Carissa Waldo

I am a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate in Genetics and Spanish with a Global Health Certificate. I participated in the Atlantis Fellowship which involved international shadowing of surgeons in the OR. I also have 1.5 years of experience as an EMT.

I was interested in applying my science and clinical background to a sales position where I could make a difference. I wanted to be in a career where the sky is the limit for success.

I found MSC while searching for jobs during the spring semester of my senior year of college.

I knew I had a very small chance at landing a job without MSC, and I also knew that without the program I would not feel as prepared to start a job in the field.

I had just graduated from college when I began the course at MSC which I think was very helpful. For people that had come from a job or without a science background, the course may have been more intense. I felt like the workload was very doable and I never felt overwhelmed. There was a good variety of material and activities that didn't leave the class feeling repetitive. I also enjoyed the range of instructors that we had. Each was able to provide a different perspective on the field.

While each student will be required to learn different products for their specific job, MSC gave me the foundation to know how to do this type of learning. As I go, I have found that it is the same process to learn any product and this has really helped me. MSC gives you a leg up on other people in the industry that lack training and it taught me how to do product presentations and about the procedures. This really helped me for my first cadaver lab as I better understood what was going on and allowed me to be an asset and assist the surgeon. As well as all the knowledge I obtained from the school, I built so many connections with instructors and students that are so valuable in the field. The instructors genuinely care and want all the students to succeed. I would like to give a big shout out to my Senior Director of Career Development. She was awesome and so helpful during my 12 weeks. She is still there to hear about what I'm doing now, and anyone that gets to work with her is lucky.

I didn't try prior to attending MSC.

The territory manager had reached out to me after seeing my profile on MSC's ZeroFee Recruiting site and we had a 45-minute conversation on a Wednesday. That following Friday, he called back and set up a WebEx call with another person in the company. This video call was about 45 minutes as well. The following Monday I had a third interview that involved product presentations on 5 different products and after that, I was given a list of 10 to learn. I had a fourth in-person interview that Tuesday and was offered the job.

It's been great. I was hired less than a week after the interview process was started and traveled to Florida the Sunday after I was hired for training. I have already started going into cases with my territory manager who treats me as his partner. This dynamic has really helped me feel confident in my position.

Do not expect to come out of class with a job where you are making six figures. You have to earn that income and standing in the industry. The money is not just yours for getting the job, you have to prove yourself and continue to prove yourself and your ability to sell every day.

The most valuable thing I learned from MSC was to never go into an interview unprepared. Research your interviewers, the company, and the products before any interview. Be ready to learn and be happy with being "coachable." Companies want someone that is ready to learn and knows that they do not know everything. In a field that is always evolving and new technology is being released, learning is endless. If you want a job where you can become complacent, go into another field. This job is a grind and you have to be ready to work.