Now that I’m finally sitting on the other side of the recruiting table, I’ve picked up on a couple of things. For instance, employment requires a lot of paperwork. I’m talking mountains and mountains of paperwork. Tax forms, HR documents, benefit forms, employee profiles – the list goes on and on. And sometimes employment requires a drug test. Such was the case for me. Welcome to life in corporate America.
I have to admit that I was somewhat annoyed that I had to take a drug test at all. Not that the test would uncover any substances (besides trace amounts of wine and chocolate), but it was inconvenient and seemed just a touch Big Brother. However, the drug screen wasn’t bothersome enough for me to make a big deal about it, so I just swallowed my pride and resigned myself to peeing in a cup at the nearest lab.
I arranged to take my pre-employment drug screen shortly after I received my offer letter. I had my morning all planned out: 8am wakeup, 9am drug screen, and 10am yoga. Look at me being all healthy and productive!
I arrived at the lab and signed yet more paperwork to authorize the drug screen. The lab assistant patted down my pockets, locked up my purse, and then escorted me to the bathroom. I sat down and… nothing. I tried to think about flowing rivers and gentle ocean waves. Still nothing… and then at last something! Unfortunately, I’m an unpracticed hand at this whole “peeing in a cup” thing, so I generally missed. As it turns out, that was a HUGE executional error. I nervously walked out of the bathroom, desperately hoping that my cup runneth enough-eth even if it didn’t runneth over. No such luck: the lab assistant took one look at my cup and shook her head.
“Sweetie, that’s not enough. You have two options. One, you could stay here and retake the test. As long as you take it within three hours of when you checked in, it will count. You can’t go anywhere though. You have to stay here in the waiting area. You also have the option to not retake the screen; in that case, this attempt will be recorded as a refusal.”
This was a DISASTER. I had recruited for all of my second year and nearly a full year post-graduation; after that excruciating effort, I had finally landed an interesting job at a good company. And I was in danger of losing my offer because I couldn’t pee in a cup. I thought about all the boring and painful interviews that I thought were safely behind me; if I could not perform this basic bodily task, I could look forward to a future of yet more awkward and tiresome interviews. Absolutely not. I hadn’t come this far to get sent back to square one.
I consented to retake the test and then I did what any logical person would do: I immediately pounded five cups of water. Then I sat down and began to play the waiting game. After about 30 minutes, the lab assistant motioned to me to follow her back to the testing area. I had a bit of performance anxiety, though, so I requested to wait another 30 minutes. I felt that I had only one more shot, and I didn’t want to take any chances. She rolled her eyes, but agreed to let me wait another 30 minutes. I went back to reading, and the lab assistant went back to talking on the phone. In between paragraphs, I caught snippets of her conversation.
“Honey, it would be great if we could reschedule. Today is just jammed for me…”
“How’s your brother? He seemed really beat last week...”
“Nah, slow here right now. Just waiting on a shy guy...”
Hey, I wasn’t a shy guy! I was just a not-quite-adequately-hydrated guy.
After another 30 minutes, the lab assistant came to get me once more. I literally didn’t know if I had it in me, but I had no choice. It was now or never. Once again, the lab assistant patted down my clothing, locked up my purse, and escorted me to the bathroom. I would have found all the security precautions hilarious if I weren’t so worried about the very real possibility of not being able to provide an adequate urine sample. Seriously, anyone who believes me capable of tampering with a lab specimen has clearly never seen my chemistry grades. There is a reason why I bid chemistry an abrupt but joyous farewell halfway through my senior year in high school.
This was the moment. I tried to psych myself up and think positive thoughts. A Chicago team had actually managed to win a championship; surely, I could pee in a cup.
And you know what? I peed in a freaking cup. Give me a gold star. Grinning victoriously, I walked out of the bathroom and handed my cup to the lab assistant. I was clearly quite pleased with myself. However, the lab assistant didn’t seem sufficiently impressed by my achievement. I guess that’s what happens when you administer drug tests every day: you become too jaded to appreciate the human ability to pee on command, a skill that most of us mastered around the age of three.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Interview Hell Hall of Fame
Now that I’ve been off the interview circuit for nearly two full months, I thought it was time to look back and make my selections for the Interview Hell Hall of Fame.
