that's I kind of answered the project management side of it, but why I also.
Mellissa:I find myself on LinkedIn helping a lot of transitioning teachers. I get a lot of messages from teachers saying how do I get into project management? How did you do it? What did you do? And so I started just writing posts so I could just refer people to the posts instead of the same responses over and over again. And so I you know when I can I look at resumes.
Mellissa:I help, you know, share the tips and tricks I learned being on LinkedIn and then, as well as like the steps that I specifically took to get to project management and, to you know, pass my PMP. So all of those steps. I've been slowly documenting and sharing those because I I think the teacher in me still really enjoys getting to share and help people. And I get really excited when I hear from someone who I worked with a couple of months ago who sends me a DM and say and tell me I used your resume template and I got a job and I got an interview and all these things. So it's rewarding and I get to still give back a little bit there, since I don't have that outlet and teaching anymore.
Walt:So you're still teaching and you're still you're, you're doing lesson plans in a way.
Mellissa:I mean kind of I love the way I have my objectives and Yep.
Walt:That you got. You got smart and said I can't just keep responding, so you created posts and then you refer them to the post, which is great. It's like when you have a blog, you want to talk about something, you write an article about it, right, and then you go okay, you want to know about that, go here.
Mellissa:Yep. And so this last week I just finished what turned into a five part series on how I got my PMP. It was going to be one post and then, as I was writing, just realized so many questions I was getting turned into two. And then I turned into five different posts about the application process, how I was audited, what I studied and the resources I used, and then like everything. So, and now if someone asks me, what did you do, I can just refer to them to that series.
Walt:No, that's great. In fact, I think when you first started it was going to be a three part. It was.
Mellissa:And then I realized that I just they were already going to be too long. I probably could have expanded it even more, but I was kind of tired of writing all of the things. No, I like that.
Walt:I just started something. I'm going to do a series on something here about my project I'm working on at home, and it's nice because you can just kind of put it all out there and relive the project as you go through it.
Mellissa:I probably should have written the whole thing and then divided it up. What I did was I thought it would be one post and then it turned into I was like, okay, well, this is about three, and I had it outlined and then eventually I it turned into many more, yeah.
Walt:Yeah.
Mellissa:Well, so many teachers kept asking me can I see a specific example of how you use teaching to apply for the PMP? I decided to make an entire post where I just literally copied and pasted part of what my application was and exactly how I used a school year of teaching and how that was a project and how I outlined all of the different processes of a project. So I just made that post, so now when people ask me I can refer them to that.
Walt:What I recall is that you tried and tried and tried.
Mellissa:Well twice.
Walt:Well, the third time you got it right. Weren't you audited or you were denied twice? Well, I was audited twice.
Mellissa:But the second application. So what happened was I applied the first time. I probably rushed my application the first time feeling overconfident and, okay, I've done these things, this is going to be great. As soon as I pushed submit, I was audited. So I had to supply my transcript and proof that I took the Google Project Management Certificate course. So I had to prove that I had taken that. And then they want to verify all of the projects by getting a supervisor and all those things Supervisor and email. So I had to contact everyone that I had included in my projects. Hey, you're going to get an email from PMI. This is what's going on. They don't know why this random thing is coming to them. So I let them all know. They all completed what they had to and then, after they did that, I was told by PMI that I was rejected and they said that they didn't feel that my experience.
Mellissa:I hadn't explained clearly enough how I led the projects, so I was pretty discouraged. I remember driving to school that morning. Actually, I was driving to work and I got to work and I was just so discouraged I ended up writing subplans, which I never did. This I never took a sick day and I just wrote subplans and left and I just knew I needed a day to decompress.
Mellissa:I'd been working for months on applying for jobs and all these things and was pretty discouraged, took a day or two away to just regroup and then said, okay, I'm going to try this again and rewrote out all of my projects really clearly. I did some research and really defined each phase of the project in my application, resubmitted it and when I submit it again the first time, when they rejected me, they said you are allowed to apply. In fact we encourage you to reapply, but just know, if you reapply you will be audited again, like it's a guarantee. So I knew I was going to be audited the second time. So anyway, so I got audited again, turned in all the information again and then a few days later that was accepted.
