Meet the talent: Zuzana Hradilová
Learning, searching, and dedication.
Zuzana is originally from the Czech Republic and did her bachelor’s in psychology. At that time, she was struggling with continuing in the psychology field or switching to something more practical.
She then did her Erasmus in Finland and simply fell for the country, especially the education system. These short exchange studies showed her that the education in Finland focuses on practical knowledge and skills, not just theory without any connection to real life.
So she decided to take a master's program in Learning, Education, and Technology at the Uni of Oulu; which perfectly combined her psychology studies and her interest in the practical use of educational psychology, education, and technology.
During her studies in Oulu, she worked part-time as a social media manager and volunteered as a marketing lead in an entrepreneurship society in Oulu.
Coming to Finland changed her life and helped her to find a new path in life.
Shortly after graduation, the couple moved to Helsinki.
Unfortunately, she wasn't able to find a job in education or EdTech, so she turned to her second option - marketing. See, how there is no giving up here!
- She volunteered full-time in a new non-profit organization as their Head of Marketing. Without much experience or knowledge, she took the opportunity and learned as much as she could leveraging the massive amount of online courses and books out there.
- At the beginning of 2021, she was accepted in the Digital Marketing Program run by The Shortcut which was her first-ever "official" marketing training. After this, she landed a short-term gig as a Digital marketing and communications consultant in an American tech start-up.
- After that, she felt she needed more hands-on business operations experience and a holistic understanding of how businesses work internally. So, she found Mari and her LinkedIn post about the next iteration of the GH internship. She applied and she got in!
At the time of the internship, she had been looking for a full-time job for around 1,5 years. She had collected roughly 3 years of experience in digital marketing through learning by actually doing things and had a completely unrelated education.
She admits that even though some parts of the journey were extremely painful, upsetting, and full of sadness, she believes that it was a good experience for her and a chance to build resilience.
” I guess the pressure of it all helped my goals to crystallise and become clearer”.
She is amazed at how kind and giving some people are. She joined the internship without really knowing what to expect and immediately was taken by the dedication of Mari and Anni, and all her fellow interns to find a job, to help others learn, to improve, and to test.
She prizes Mari and Anni for their dedication to showing people that the program is an open space to learn, help each other, and there's no reason to be afraid to make a big life change and shift one's professional career.
Even after the internship, she felt the Herizon community and Mari still offered a helping hand when still looking for a job.
” I think It was one of the most heart-warming moments for me, to know that even though the internship was over, Mari was still dedicated to helping me”.
Professionally, the Herizon GH internship was the best learning experience she could have ever wished for.
When she eventually landed job interviews, companies were quite impressed with her experience and her capacity to achieve growth results in such a short time as 3 months, which became the deciding hire factor.
Today, she works as a Junior Content Marketing Specialist in a Helsinki-based tech company. She always enjoyed content marketing the most, so when the opportunity came to combine content marketing with her interest in technology – she just had to take it!
Zuzana is very happy where she is now, and we are sure she will continue in her path of personal and professional growth.
Zuzana Hradilová
Coupleness GH intern Sept-Nov/2021
SSH Junior Content Marketing Specialist Dec/2021 – On going