The first nod goes to an advertising agency that I interviewed with in December of 2009. I arrived at the office about 15 minutes early for my 9AM interview, and got busy filling out the paperwork that the receptionist gave me. (Hooray – an employment application! That must mean that there’s actually a job!) A few minutes later, my HR contact came to get me. As we strolled from the elevator, she informed me that I was going to take a brief test – an assessment if you will. Nothing to worry about she assured me. This was the same test that they had undergraduate analysts take. She was sure that I would do quite well. (If you’re so sure, then why do I still have to take this stupid test?) She got me settled into the test room (an empty office), and explained the logistics. I would have three hours (what happened to brief?!) to take the three part test. The first section was an Excel test, the second was a very short marketing case question, and the third section was composed of a couple of brainteasers. I immediately realized that I had not consumed enough coffee to prepare me for the morning that I was going to have.
I quickly read through all three parts, and determined that the Excel section would require the lion’s share of my efforts. I had seen both of the brainteasers before in trading interviews (ha!) and I was going to be able to easily answer the shit out of the marketing case question thanks to my good friends, the 4 P’s and the 3 C’s.
Resigning myself to the unpleasant task at hand, I opened the Excel assessment to find an unformatted spreadsheet with sales data for a theoretical retailer. My job was to summarize the retailer’s business performance over the past year, noting high points and low points, as well as make recommendations for the upcoming holiday season. Please note that said performance summaries and recommendations were to be put into a short Power Point deck. And the company was still running Office 2003, not 2007 (aka the version that I am better versed in). Ugh.
I scrolled through the sales data, and sat in momentary panic for a moment. I briefly entertained the idea of walking out, but I soon thought better of it. I told myself to man up, and I began my analysis in earnest. I pivot tabled away, and soon a clear picture of the retailer’s performance began to emerge. I sketched out a short deck on paper, and then began to put together the actual deck in Power Point. Unfortunately, I soon found myself in the middle of a no-holds-barred brawl with the Chart Wizard. What was wrong with the charting functionality in 2003? Why wouldn’t it behave nicely like the 2007 version? One thing was for sure: I wanted to kick that machine.
After wringing my hands for a few moments, I realized that I didn’t have enough time to turn in a deck with both quality content and stylish formatting. I made the game time decision to focus on content. Thus decided on the “basic” approach, I quickly pounded out a deck and turned my attention to the next section.
The marketing case was really a very simple product launch question. It was clearly no match for an MBA who had mastered the 4 P’s and 3 C’s. I got to work and in no time, I had concisely answered the question and made it my bitch.
Last section. First brainteaser: how many cats are there in the United States? The actual number isn’t what’s important; what they want to see is the logic I use to come to a solution. There are approximately 115 million households in the United States. I decided to assume that a certain percentage of households had cats, and out of that percentage, some had a single cat while others had multiple cats. In addition, I had to account for strays; I did so by assuming that the stray cat population actually outnumbered the adopted cat population. In layman's terms, I multiplied the adopted cat population by two to reach my final answer. (If I wanted to get cute, I could have noted the correlation between the number of single women and cats, but I decided not to go that route.) My assumptions were laid out so I just did a couple of quick calculations and presto, I had the cat population. Suffice it to say, some of my assumptions were off, but I thought my approach was valid. (Approximately 32% of households own cat(s)? Dang, I thought the number would be a lot lower.)
Second brainteaser: You have a balance scale and nine balls. All of the balls are identical, but one of the balls is heavier than the others. What is the minimum number of times that you would have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?
Thank you trading. You are about to save me a lot of time and brainpower. Two. Final answer. (Place 3 balls on each side of the scale and put 3 aside. If the scale balances, you know that the heavier ball is in the set sitting off to the side. If the scale doesn’t balance, you know that the heavier ball is in the set that is heavier on the scale. One you’ve narrowed it down to 3 balls, then place one on each side of the scale, and put one aside. The logic is the same as above.)
Incredibly happy to be done, I turned my test in. I had more interviews in the afternoon, but first it was lunch time. Unfortunately for me, it was a working lunch. To be clear, every time that you interact with someone from the company during the application process, it is an interview; that being said, was it really that crazy of me to assume that I’d actually get to eat during lunch? An analyst took me out for lunch at a nearby restaurant, but she couldn’t stop asking questions. She did not relent for the entire time that we were out, so I wound up trying to cram food into my mouth during the 5 second pause between questions. I was in famished super bitch mode at this point so I really did not appreciate the speed eating game. And I forgot to mention: I was the only one attempting to eat at lunch. We were running short on time (meaning 45 minutes instead of a full hour for lunch) so the analyst ordered her food to go after I ordered my food. Awesome. Thanks for making me eat by myself.
