Not the obvious path ft. Alex Costa de Wit and Nina Gualdi

[00:00:00] Nina:  My CV, that was my business card. My introduction was my biggest limitation because if you miss that keyword that unlocks the recruiter to look at your CV, then you won't get the job, and you get the rejection letter automatically. So, for me, when Mews just shared with everyone, the AI recruiter, and I finally had the chance to explain what those three lines in my CV meant, I was extremely happy, even if it was with an AI recruiter. But I knew there was a human on the other side, just understanding a bit more about myself, wanting to learn who's the woman behind that application.

[00:00:38] Intro:  Welcome to Humans of Mews, part of the Future is Human podcast. I'm Ella McCann Tomlin, and this is where we surface the human stories that often go untold at work. The turning points, the unconventional past, the things that shape who we are beyond our job titles. These are the intimate conversations with people across Mews about their journeys told on their own terms.

[00:01:01] Ella:  Hi, and welcome to The Future is Human. So, my guests today are two people who graduated into arguably the worst job market for new entrants in over a decade, and both, hopefully, landed somewhere that they want to be. Alex Costa de Wit grew up in Barbados, studied business administration in Barcelona, and then graduated into a world where everyone around him was heading into finance or consulting, because I think that's what business school typically tells you to do. Nina Gualdi grew up in Italy, trained as a graphic designer, and then pivoted into communications and marketing and has spent the better part of the year freelancing in Barcelona, finishing a master's, and also watching the market get progressively more brutal. So, you both applied to Mews last August and started, I think, this March. And there were lots of rounds of interviews, an AI recruiter, a task that required you to build an agent, and so in this conversation, we're really gonna get into what it actually feels like to enter the workforce right now, when the tools shaping the future of work are also making it harder in some ways. And we'll also talk about what projection looks like to your sense of self, what your degree gives you when it doesn't always give you a job in the same industry, and what it means to land somewhere that you didn't necessarily expect to. So, Alex and Nina, I'm really glad to have you here. Thank you for joining me.

[00:02:19] Nina:  Thank you for having us.

[00:02:20] Alex:  Very happy to be here.

[00:02:21] Ella:  I want to just start with the experience of looking for a role. So, before Mews, before this program, what were both of your experiences of job hunting actually like? Because the headlines say it's brutal, but is that how it felt from the inside?

[00:02:37] Nina:  I 100% agree with the brutal words that we used on the title because I truly believe that job hunting is the perfect name for it. I truly think you have to prove yourself even beyond what's actually really needed to get the job done. I feel like now everyone has a degree. Everyone has additional things that make the CV look amazing. And academic doesn't really shape who you are. So, especially for entry level, it's really a challenge to find a company that has the ability to listen to you over your CV, over your academic, like, accomplishments, and actually understand who you are, excluding the actual few words that are on the CV. So, for sure, it's a brutal world to be in and to try to get into any kind of business, especially coming from our type of studies. 

[00:03:28] Ella:  And, Alex, how about you? You came from business school, which I think has a bit more of a defined path in what you're supposed to do after you graduate. What did it feel like to not do that? Because that's not the path you've taken by joining Mews. Was that a deliberate choice for you?

[00:03:42] Alex:  To be honest, yes. When you're, like, in business school, a lot of them, especially, I don't know if it's just in Europe, but in general, they are pushing you to look into, I think, one of two paths. It's either consulting or finance, like you kind of mentioned before. But what's, I think, also interesting about business school is that because I think things are so broad, you also are not only encouraged, but you start looking into a bunch of other industries that you might have never considered in the past. So, not only do you have these two very competitive trains that most people are following, so it's very competitive, the processes are very long, and there's a lot of people from different backgrounds going for them at the same time. But you're also looking at different job prospects in different industries that you might have never even heard of before, or you might have not even thought this is where they're actually recruiting or where I'm getting some sort of feedback or interest from. So, going back as well to what you said before, yes, to me, it really was brutal because it was also me coming out of university, really having no real clear what would I like to do with my life, or in terms of career, and I'm not very specialised in anything. So, yes, I can look at a lot, but how much am I really looking into? How broad should I be going? Or how specific should I be going? And really mitigating that, it was interesting. It was a very complex process for me as well.