Walt:Yeah, I think a lot of people would have given up, or at least temporarily given up, after the first audit.
Mellissa:You know, I thought about it. I definitely wrestled with some imposter syndrome like okay, here I am a teacher trying to get my PMP and is this, am I a little bit out of my league here? So I took a couple of days to really kind of process it and refocus and then I just I'm a pretty determined person and just got back on the saddle and decided to try again.
Walt:I got to be honest when I first started hearing about teachers transitioning to project management. I'm like well give me a break. And the more I talk to I'm like you know what actually that makes sense with what they have to deal with. And then it started to kind of become a joke. Well, they deal with children and we deal with children.
Mellissa:you know it could work and you know you end up doing late nights, doing plans and One of my very first posts on LinkedIn, back when I had 200 followers, I wrote a whole post about how project managers and teachers have such similar skills and it's everything from you know social, emotional intelligence that you need for both.
Mellissa:And the organization and your tracking things right, like a teacher is tracking the individual progress of well, I had 120 students because I taught middle school so you're tracking individual progress and you're creating things and you're monitoring You're I mean, you're doing so many steps. And what was really interesting to me, when I took the Google project management course, I just realized, oh, I've been doing all this. I just didn't know what verbage to use. I just didn't know how to use it in that language, and so that course helped me be able to just present what I did in the project management lens, which then I changed my resume to reflect that. And that's when I really started, I think, getting interviews, when people started realizing, ok, yeah, she sold this, this is project management.
Walt:There you go. One of the things is you've gotten here and we know we talked a little bit earlier before we started about now that you have your PMP and most people that get it don't want to do it again because it's a lot of work and I know myself I've. I missed it the first time by just a little bit, but it doesn't matter. I missed it, had to take it over and I waited too long. I did it under five and by then by the time I failed it. I hate to use that word, but I had to take it under six. So I had to learn the new and each version.
Walt:They make some tweaks and move some stuff around in some of the process groups and I ended up doing that. I took a boot camp to try to get the differences in the two and I killed it on the second go round. I'm like I had cue cards and I would listen to classwork on the way to work and stay up late and go through the books and watch little YouTube videos and Udemy stuff. I'm like I do not want to do that again.
Mellissa:It really was time consuming and consumed so much of my every waking moment. I felt like, especially as the as the test date got closer you know, I had 200 index cards, I was I was reading through the prep book and I was watching the YouTube videos and I was taking mock exams and I was practicing. I mean, I just felt like there was so much pressure because when I I got the job that I have, I had already been accepted. I'd already I was a PNP candidate, so my employer knew that I would be taking this, and so then I just put that pressure on myself as well, that like I really want to pass this. I want to pass it the first time so that you know they have confidence in me.
Mellissa:And so I just found myself, I actually got to a point where I I hit a wall a couple days before my test and I started doing worse on my mock exams and I realized I have to take a step back. Just like you know, training for a race, I'm training for a race that I'm running this weekend, couple days before, you have to take a pause, you actually have to taper. And that's what I had to do with my studying, because I was actually overthinking everything and starting to do worse, so happy.
Walt:And I've heard that from some instructors that have recommended, like, just take a day, get away from it and then the morning of like mine was in the morning is do your follow up, go through your cards, do anything that you struggled with during the tests so that you're fresh.
Mellissa:That's exactly what I did, and it worked for me.
Walt:So you've got it. Obviously, you need PDUs now, but how do you, how do you continue to learn about your job and your responsibilities?
Mellissa:Good question. Well, listening to podcasts like this Also. You know we mentioned the LinkedIn, the project management linked in Circle, and there are just so many great resources there and just wonderful people that I am so happy to be connected with and they have also just been so supportive throughout this whole process and so connecting there. You know a few of them have written books, so those types of things. Obviously, I'm a member of PMI.