More or less sufficiently nourished, I returned to the office. I made the rounds and met with four different managers. I told them all about times when I had exhibited leadership and handled conflict on a team. At the end of my day, I debriefed with the HR manager who assured me that they would make a decision soon, but probably not until after the holidays. Fair enough. What was the outcome you ask? I heard nothing from this company for a full month, and then in mid-January, they had me come in for another round of interviews. After round two, I heard nothing. I called and emailed the recruiter but received no response. Finally at the end of February, I got a call from the recruiter thanking me for my time but telling me that they had decided the hire an undergrad instead. Cheaper labor, you know.
More Hall of Fame selections to come...
The first nod goes to an advertising agency that I interviewed with in December of 2009. I arrived at the office about 15 minutes early for my 9AM interview, and got busy filling out the paperwork that the receptionist gave me. (Hooray – an employment application! That must mean that there’s actually a job!) A few minutes later, my HR contact came to get me. As we strolled from the elevator, she informed me that I was going to take a brief test – an assessment if you will. Nothing to worry about she assured me. This was the same test that they had undergraduate analysts take. She was sure that I would do quite well. (If you’re so sure, then why do I still have to take this stupid test?) She got me settled into the test room (an empty office), and explained the logistics. I would have three hours (what happened to brief?!) to take the three part test. The first section was an Excel test, the second was a very short marketing case question, and the third section was composed of a couple of brainteasers. I immediately realized that I had not consumed enough coffee to prepare me for the morning that I was going to have.
I quickly read through all three parts, and determined that the Excel section would require the lion’s share of my efforts. I had seen both of the brainteasers before in trading interviews (ha!) and I was going to be able to easily answer the shit out of the marketing case question thanks to my good friends, the 4 P’s and the 3 C’s.
Resigning myself to the unpleasant task at hand, I opened the Excel assessment to find an unformatted spreadsheet with sales data for a theoretical retailer. My job was to summarize the retailer’s business performance over the past year, noting high points and low points, as well as make recommendations for the upcoming holiday season. Please note that said performance summaries and recommendations were to be put into a short Power Point deck. And the company was still running Office 2003, not 2007 (aka the version that I am better versed in). Ugh.
I scrolled through the sales data, and sat in momentary panic for a moment. I briefly entertained the idea of walking out, but I soon thought better of it. I told myself to man up, and I began my analysis in earnest. I pivot tabled away, and soon a clear picture of the retailer’s performance began to emerge. I sketched out a short deck on paper, and then began to put together the actual deck in Power Point. Unfortunately, I soon found myself in the middle of a no-holds-barred brawl with the Chart Wizard. What was wrong with the charting functionality in 2003? Why wouldn’t it behave nicely like the 2007 version? One thing was for sure: I wanted to kick that machine.
After wringing my hands for a few moments, I realized that I didn’t have enough time to turn in a deck with both quality content and stylish formatting. I made the game time decision to focus on content. Thus decided on the “basic” approach, I quickly pounded out a deck and turned my attention to the next section.
The marketing case was really a very simple product launch question. It was clearly no match for an MBA who had mastered the 4 P’s and 3 C’s. I got to work and in no time, I had concisely answered the question and made it my bitch.
Last section. First brainteaser: how many cats are there in the United States? The actual number isn’t what’s important; what they want to see is the logic I use to come to a solution. There are approximately 115 million households in the United States. I decided to assume that a certain percentage of households had cats, and out of that percentage, some had a single cat while others had multiple cats. In addition, I had to account for strays; I did so by assuming that the stray cat population actually outnumbered the adopted cat population. In layman's terms, I multiplied the adopted cat population by two to reach my final answer. (If I wanted to get cute, I could have noted the correlation between the number of single women and cats, but I decided not to go that route.) My assumptions were laid out so I just did a couple of quick calculations and presto, I had the cat population. Suffice it to say, some of my assumptions were off, but I thought my approach was valid. (Approximately 32% of households own cat(s)? Dang, I thought the number would be a lot lower.)