[00:05:00] Ella:  I had a different experience of this when I first entered the job market. I won't say how long ago, but a while ago. And there was a different kind of, there wasn't AI, but there was a different, it was just post-financial crisis, and there were also some pressures around entry-level positions requiring a kind of experience that you, by definition, don't have when you're entry-level. And also the sense, to your point, Alex, that you kind of need to know what you wanna do, or you need to have quite specific experience in what you wanna do, even though you're at a stage in your career where you don't necessarily know what you wanna do and perhaps you want to experiment a little bit? How much does that resonate? And given that I remember feeling, at that point in my career, quite dejected by some of the rejections I got because I applied to so many jobs, partly because my sense of self in my career hadn't fully formed yet, and perhaps I wasn't as confident in my skill set yet. Does that resonate for either of you as well?

[00:05:56] Alex:  Well, at least for me, it really does. Coming out of uni, yes, you have a degree behind you. There should be some sort of trust in who you are, but you really haven't experienced much. You haven't gotten too many opportunities to demonstrate what you know, even if it's not a lot. So, I definitely have that feeling of, yes, I'm presenting myself to this job, this job, and this job, and all at the same time. I'm kind of managing that complexity, but also, like, what I also experienced was, I wanna say, a difficulty in what priorities am I putting first. Am I putting that I'd like to chase some sort of salary? Am I putting that I'd like to chase some sort of line of work? Or is it the development that they're promising me? Or is it the fact that I'll be promoted every year? There's so much to really realise, coming out with very little experience and very little knowledge of what's going on, that you have so much you have to decide for now. And that, I think, is one of the real complexities and the difficulties that I experience at least for myself. I don't know how you feel, Nina.

[00:06:59] Nina:  Yeah. For sure. Also, because I feel like when you are younger, of course, you don't understand. But being in the bubble of the academics, it's such a curated and safe bubble where you know where you're gonna be next year. You know what you have to do. You have your schedule. You have your tasks. And you know what your identity is because you're studying a specific thing. So, you see other classes with everyone being, you know, with different, like, passions. But then you get into the job market, and suddenly your degree is the same as, I don't know, many other millions of people. Especially for us, I think, being in the Barcelona environment, it's a highly international job market. So, of course, there are people from all over the world with all kinds of languages, all kinds of skills, and different types of degrees coming that it's very difficult to make yourself heard in big companies. It's always a challenge, but especially in this environment, it's probably a little bit more difficult.

[00:07:58] Ella:  Absolutely. And you both went through an AI recruiter as part of this experience. And what's interesting to me, partly, is that your experience of AI, I think, in the hiring process is probably different to some of your peers. You've mentioned before that some environments where AI is treated certainly with caution or kept at a distance, having been on the sort of receiving end of that, particularly in the hiring process, what do you make of that gap that you're experiencing between perhaps the Mews experience of interacting with AI and what you're hearing from some of the people around you?

[00:08:33] Nina:  Well, for me, which I know is a different experience from what Alex actually experienced, but for me, it was a very positive experience because I really think that my CV, that was my business card, you know, my introduction, was my biggest limitation. Because if you miss that keyword that unlocks recruiters to look at your CV, then you won't get the job, and you’ll get the rejection letter automatically. So, for me, when Mews just shared with everyone, the AI recruiter, and I finally had the chance to explain what those three lines in my CV meant, I was extremely happy, even if it was with an AI recruiter. But I knew there was a human on the other side, just understanding a bit more about myself, wanting to learn who's the woman behind, like, that application. So, I had a very positive experience, and I actually really liked it. But I know Alex actually had another point of view.

