Author: Andrew Gelfand
Manager of Marketing and Business Development
Unfortunately the following is a true story taken from my
own experience. And it’s a good case
study on doing almost all of the right things, except for landing the job.
It all started about three weeks ago, when I saw a job
posting on Craigslist for a Manager in Training. The ad was fairly extensive
and the company was looking for a variety of experiences and skill sets. One
was Marketing and Business Development, another was experience selling
internationally. There were a few other
“requirements” posted and the advertisement basically said hiring will last
until all needs have been met. And clearly there was a need for a clerical
support position in addition to the Manager in Training functions. And in the bottom of the post, it asked for a
cover letter and salary requirements or history
I was very excited about the whole thing and sent a resume with a very strong
cover letter. A few days go by and I get no response. Then I send a brief email
stating that normally at this part of the process I do not discuss salary
requirements but thought in this instance, it may make a difference. So I gave
a range with a spread of $20,000 between an acceptable minimum and maximum.
One of the interesting tidbits about the posting was that
it also listed the company name which allowed me to start doing research about
the company in terms of its size, annual revenues, products it made as well as
competition. It turns out the company
was involved in the making of a product which I would broadly classify as an
Office and or Business product which literally every company and industry has use
and or needs for. I discover the company is related to a second company and
between the two of them their annual revenues are $6 Million, and that they
have an incredibly large and well-known competitor with $1.7 Billion in annual
revenue selling product through Office Max, Staples, Office Depot etc.
So now I am in the interview and have prepared and
brought with me some examples of some previous marketing and public relations
experience (a printed article about a business I had been previously involved
in, as well as a newspaper picture of me standing before an Exhibit display
booth with the company name on the booth in the picture. I even discuss the
competition, showing I have done my homework. Everything is going extremely
well and I have been at the interview for about an hour and twenty minutes and
they ask if I can stay to meet the Owner of the business. He comes in to meet with me after about 10
minutes and asks me some questions about my background and experience. I can
get a sense that he is not impressed and has already made some type of
judgement about me. He tells me that they have taken a number of other actions
recently (moving into a new building and having it renovated, hiring an admin
assistant) etc. and that they are not going to be able to afford to hire
me. After I had already told them up
front what my salary expectations were and after they reached out to have me
come in for an interview.
What I learned from this experience was that sometimes
the hiring process has many players in the mix. And while sometimes, decision
making is done on a shared and or consensus basis, sometimes one person “the
head honcho” holds sway over the whole process. I also learned that
communication and delegation in that company were apparently more fantasy than
fact. And while I tried to overcome the objections by discussing the true
definition of “value”, and even suggesting a potential hook up with Crayola to
connect with their products, the owner was dismissive and unmoved. So
ultimately I wound up leaving the interview feeling I had done everything right
and having nothing to show for it. So a cautionary tale-it all has to go right
till the offer is in hand.
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