Second brainteaser: You have a balance scale and nine balls. All of the balls are identical, but one of the balls is heavier than the others. What is the minimum number of times that you would have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?
Thank you trading. You are about to save me a lot of time and brainpower. Two. Final answer. (Place 3 balls on each side of the scale and put 3 aside. If the scale balances, you know that the heavier ball is in the set sitting off to the side. If the scale doesn’t balance, you know that the heavier ball is in the set that is heavier on the scale. One you’ve narrowed it down to 3 balls, then place one on each side of the scale, and put one aside. The logic is the same as above.)
Incredibly happy to be done, I turned my test in. I had more interviews in the afternoon, but first it was lunch time. Unfortunately for me, it was a working lunch. To be clear, every time that you interact with someone from the company during the application process, it is an interview; that being said, was it really that crazy of me to assume that I’d actually get to eat during lunch? An analyst took me out for lunch at a nearby restaurant, but she couldn’t stop asking questions. She did not relent for the entire time that we were out, so I wound up trying to cram food into my mouth during the 5 second pause between questions. I was in famished super bitch mode at this point so I really did not appreciate the speed eating game. And I forgot to mention: I was the only one attempting to eat at lunch. We were running short on time (meaning 45 minutes instead of a full hour for lunch) so the analyst ordered her food to go after I ordered my food. Awesome. Thanks for making me eat by myself.
More or less sufficiently nourished, I returned to the office. I made the rounds and met with four different managers. I told them all about times when I had exhibited leadership and handled conflict on a team. At the end of my day, I debriefed with the HR manager who assured me that they would make a decision soon, but probably not until after the holidays. Fair enough. What was the outcome you ask? I heard nothing from this company for a full month, and then in mid-January, they had me come in for another round of interviews. After round two, I heard nothing. I called and emailed the recruiter but received no response. Finally at the end of February, I got a call from the recruiter thanking me for my time but telling me that they had decided the hire an undergrad instead. Cheaper labor, you know.
More Hall of Fame selections to come...
Saturday, July 17, 2010
I Challenge... Myself
I learned all sorts of charming phrases such as BYL (verb: to blow your load) and woodshed (verb: to discipline someone) when I worked on the trading floor. I also witnessed firsthand the male affinity for any and all types of eating contests: Big Macs, hot sauce, raw onions, milk, etc. Disturbing yet fascinating.
Time and time again, I was shocked at what men would do in the name of a bet.
Example #1: Munchkin contest
The setting: trading desk
The food: Dunkin Donuts Munchkins
The challenger: a clerk looking for a little extra spending money
The motivation: sheer morbid curiosity
The outcome: 84 Munchkins consumed and approximately 82 Munchkins vomited back up
Example #2: McDonald’s ice cream cone contest
The setting: McDonald’s restaurant in Barcelona
The food: vanilla ice cream cones
The challengers: University of Chicago students studying abroad in Spain
The motivation: only 50 centavos per cono!
The outcome: contest called on account of group brain freeze
Apparently traders are not the only professionals who are enticed to enter eating contests. A friend of mine, a lawyer at a prestigious Chicago law firm, fondly recalls the Taco Bell challenge phase of law school:
The signature Taco Bell Challenge lineup included 20 item, ranging from cheesy bean and rice burritos to chicken quesadillas. Several pounds of food were to be consumed, with $100 on the line. The first competitor began the event confident and cheerful, even chasing his fare with Knob Creek bourbon. By the end of that fateful night, three people had pitched in attempting to conquer the Taco Bell Challenge, and all three ended on the ground in both failure and gastrointestinal distress.
I cringed at hearing the details of the Taco Bell challenge. I also laughed myself stupid. And then I had a sobering thought: what would have happened had the participants attempted the challenge after Taco Bell added seafood items to its menu? Can you imagine the outcome of the Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge?
Of course, as soon as this brilliant idea occurred to me, I tried to figure out who I could goad into attempting said Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge. My natural instinct was to approach either my business school friends or lawyer friends, as I have noticed a high positive correlation between advanced degrees and stupid decisions (aka eating contests). It begs the question: could that correlation exist because getting an advanced degree IS a stupid decision?
Time and time again, I was shocked at what men would do in the name of a bet.