[00:09:27] Ella:  What's the counter to that, Alex?

[00:09:30] Alex:  I'd had looked at a lot of other jobs before, and I really did kind of appreciate that human element, at least when they put some sort of recruiter in front of you at first, and you really do have the chance to sell yourself. I do see where Nina's coming from, though, and it really was something not to, let's say, I looked at it as a negative. I more looked at it as like an interest point that if already this company being used has the first stage as an AI recruiter, what must it look like on the inside? So, rather than only focusing on, “Oh my gosh, it's an AI recruiter, and they're going to basically boil me down to binary numbers and ones and zeros, and what does that mean?” I really did actually choose to look at it as a, if this is what they have now, I wonder what the inside looks like. And now actually being inside, I'm very happy that I decided to continue with the process despite that, because I do think that Mews, as one of the companies that I've really had the opportunity to look at from the inside, I've had a couple of other experiences in the past, is the one that seems to be the most willing to approach that AI-first narrative. And being inside of that and learning and developing with everyone else at the same time is only gonna be positive in the road ahead for whatever may have shaped my career, our careers will take, and very happy to be here.

[00:10:41] Ella:  Yeah. And it probably should be said as well. That was kind of an experimental approach. We're not wholesale using AI recruiters across the board. You know? You probably caught us in a moment where we were trying that out. So, I suppose it also does speak to Mews's experimental nature, perhaps, that we try these things, give them a go, see how they're landing. To be honest, Nina, I was surprised that you said that you enjoyed it because I have my own scepticism. But I love what you said about the fact that it almost enabled you to bring more of your humanness, which isn't something that people typically think of when interacting with AI in that way or that interaction.

[00:11:15] Nina:  It's also matched perfectly, like, with Mews as a company. Like, Mews is a PMS. It just adds more and more technology to the product, but the whole goal is just to make humans being more humans and make the technology do what it does best. So, in the end, it was the perfect match. I just didn't know it yet, but it just matched perfectly, like, with the whole vision of the company.

[00:11:37] Ella:  And just to go back to something that we spoke about a few minutes ago, Nina had said something that I've been thinking about since we first spoke, that your first job really becomes the backbone of your whole career, and that kind of pressure on that first decision that kind of defines what trajectory you go onto. Alex spoke about the various kinds of things to decide on, whether it's salary, or culture, or progression. I guess, first to Nina, how much did that pressure weigh on you, and how did you ultimately come to the decision that you came to? What were the factors?

[00:12:10] Nina:  Of course, like, I have friends and peers in my life, and I see them trying to get away from whatever environment their first job was like and trying to move into something completely different just because maybe they realised that they wanted something else for their life. And I see them struggling to find, to get again into another environment, and I truly believe it's because, as I was saying, like, people in the job hunting, like, recruiters don't really value the academic background as much as these arts experiences are. So, really, like, having a first job that matches a little bit at least, like, the career and the path that you have in mind, for me, it was highly important. Like, for me, it was such a pressure choice to do. And I was also a big picky when I was deciding which job to apply for because I really wanted to make sure that the first job could pave the way for the road that I was imagining for myself. So, for me, it was actually highly important to just match whatever interests that I had and to ensure that I had my career ready to go. And in this case, I was always looking for a graduate program because I love the possibility to also develop horizontally, not only vertically in a company, but the unique opportunity to find out how other departments are, how they work, if I maybe fit perfectly in another department that I would have never imagined in my life. So, that was really a big point for me, for sure.

[00:13:35] Ella:  Yeah. The ability to go through different departments and kind of experiment a little bit, even within your choice. Alex, same question, but I suppose you have this business school gravitational pull towards certain types of roles. How much did it feel like a risk to join a company like Mews that isn't necessarily on that kind of list?