Mellissa:I went to my first PMI event maybe a couple months ago and looking forward to doing more of that kind of networking and just, you know, staying up on those types of things. And you know, my company also encourages kind of continued learning and because now I'm in a company where there's HR, I'm going to be trying to figure out how to tie in that as well. So lots of different things articles, podcasts, really whatever I can get my hands on as a teacher. It's cliche but true. I'm a lifelong learner. I'm always pushing myself to learn something new and figure things out. If I don't know how to do something, I'll figure it out. So looking forward to sort of having that a little bit. It's not teachers have to maintain PDUs to keep up their license, so this isn't anything new for me as far as having to maintain something every three years.
Walt:It's just different subject now, and there's so many, so many things you can do to get your PDUs. You're earning PDUs right now.
Mellissa:I'm excited these will be my first official ones. I'll put that in my job.
Walt:Yeah, you get, was it eight, I think, for the job. That's what I've heard? Well, I've heard from your podcast that, so yeah, yeah, for those of you who haven't heard, there's a PDU, a PDU tracker available on the website that you can download and it tells you all the different things you can do to earn PDUs. All right challenges. What are some of the challenges? Obviously, this application process was a challenge, but what other? Challenges do you experience?
Mellissa:You know, some people say in some ways the application to the PMP was almost harder than the test itself. I mean not to discount the test, it was hard and I studied forever, but the application was nerve wracking in its own way. For now my biggest challenge has just been because I'm in an entirely new industry, going from education and nonprofit right to kind of corporate world, kind of a sales model. But then also on top of that, learning specifically, there's some pretty technical things with the HR technology that my company helps with, and so it's this thing where I'm learning. You know a little bit about a lot of things. You know a mile wide and an inch deep, and so I'm learning a little bit about what this person does and this person does.
Mellissa:I want to understand what everyone's role is on the team so that when I'm managing the project I understand oh, I need this many days to do this, and I can understand what they're talking about. And so it's learning just a little bit about everything. And I mean I'm two months, a little over two months, into my new role and I'm still. There's still days when I tell someone I still don't know what I don't know, you know, and so I'm still learning as I go and I my company does a really great thing where they do a buddy system. So for the first two months I actually had a weekly new hire buddy that I got to connect with every week and just ask questions Someone else who's kind of done project management and that kind of thing as well for the company. So still learning. You know, that's probably my biggest challenge right now is just the technical parts of the industry that I'm in because it's new.
Walt:I like the buddy thing. We do a similar thing at work. There's so much to learn our typical onboarding. We say you need at least six months and you don't really get it for almost a year because, there are we.
Walt:We work where we work for a client, we have our own internal processes. And then there's and there's no way that you can hit the ground running. Clients will say, well, just hire someone else so you can do that project. That's not how it works. We got to onboard them for months to get them up to speed.
Mellissa:And again, because sorry, no, so, because my position is a brand new position. This I'm actually the first specifically project manager for the company. A lot of people are like consultants or or, or or data specialists or different things. They all have their kind of niche. I'm the first person that is hired to be specifically just a project manager, so that's why I have to know a little bit about everything. But the onboarding, you know, it's very it's. It's assumed that it's going to take me a little bit of time Like you said, several months to really fully understand and get like fully up to speed. But I'm really excited about it. It's really exciting. I I go to bed on Sunday night super excited about working. I actually work East Coast time even though I live on the West Coast, so I'm up and on calls at 6am, but I love it. It's working really well for me. My kids are happy that I'm happy, so really happy about it.
Walt:Win, win, win.
Mellissa:Win, win, win.
Walt:All right. So tools now in your job. What are your? What are some of the favorite tools that you have or you utilize?
