Sent to the On Campus Woodshed

I was psyched. I had gotten the coveted first interview slot of the day with a large CPG company recruiting on campus. I would be able to meet with the recruiters before they were fatigued, and I would therefore have a better chance of making myself stand out. I went through my standard interview prep routine: read through the annual report, clicked through the website, talked to current employees, Googled recent news on the company, and practiced mock interviews with my classmates. I may be many things but unprepared is not one of them.

On the day of my interview, I put on a freshly pressed suit and arrived 15 minutes early. At the appointed time, my interviewer came out to get me. I tried to make small talk as we walked over to the room, but my comments were all met with staccato responses. That set the tone as the next 30 minutes wound up being some of the most uncomfortable minutes of my life.

I have never had a more antagonistic interview in my life (and I used to work as a trader so consider that). Throughout the interview, I was grilled on my experience (or lack thereof) and almost every single question had a negative slant. I wasn’t asked about my internship experience; I was asked why I hadn’t gotten an offer. I wasn’t asked why I was interested in marketing; I was asked why I had quit my job in finance. The real highlight was when my interviewer pressed me to come up with endless examples of times when I had managed stressful work situations. Seriously? She was asking an ex-trader about stress?

I recognize that every job comes with a certain amount of stress but how could marketing possibly be more acutely stressful than trading? The fundamental difference between marketing and trading is that marketing provides the opportunity to make mid-course corrections whereas mistakes in trading can’t be “fixed”; there are no takebacks. A trader must put the mistake behind her and continue to trade while a brand manager can adjust pricing strategy or tweak packaging based on consumer response. Is it easy to turn the ship as a marketer? Absolutely not. Is it possible? Yes.

I could not wait to get out of that room. Needless to say, I was not selected for final round interviews at company headquarters.

Key takeaway: Don’t let an experience with a single employee, be it positive or negative, define your relationship with the overall company.

Welcome to the Jungle

28 years old. Unemployed. Single. Living with my parents. Six figures in student loan debt. Let’s just say that this isn’t exactly how I envisioned life after business school.

Flashback to August 2007: I quit a good job (well ok, a job that paid well) and enrolled in one of the top MBA programs in the world. I was welcomed to campus with a free T-shirt courtesy of Lehman Brothers. The world was my oyster!

How the world has changed since I first enrolled in business school. At my June 2009 graduation, approximately 30% of my class was still looking for work, a record high. The career office’s helpful advice? Work for free. (I could see my Ivy League education paying off already.)

Recruiting today is an uphill battle. This is the story of my employment journey...