[00:13:54] Alex:  So, I think for me, obviously, they’re pushing you on these two trains that we mentioned before. I think, and for me, I was kind of trying to see if the consulting train would work to my benefit, and this is something I actually really wanted to do. But after a couple of really looking into it, I really decided to take a step back and think, what is the real reason that this industry is attracting me? And it was more of the it's solving different kinds of complex problems, and then keep pushing back, or you keep reflecting on that. And I realised that for me, I think one of the, if not the biggest factor in looking for a job was more the skills development that the job was promising me. So, rather, it wasn't in so much the what am I going to be doing, it's what am I gonna be learning from the process. And that's exactly when I landed on the Mews job description for the program. So much of it was on our learning and our development and what we were gonna be able to say we had done in two years, that it was just something I couldn't shake, or I really couldn't look away from. Yes. It was hospitality, and I don't come from hospitality. I don't have any prior or previous experience with hospitality, but the fact that I would not only be learning about one of the industries, which at the end of the day, I do know something about, but the learning and the capabilities that I'll be able to say I have built or will have learned or have practiced from this was the thing that I finally hopped off the other train, and I jumped on this one.

[00:15:20] Ella:  I've, career-wise, been on what I think people would call a squiggly career journey. My degree was in history. I then joined a tech company. I was in a commercial role. I'm now not in a commercial career path. So, you know, I can attest to the fact that even though this particular moment, I think, is a particular moment in the job market and in the graduate job market, particularly, landing somewhere like Mews, obviously, Mews wasn't my first role, does give you that opportunity to stretch your skill set, and you know, roles will open up tomorrow that didn't exist yesterday. And you'll be able to move horizontally and across department and and that kind of thing. I think, I don't know whether or not this is still a 100% the case, but it certainly has historically been the case. I think that tech, in particular, gives you that breadth of ability to move, especially in environments where you're growing at such a fast rate, right? Because the nature of the roles changes from month to month and week to week. But I think one of the things I was reading recently was that analytical thinking is now the most valued skill for employers, which, for both of you, feels like something you probably learned in your degrees, regardless of the fact that you did quite different degree subjects.

[00:16:35] Alex:  Exactly. Completely agree.

[00:16:37] Ella:  And neither of you came from hospitality, as you just mentioned, Alex, and it may not have been the answer that you gave people when you talked about what you wanted to do. You've talked a little bit about this, but I'd love to hear more about what specifically really drew you to Mews. And do you think you'd have found your way into this space, into the hospitality space, if not for the GenMews program specifically?

[00:17:01] Alex:  Well, at least to answer that last question first, would I have landed in hospitality without Mews? I'd probably say no. I think I was definitely looking at other tech companies at the same time that were offering something very similar. But, again, I think for me, the what I would be able to take away from this experience and also the priority that I think Mews is giving us in our development was really what spoke out to me the most. Yes. Then, when beginning that interview process and it was meeting different people after that AI recruiter, all of them were incredibly in sync with how much they were not boasting, but how much they were in belief of what Mews had to offer its employees. And it was something that was quite addictive. I mean, there were, like, what, seven different rounds. And in those different rounds of meeting different people, it seemed like all of them seemed to join in on and on about what Mews could do for someone so young, just coming out of university, and I really wanted it. And this is where I am now, so very happy. But I don't think I would have ended up in hospitality without it. I think it was definitely the way that Mews is trying to, I think, individualise itself within the industry and what it's trying to promise people definitely spoke out to me the most and really spoke for itself after.