Mellissa:We specifically use a sauna and one note. Those two are, for sure, the two we use the most, and so I've been enjoying listening to you share your different tips and tricks about one note, and so many of your guests in the past have talked about one note and I'm I'm still new to it, and so I'm still figuring out all the ways that that connects with teams and outlook and everything. But so I keep. I'm like a sponge. I keep learning all the things about one note and all the things I don't know.
Walt:Well, every time I think I've got a decent handle on it, I find something or learn something new. Actually, someone was on just last week and they told me something about PowerPoint that I didn't know and we I had done a post on LinkedIn about the ums and the aas you know the filler words and she had said that she had this presentation she had to do in PowerPoint and there's actually a coaching module within there and you record yourself and it goes through and points out your ums and aas and I'm like, oh, I gotta try that out. I haven't tried it out yet, but that's pretty cool.
Mellissa:That's really cool.
Walt:So one note is super popular and I keep saying I'm going to get someone on here and we're going to walk through a lot of the cool things you can do. To me, I think when people first go in and see all the options, it's like any Microsoft app I'll never learn all this. You don't have to learn it all. You learn 20% of it and you'll be super productive.
Mellissa:Totally, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm waiting for that podcast, so let me know when it comes out. I know I keep talking about it.
Walt:I actually have someone in mind and she's been so incredibly busy I haven't. I haven't scheduled anything but I will. I'm going to see her this week. I'll try to push her a little bit, all right. So, favorite tools, challenges One of my favorites, or actually my favorite Did you know? What do you got for a? Did you know?
Mellissa:I kind of have two. Okay, did you know that? In 2022, so last year, there were over half a million transitioning teachers in the US, and since 2020, since the pandemic more than half a million teachers have quit teaching and have left education. On top of that, more than half of the teachers that are working today are seriously considering leaving the classroom, so it's a dire situation. There's some things with teaching and education that need to be fixed, and that's a whole different podcast and different topic. But what's exciting is that the teachers are starting to figure out that there are a lot of transferable skills. They just have to figure out how to market those. And what's encouraging is a lot of teachers don't know that they have those skills. They don't realize it because teachers just do what they do and they say well, this is just what I do every day. What they don't realize is those skills are really valuable in the corporate world or outside of the classroom. So project management is a great example of that.
Walt:Yeah, and I think the three that come to mind are yourself. Elizabeth I can't think of her last name at the moment. I'm actually interviewing her next week, grace, yes, yes. I didn't want to say it wrong, but that you are correct and Scott Scott Henson.
Walt:Yes, exactly so great resources and there were some other folks I know that Scott had introduced me to that were also helping teachers transition. So there are tons of resources out there. If you are thinking about transitioning from a teacher to a project management, know that there are lots of people you can connect with and learn from.
Mellissa:I point people to Scott all the time. Scott and Michael, they have all kinds of really great like free LinkedIn optimization courses and things. So anytime I get a new teacher who they have 40 LinkedIn connections, somehow they found me. I guess I'm in a few. There's a few different like transitioning teacher groups, like on Facebook where my name is apparently popped up. I'm not in the group, I don't know, but someone will contact me and say, hey, I saw your name in this group about project management and that you help teachers and I will often also point them to Scott because he has great resources, and Logan and these different people in LinkedIn who also Help people transition into project management. So I get to be the bridge that just points them on to the other resources.
Walt:And that's great, and the community is strong. Trying to think of something like the force, but there are so many great PMs that I've gotten connected to over the last I'd say probably the last year and a half that I did not have in my network before and it's amazing the talent that's out there, some energy, the talent and the energy and the just like resources and the encouragement.
Mellissa:I mean, like I said, when I went through that process of applying and being denied my PMP, I had several reach out to me say, hey, I'd love to look at your application and help you reapply. You know, like I just there's just so many great people out there that are super warm and helpful and encouraging. And, yeah, I'm pretty new to LinkedIn since January and it's just been so fun to connect with so many great people.
