Land Your Dream Job Podcast with Inspired Careers– Smart Job Search Strategies, Motivation & Inspiration for Career Success

On today’s podcast I have another marketing gun. Our guest today, Cheryl Mack, is only in her mid- 20s and is currently the product manager of events at Freelancer. If you’re interested in knowing the secrets to how you rapidly advance your career, get into working for fun and funky start ups and land an international job then there is a lot in store for you in today’s podcast. From Uni days through working for numerous start ups and tech businesses, Cheryl has proven herself to be an extremely high performer and she has an incredible amount of wisdom to share on how she fast tracked her career and landed the awesome role she has today.
Kylie

My guest today, Cheryl Mack, is a passionate marketer and a shining example of what’s possible when you sit in the driver’s seat of your own career. In a relatively short career, she’s gone from promotions to working with some of the world’s most innovative start-ups crossing the globe and is now the Events Product Manager at Freelancer, working in a really dynamic position.
Cheryl

Just a brief intro to who I am and how I got here, I grew up in Canada and moved in Australia a year ago and I’m running StartCon, which is Australia’s largest StartUp Conference, under the Freelancer umbrella. So that’s what I’m doing and I’m loving it here in Sydney.
Kylie

For all our listeners, I had the opportunity to meet Cheryl one of those events and was incredibly impressed with her presentation skills. I’d love to understand about your journey, starting from early on.
Cheryl

I’ve always been entrepreneurial, I was the typical lemonade stand kid – always trying to make so money and do something with my spare time. There are 4 major points in my career where I have to make big decisions. The first one is important because I’m sure there are younger girls that are going through this and thinking ahead in their careers. I was lucky to have entrepreneurial parents that definitely shaped my life and who I am and they always encourage me to do the things I want.
Kylie

When you start with that limitless thinking, you’re off to a really good start. I’m not surprised that you had great influences early on.
Cheryl

If you don’t have parents like that, that doesn’t mean if you can’t have that outlook from the beginning – that doesn’t mean that you cannot adapt that thinking as well. So my first big decision and challenge was in high school – you’re looking at things like what do I do, so early on in your life. Do I go to a university, do I go to college, do I do an apprenticeship, or start working? In my case I chose university and there comes the question like where do I go? I made my decision and went to UBC. I worked my butt off to get the grades that I needed. One of my happiest moments was when I got into the program that I wanted at the school that I wanted. My next one is picking a major, I had to choose what path in I wanted to take. It’s very similar to the decision in high school but you’re kinda following that path that you’re mapping out for yourself at the same time still finding out who you are. So I think one of the biggest reasons why I kind of found my path in university was that I got involved – gaining experience in some way.
So I got involved pretty heavily. I immediately joined a committee – the people that run all the events in the business school. I found that the social aspect of one of the clubs that I joined was the one I cared about. I learned that I love talking to people, running events and I love making sure that everyone in our business school was happy and involved and they are loving their experience. So my third major career decision was what to do after school. The hot job when I graduated was being a Brand Manager so I went for an interview for all these Brand Manager positions. I got into the final interview and realized that this is not what I want.