[00:18:14] Nina:  Yeah. I 100% agree with Alex. I think we really had our door open thanks to this program. Because, actually, even tech companies like Mews, for example, it's really hard to get, like, an entry-level job. And I feel like, especially as Alex said, it's really about what the program gives to us, if it adds value to us, to our CV, to our experience, and how can we just get the best out of it. And I think that Mews literally was the best program that I saw out there, and I was like, I need to get it. So, I was like, all in during this long process. So, I really think that was a topic for sure. But also, it was actually a fear of mine. We spoke about it on our really first day at Mews with our director, Irene, and we spoke about our fears. And I actually said that I am not part of the hospitality industry. I've never had anything to do with it. And she kind of opened my eyes, saying, “Nina, you do have experience in hospitality just as a guest.” And I'm like, you're actually right. I think I've been to quite some hotel. I have my share of experience, but just from the ultimate client, which is the guest. So, it really opened my mind, and it also engaged this industry with a bit of a light heart that I could actually face it and be successful in it.

[00:19:31] Ella:  Yes. It's an interesting framing because I've worked in tech environments where you haven't got necessarily that end-user experience inherently. And, also, I feel hospitality is an area that most people have an opinion on, right? Like, most people know what they like, what they look for, what great looks like, what service they're after. You know, some people care more than others, but pretty much everyone has stayed in hotels and has an opinion on what a great experience looks like. So, you kind of always have the ability to come in with that lens. You talked a little bit about that as a fear. I'm interested in any of your other sort of nervousness joining Mews. I mean, obviously, it was a long process, so you had time to be really thoughtful about it. But is there anything that has surprised you? Are there any fears that you had that you've now, looking back, realised were not something to worry about? How has it landed, versus how you expected it to be?

[00:20:28] Alex:  I think for me, something they kept repeating in the interview process was that things at Mews change a lot, and they change quickly. So, not that this was, like, a fear because what? When I'm in the company, obviously, I'll be part of that change, and maybe that will work. But we did get accepted around October, and we were to start in March. And a small part of me was, like, if there's a change in these five months that is instrumentally changing the way the whole fundamental business is running, not only would I probably not know about it, but I'll be dropped in with some sort of expectation, and maybe it'll be completely different. So, at the back of my mind, before we started, this was something that I was thinking about every now and then. It'd be, like, would keep me up every now and then. And then when we ended up joining, we were told we would be starting in our chosen departments with maybe our chosen director in mind. And we both now have actually different directors because something did change in those five months, and then in March, we actually created something different. I think the other thing that I was more fearful about was exactly how much, let's say, AI proficiency every position and every person or what the business is really expecting of us, especially being so young. But I think we really did catch Mews at a perfect time, where I think the company is really focusing on making sure that everyone's proficiency is moving at the same pace and altogether. So, not only do I not feel left behind, but I don't think it really should have been something to think about before starting because I really do think that we have any kind of tool, any kind of learning we could possibly need in order to catch up, if that's even what we needed to do it at the time. So, any fears that I did have are all fine, all good now. But it was definitely those two things that, in my mind, kept me on my toes in my first couple of weeks.

[00:22:15] Nina:  Yep. I remember when I started, I would ask basically everyone that I met for an advice. And the advice for me was really the key to get everything started with an idea of what to expect. And I still remember the best advice that I ever had up to this day because, basically, I was warned that I'm never gonna know everything about Mews because things change so much and so fast that I'm never gonna keep up with everything. And for me, what's so strange because coming from the academic world, you're requested to know everything. So, I remember the first day I was trying to put everything in a Confluence page, put everything down, understanding how everything works. And I learned very fast that I truly don't know everything, and it's good. And I have to do my best and run through it. As for the AI, I actually jumped into the trend pretty quickly. I started building straight away. I'm now between the AI champions of my department. So, I really try to get in as fast as possible, you know, to the trend and to whatever was requested from the company. And, honestly, it's been one of the best tools that I could start using. I think it's gonna be the future of our company and all companies, so I'm really happy that I managed to jump in.