Example #1: Munchkin contest
The setting: trading desk
The food: Dunkin Donuts Munchkins
The challenger: a clerk looking for a little extra spending money
The motivation: sheer morbid curiosity
The outcome: 84 Munchkins consumed and approximately 82 Munchkins vomited back up
Example #2: McDonald’s ice cream cone contest
The setting: McDonald’s restaurant in Barcelona
The food: vanilla ice cream cones
The challengers: University of Chicago students studying abroad in Spain
The motivation: only 50 centavos per cono!
The outcome: contest called on account of group brain freeze
Apparently traders are not the only professionals who are enticed to enter eating contests. A friend of mine, a lawyer at a prestigious Chicago law firm, fondly recalls the Taco Bell challenge phase of law school:
The signature Taco Bell Challenge lineup included 20 item, ranging from cheesy bean and rice burritos to chicken quesadillas. Several pounds of food were to be consumed, with $100 on the line. The first competitor began the event confident and cheerful, even chasing his fare with Knob Creek bourbon. By the end of that fateful night, three people had pitched in attempting to conquer the Taco Bell Challenge, and all three ended on the ground in both failure and gastrointestinal distress.
I cringed at hearing the details of the Taco Bell challenge. I also laughed myself stupid. And then I had a sobering thought: what would have happened had the participants attempted the challenge after Taco Bell added seafood items to its menu? Can you imagine the outcome of the Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge?
Of course, as soon as this brilliant idea occurred to me, I tried to figure out who I could goad into attempting said Pacific Shrimp Taco challenge. My natural instinct was to approach either my business school friends or lawyer friends, as I have noticed a high positive correlation between advanced degrees and stupid decisions (aka eating contests). It begs the question: could that correlation exist because getting an advanced degree IS a stupid decision?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Bidness Casual
I recently rejoined the ranks of the employed, and one of my first discoveries was that I had virtually nothing in the way of a professional wardrobe. You might think that this issue would occur to me sooner than the night before I was scheduled to start work. You would be wrong.
Trading was useless both in terms of developing transferrable job skills and building a professional wardrobe. My typical trading ensemble consisted of a hoodie, jeans, and flips flops, but apparently Corporate America doesn’t view that as business casual. Well, that is certainly news to me.
Let’s examine the contents of my wardrobe in greater detail:
20% Party dresses
18% Clothing showing inappropriate cleavage
7% Bridesmaid dresses
10% Winter coats
3% Suiting
15% Hoodies
10% Dresses
10% Jeans
2% Button downs
5% Sweaters
Even the numbers are misleading: my suits are all wool and hence entirely inappropriate for sweltering 90 degree summer days. (Plus I’d then be that douchebag wearing a suit in a business casual environment.) The vast majority of my dresses and sweaters are also not warm weather friendly. Come winter, I’ll be looking (professionally) cute, but for the time being I appear to be SOL. I shake my fist at you, summer!
The obvious solution to my wardrobe dilemma? Shopping! Normally I would celebrate the opportunity to shop, but normally I would be shopping for yet more party dresses. Shopping for professional clothing isn’t nearly as fun because most options are of the plain vanilla variety. I’m not a man so I refuse to dress like one. Therefore the slacks and button down uniform is out. Same for the khakis and polo shirt combo.
I am also forced to exclude many fabulous dresses. Mid-thigh hem? Out. Just a bit too clingy? Out. Back zip? Out. (I could write an entire book on how irate I get when I find an amazing dress that zips in the back. Breaking news fashion designers: you render me incapable of dressing myself when you design a dress that zips in the back! While it still works out just fine for the population that is partnered or has roommates, it does not work for me. Either I have to forego your magnificent creations entirely, or I have to sneak into work with my dress halfway zipped and pray that I can get one of my co-workers to zip me the rest of the way up before I run into my boss. I know that Liz Lemon figured out a solution to this vexing problem, but I don’t want my morning routine to include weird contortions on a treadmill. Seriously, I would consider marriage just so I would be guaranteed dressing assistance every morning, infinitely expanding my wardrobe possibilities.)
I was saying? Oh yes, this whole professional wardrobe business is really quite tricky. I can tell you exactly where my first paycheck is going: straight to my good friends J.Crew and Ann Taylor. All of my subsequent paychecks will be routed directly to Sallie Mae.
