Part 1
a. I searched the job site Indeed.com because for my degree, there are a lot of posted positions. I searched for positions in New York City, NY because this is where I want to work. There seem to be many good opportunities in the City for someone of my academic background. Once I work in New York, I can work anywhere! Also, New York has many options for public transportation and I would have many options as to where to live. I could live in Brooklyn, or on Long Island or even in Northern New Jersey.
My search for “Marketing Manager” on Indeed.com returned twenty jobs. Many of them required an MBA, which I do not have and I decided that I should try and find a starting position where my current education would allow me to be qualified.
b. After scanning the twenty positions, I selected a position titled “Regional Marketing Manager”. As soon as I clicked to apply for the position, I was immediately redirected to the company website.
c. The name of the company is Equinox. The company’s website states that they are a leading luxury fitness and lifestyle company ("Regional marketing manager," 2014). This position would be part of the Marketing department and the Marketing Manager would report to the Director of Field Marketing.
d. The educational requirements for the position are a BS/BA. The field of study was not specified in the position.
e. The technical requirements for this position as not stated specifically, but from the desired qualifications section, I can see that they need someone who would be comfortable working cost, revenue calculations in order to determine ROI, which they did not spell out. It is assumed that I will be knowledgeable enough to know that ROI stands for Return on Investment. The other not defined acronym was POV and the context was being able to understand trends in the industry. Again, it is assumed that I will know that POV stands for Point of View. Other skills required (although not especially technical) are active listening and data interpretation.
f. The applicant is required to apply for the position on the company website. As noted earlier, as soon as I clicked on ‘Apply”, I was redirected to the company website.
a. For the second position, I decided to Google “Marketing Manager, New York City”. Interestingly, Indeed.com and LinkedIn were the two most popular sites for this type of search. Since I had already used Indeed.com, I decided to try LinkedIn.
b. When I clicked on LinkedIn, there were more than twenty five hundred Marketing Manager positions! I chose a position titled “Marketing Manager” ("Marketing manager," 2014).
c. The name of the company is “Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP”. It is headquartered in New York City with another office in Long Island. It is an accounting and consulting firm.
d. This position requires that the candidate have a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business or Communications.
e. The technical requirements were very specifically listed and include: computer and online skills especially Microsoft Office Suite. Experience with Adobe Acrobat, and Photoshop was also requested. The position also requires knowledge of CRM systems and Marketing Automation. CRM was not a defined acronym. It is assumed that a qualified person would know that CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management.
f. LinkedIn is very specific in the way that they accept job applications. On this website, the applicant is required to either apply using their LinkedIn profile or create a LinkedIn profile in order to apply.
Networking is a good way to search for job openings. Networking entails reaching out to fellow students, Professors, introducing myself to the recruiters at the career center and asking for appointments with my parents’ colleagues. Not all jobs are advertised online, and networking provides a unique perspective as an insider to jobs that are being created, but not necessarily advertised.
Career planning is about having a plan. Searching online is a key component of that plan, but it can’t be the only action. A good career plan includes networking. My parents’ friends and work colleagues have been working for a long time, and even if they can’t tell me about open positions in their companies, they can advise me as to how to “break in” to certain types of companies. They offer a unique perspective that is worth knowing and understanding in order to have a well rounded career plan.
At this point in my career, I am not looking to relocate to another country. There would be language and culture issues and I would like to focus on being successful during my first years in a job. After I feel more confident in my career, I would certainly look into searching for positions in other countries as a means to accelerate my career advancement.
Part 2
My friend is a good person and wants me to be successful. I just have to find a way to contact Mary Smith!
The first thing I would do is find out as much as possible about the company, what business segments they catered to and their corporate culture. If it’s a public company, I have the advantage of being able to find the annual report online. Armed with the annual report, I can read through the sections about where they want to grow and why. If the company is not public, I will have to do more research in order to get the same answers as those typically found in the annual report.
After my research, I should know a lot about the company and know where they want to be in one, five and possibly ten years.
Now that I know much more about the company, I will customize my resume to reflect some of the key “buzz words” that were in the annual report. For example, if the CEO highlighted that they need to grow operations in Latin America, I will emphasize that I am fluent in Spanish and highlight any experiences that might be relevant from my University years. If I learned that the company was concerned about their failing brand and wanted to refresh it with a new look, logo or identity, I will discuss how my summer internship at the Business School allowed me to help them create a new brand to attract students and faculty. The point is, I’ve learned what the company finds to be important and strategic, and I will build my resume with key accomplishments that will make me a great fit.
Another subtle thing I need to do is learn as much as possible about the culture of the company. What is their mission statement? What are they doing to support Corporate Social Responsibility efforts? What are the company values? Based on this knowledge, I will present myself in my resume as consistent stakeholder: I will appear to be already entrenched in their culture without making it look obvious!
Next, I will use the internet to find out Mary Smith’s physical address. I don’t want to email her because I may go to her Spam box, or she may not recognize my name or the subject of my email, and like all busy people just delete the email without reading it.
Data.com is an excellent CRM and contains the names, titles, physical address, email address and phone number for many Professionals. I will use Data.com to find Mary’s address.
Now that I have all the pieces that I need, I will create an extra wide margin on the left side of my resume and leave room to put in a hand written note. The note will address Mary by her first name, the message will be succinct and it will be relevant. The message will be no more than 3 brief sentences and it will end with: “let’s talk!”. I will sign after these brief sentences with just my first name. When I address the envelope, I will address it to Ms. Mary Smith, her title and her physical address. I will also mark the envelope “CONFIDENTIAL”.
If I don’t hear back from Mary Smith, I will call her. A week is enough time to wait. When I call her, I need to be careful about getting past her “gatekeeper”, who is usually an assistant that guards a Manager’s time carefully. If I get Mary’s voice mail, I will not leave a message that she can simply delete. I will wait until either Mary answers directly, or her assistant picks up the phone. If I actually am lucky enough to get Mary on the phone, I will use the first thirty seconds of our conversation to make a positive first impression by presenting my value proposition. If the assistant answers, my number one goal should be to establish rapport with this individual and work the conversation into why it is important for me to speak with Mary.
There is no downside to using my friend’s information to present myself to the hiring Manager and when asked how I happened to know her name, I need to let her know that I did my due diligence and as a result, was able to learn a lot about the company and the important people in the company to contact. I never have to say that my friend told me about her.
I did a lot of research about the company and when I have the opportunity to speak with Mary, I will be armed with facts and figures. Additionally, because I updated my resume to reflect how I can fit in to their company, I will be able to use the very resume that she’s holding in her hand while we speak to point out key, relevant accomplishments.
References
Regional marketing manager. (2014). Retrieved from http://careers.equinox.com/us/united-states/marketing/jobid5168975-regional- marketing-manager?apstr=?mode=job&iis=Indeed&iisn=Indeed.com
Marketing manager. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10692746?trk=jobs_search_public_seo_page
Wolgamuth, L. (2009). 9 insider secrets to getting hired. Retrieved from http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/slideshows/9-insider-secrets-to-getting- hired
How to write a masterpiece of a resume. (2014). Retrieved from http://rockportinstitute.com/resumes/