Walt:And I'm going to do what Scott does on an electronic basis. I'm going to do it on the podcast. So some of the people that I follow a lot are John Connolly, Logan Langen, Scott Henson, Kaylee McGuire, Melissa Chapman, Elizabeth Grace All of those are people that are wonderful. And you see them in each other's posts and commenting all the time.
Mellissa:And there's a little camaraderie. It's super fun and yeah, exactly, we often are commenting on each other's. You know hosts and that's why you know, yeah, it's just a. It's a really great little community that I didn't know existed and kind of am excited and feel privileged to be a part of, because they're Jeremiah.
Walt:I can't, I can't forget Jeremiah.
Mellissa:Yep Exactly.
Walt:Energy man.
Mellissa:Totally love it. Yes, great, great group of people. So, yeah, it's a it's a fun group to be a part of and I'm, I feel, kind of privileged to be oftentimes mentioned with that group, because I just see them on, I kind of have them on this pedestal of project management.
Walt:So pretty great and just a little plug. We have some of those great people are going to be in the PM nights and ladies at the roundtable which kicks off in August. We're going to talk about communication and so far I have Jeremiah John Connolly. Joseph Phillips, awesome legend in the PM world.
Mellissa:Yeah.
Walt:I'm hoping to get Kayla on that group and, oh my God, we have one of them. I can't think of his name at the moment. Oh, I feel terrible. I've interviewed him twice.
Mellissa:I was trying to think because I feel like I saw a list somewhere one time where you you mentioned a few of them.
Walt:Yes, and it's so bad I'm getting old because I just had a long conversation with this guy last night. We were talking about stuff and now I can't think of his name. Well, anyway, I hope everybody can join and I will share that in the show notes as well. Do you have, I guess, books? What about books, do you? I didn't hear you say anything on books. Do you read books?
Mellissa:I am a big reader. I mean, I'm a former teacher, after all.
Walt:Yeah.
Mellissa:I do love, I'd love. I do love to read. I mean, I have John Connolly's book. I have you know all these names that we just mentioned Jeremiah's new book I have that. Honestly, I put that one on the side because it's an interactive workbook. I got it right as I was studying for my and it's very thick. Pmp yes, and so I put it on the side and said once I pass. So you know it's been a week, so I can get that started.
Walt:Yeah, I wanted to. I told him I was going to go through and do one of the exercises first for some some project and I wanted to get him on and we'd go through the book. And I just I haven't gotten to that yet and I don't want to do it until I've gone through the book. So that's, that's, that's coming down the road. What about future plans?
Mellissa:You know, right now I'm just really happy to be where I'm at. I feel really lucky. I applied to over 100 jobs. I started applying for jobs in January, got this job in maybe March or April I guess it was started May 1st and so I think they say the average takes four to six months. I kind of got lucky. I was a little bit quicker on that.
Mellissa:I also worked extremely hard, spent a lot of hours. Every free moment I had I was applying and upscaling and the different things. So I'm just super happy. I'd actually been offered another job and was in a position where I was lucky to have the chance to get to decide between a couple of really great companies. And so I'm just super happy with where I'm at and love what I'm doing and just excited about the growth of the company and the international part of it and the vision that the company has and my boss has for kind of growing the international department and I get to kind of help grow that. So there's a lot of excitement for me in that. So I'm pretty happy.
Walt:And so that I don't remiss Clinton Brooks, Herman, that was the other name I wanted to say.
Mellissa:Okay, there you go. I'm glad you figured that.
Walt:Got that out there.
Mellissa:There you go yeah.
Walt:All right. Well, it has been a pleasure chatting with you and I hope one of the things I like to do when people either like starting a new job, which you did, I know it's been a little bit but two that I've interviewed in the past they were starting like the week after their interview here and do a one year follow up. So I'm going to put on the calendar. You'll get an invite from me for a one year follow up and see how things are going.
Mellissa:That's exciting. I'm excited about that.
Walt:All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening to the current edition of PM Mastery and we'll see you on the next episode.
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