[00:23:26] Ella:  Yeah. Fantastic. And I know how you feel about even though I've joined in a completely different role to both of you, and I joined Mews just over two years ago. I had had an experience where I'd worked at a tech company for a really long time, for a decade, which is an insanely long time to work at a tech company. And I joined when there was the two cofounders and one other person, so I was kind of employee number two. And then I left. It was about 500 people when I left. And so as people had joined, I'd met them, and I'd sort of accumulated a knowledge of the landscape of that business really well, even as it had gotten quite big. Whereas I joined Mews, and I think we were over a thousand people for sure. And so I also, Nina, had that desire to know everything and to be able to see the landscape, and I sort of was used to knowing everyone and what they did and how long they'd been here and who I could speak to about this kind of thing. And, obviously, you do build up some of that organic knowledge over time, and you figure out who your allies are and all of that kind of stuff. But getting used to the sensation of, like, I'm not gonna know every facet has also been a journey for me in a different kind of way. So, yeah, I feel your pain on that one. One thing that I think is linked to that is the fact that Mews is a remote-first company, and that also makes it, I think, a little bit harder to know when you can't physically see everyone. Alex, you were quite candid in the call that we had before this on the fact that in a distribution company, you can miss some of the sort of peer-to-peer learning, and it's not as organic perhaps. How significant has that been for your experience of joining Mews?

[00:25:01] Alex:  I definitely think that if I maybe was to say, one of the things I probably might change might be this. When I think of, like, the work I'm doing and being in Mews, I think that learning from others and learning by doing together is still something that's very important. It's one of the ways that I think I learned the most, especially before, whether it was in other jobs or within classes or university. Learning from each other is important, and I have people in my team that are in Ireland. I have no idea what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. Can I ask, and can I organise meetings with them to get that information? Yes. But at the same time, I feel like sometimes I do miss that. I'm very happy to be in Barcelona because we do have an office here, which means that I can go and I can see what challenges, what goals, what objectives other people and other teams are having. And I do think that within my own department, I'm kind of okay, and I know a good sense of what's going on. But someone in R&D or someone in product development, I could lightly guess at the dark space that would be their day-to-day process. But something that Mews does do, which I'm very happy about, is they do organize offsites pretty regularly, it seems like. Maybe, like, for at least in my experience, I've only been here three months, and I've already been a part of one in Dallas with all of the customer experience and delivery department. And it was the first time that my entire team was in one room, at least for me. And seeing them for those two or three hours that we were doing in case altogether, I learned so much from the way that others were facing different problems, how they would approach problem solving altogether, and seeing which people actually knew a lot because they had been here for a very long time or were very proficient in other areas. So, I'm at least happy about the fact that this is not forgotten, and we do have some sort of peer-to-peer contact in person pretty regularly. But I do think that on a more day-to-day basis, this is something that I'm still kind of struggling with. And it really does have to come from me to chase those connections, which is fine, and that's kind of what we were warned about before joining. But it's not as easy as if we were all together in the same place. You, Ella, and the two of us have never all met in person, and we could be doing this in person, for example, and it might be a little different. So, recognising that is also something I think is fair.

[00:27:18] Ella:  Yeah. There are trade-offs, for sure. Nina, what's your experience been like in that remote-first environment?

[00:27:25] Nina:  For me, I truly believe that the first department really shaped how I see these, like, work day-to-day activities. Like, in my case, I have more calls than Alex, I know. I think, as nature, like, marketing has a lot of different apartments that work together at the same time. So, we have multiple calls to just catch up and understand how we are. And for me, it's just easier to just be on remote, just be here, connect whenever we need. And also everyone is very much fast on Slack and everything, so I don't feel like the need for peer-to-peer, but the remote work really makes me crave some human interaction and having the possibility to meet my teammates. Like, actually, now it's been three months. Tomorrow, I'm going to my first off-site. I'm finally gonna be meeting some of my marketing peers because there's no one in the virtual office from marketing. And finally, I'm gonna just meet some people in real life that I apparently know every day for the last three months, so that's exciting. As long as I'm comfortable and I like working remotely, it makes me value even more, like, meeting people in real life. And I love the Mews as, like, a must. We have to have interactions, like human interactions in real life. So, that's something that I value a lot.

[00:28:40] Ella:  Yeah. It's that conscious getting together around something rather than it just being a sort of organic. Although I totally take your point, Alex, that, you know, you can't physically tap someone on the shoulder. There is a trade-off there for sure in not being just next to people. And as you say, Nina, you can go into the bossloader office, but there's no one in your team there. So, these are some of the things that I think we grapple with in the environment that we have, but it also means that we can hire people in lots of different places, as you say. I think it's interesting to think about this from the perspective of you at this point in your career as well. You know? When I came into the job market, remote working wasn't a thing. Even though I worked at a tech company, so technically, it could have been. It just wasn't the norm, right? So, in those early years of my career, I was in the office with a lot of people who were my age, going out for drinks on a Thursday, you know, all of those kinds of things that bond you to your peers. And by the time COVID happened, I was ready to be at home, so it kind of worked out quite well for me. I was like, my twenties are over. It's fine. I just had my thirtieth birthday, and I was like, I can work from home. That's fine. So, I think this kind of, like, different moments in your career and life also kind of shape how you respond to that peer-to-peer learning and what you need from it. I know we don't have a huge amount of time left, but I'd love to ask you a final-ish question. You're right at the start of your career journeys in many ways, and certainly your Mews journey, and you've still got fresh eyes. I'd love to know, what do you really feel good about in this moment? Like, not necessarily advice or lessons learned yet, but what's working? What feels right? What are you looking forward to in the next steps of your career? I think that'd be a good sort of place to end.

[00:30:25] Alex:  What I feel really good about, to be honest, I'm very happy that we have this rotational program and the length of each rotation being eight months. I really do enjoy getting up every day and knowing that I'm going to be some sort of impact in eight months, and then I'm going to make a shift, and I'm going to go, I can go into a completely different department that might have nothing to do with the one I was just doing and develop skills in another that have nothing to do with the ones I've just developed. So, I think in two years' time, I think I'm going to be have the most, I think, rounded off experience from a first position that I don't think I know anyone else in my age group of my friends, of my peers, of whoever that probably has that kind of diversity from one experience and in such a short amount of time that I will have had. So, I'm very happy, and I'm very excited to also take advantage of this as much as possible. I think we also, again, Mews really is prioritising us and really is focusing on us. So, not only are we making an impact within our departments and within our teams, but we're also allowed, or we're encouraged to speak with people that are very high up. We're supposed to have conversations with the CEO. We're supposed to see different vice presidents and different presidents of different departments, and really engage and speak to them about what we can continue contributing to Mews. So, that for me is the most exciting thing. And the fact that three months have already kind of blown by, I can't believe it, but I'm very happy that I still have a year and, what is it, nine months to really just see as much as possible.

[00:31:56] Nina:  Yeah. I completely agree with Alex. 100%. So, to say something different, if I were to speak to the Nina of last year, in June, graduated. First of all, I would say, “Congratulations that you graduated. You finished your studies. Good job.” Because I don't think looking back, I appreciated it enough because I went straight into job hunting. So, really appreciate what you've done. And for the job hunting process, don't lower your standards too much for a company that's not willing to listen to you and understand who you are behind your CV. And be sure what you learned in your academics. Show whatever experience you've done and what you learned, but also be very open to just keep learning and just show curiosity, jump into things, and be proactive even during the process of applying. It really shows a difference between, like, other candidates that may just be in a comfort zone. So, just be curious. That's the best advice I could give.

[00:33:01] Ella:  Wonderful. And I have to end by saying that I'm quite sad that neither of you is doing a rotation with me because I have very much enjoyed all the conversations that we've had, and you sound like you're an asset to your department. So, thank you so much. It was really a pleasure to talk to you.

[00:33:19] Nina:  Thank you very much, Ella. Thank you for having us.

[00:33:21] Alex:  Thank you for having us.

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