Trading was useless both in terms of developing transferrable job skills and building a professional wardrobe. My typical trading ensemble consisted of a hoodie, jeans, and flips flops, but apparently Corporate America doesn’t view that as business casual. Well, that is certainly news to me.
Let’s examine the contents of my wardrobe in greater detail:
20% Party dresses
18% Clothing showing inappropriate cleavage
7% Bridesmaid dresses
10% Winter coats
3% Suiting
15% Hoodies
10% Dresses
10% Jeans
2% Button downs
5% Sweaters
Even the numbers are misleading: my suits are all wool and hence entirely inappropriate for sweltering 90 degree summer days. (Plus I’d then be that douchebag wearing a suit in a business casual environment.) The vast majority of my dresses and sweaters are also not warm weather friendly. Come winter, I’ll be looking (professionally) cute, but for the time being I appear to be SOL. I shake my fist at you, summer!
The obvious solution to my wardrobe dilemma? Shopping! Normally I would celebrate the opportunity to shop, but normally I would be shopping for yet more party dresses. Shopping for professional clothing isn’t nearly as fun because most options are of the plain vanilla variety. I’m not a man so I refuse to dress like one. Therefore the slacks and button down uniform is out. Same for the khakis and polo shirt combo.
I am also forced to exclude many fabulous dresses. Mid-thigh hem? Out. Just a bit too clingy? Out. Back zip? Out. (I could write an entire book on how irate I get when I find an amazing dress that zips in the back. Breaking news fashion designers: you render me incapable of dressing myself when you design a dress that zips in the back! While it still works out just fine for the population that is partnered or has roommates, it does not work for me. Either I have to forego your magnificent creations entirely, or I have to sneak into work with my dress halfway zipped and pray that I can get one of my co-workers to zip me the rest of the way up before I run into my boss. I know that Liz Lemon figured out a solution to this vexing problem, but I don’t want my morning routine to include weird contortions on a treadmill. Seriously, I would consider marriage just so I would be guaranteed dressing assistance every morning, infinitely expanding my wardrobe possibilities.)
I was saying? Oh yes, this whole professional wardrobe business is really quite tricky. I can tell you exactly where my first paycheck is going: straight to my good friends J.Crew and Ann Taylor. All of my subsequent paychecks will be routed directly to Sallie Mae.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Fine, I'll Just Boycott
One of my best friends, introduced me to a fascinating consumer strategy: boycotting. Her family has a long and storied history of boycotting that began the day that her father was denied help by attendants at a Shell gas station. The year was 1948 and her father and his friend were ice fishing on a cold winter day. Her father fell through the ice, but luckily his friend was able to pull him out. They set off on foot for help, and the first place they came to was a Shell gas station. They asked to to use the phone, but the Shell attendant yelled at them to leave. Her father eventually got help, but he never forgot the way that Shell abandoned him in his hour of need. And so he began the Shell Boycott, and he taught his family to boycott with loyalty and honor. On one particularly memorable family outing, he drove right past three Shell gas stations despite the fact that the car was running on fumes. A boycott is a boycott, regardless of convenience. To this day, when the family feels that an injustice has been served, they boycott.
I first heard this boycotting tale during the spring of my first year at business school. I was still recruiting for a summer internship (even as a first year, I was a late bloomer), but I had a couple of promising prospects. One of those was a marketing role with a major fast food company. Because I wasn’t a local candidate, I had several rounds of phone interviews. For the first round, I spoke with a recruiter and for the second round, I interviewed with several marketing managers. During my second set of phone interviews, they put me through the wringer. I wasn’t asked a softball question like what my favorite brand was or asked to provide an example of what I thought was a poorly designed advertising campaign; no, I was calculating breakeven ROI in my head (Excel wouldn’t load quickly enough since I still had Crystal Ball installed on my computer – rookie mistake). I held my own, though, and managed to crank out the numbers. At the end of the interview, I was given a decision timeline.
The requisite two weeks passed, and still I heard nothing. I called the recruiter to touch base and she was very apologetic as she explained that management had been away for Fastfood-a-palooza. Because they had been busy crowd surfing to french fry chants, they hadn’t had a chance to review intern candidates, but she promised that they would make a decision very soon. Another two weeks passed, and still there was nothing but silence on my end. At this point, I realized that a decision had been made and the decision was no. However, I was irate that nobody had even bothered to send me a generic email update. I had spent close to three hours on the phone interviewing with members of their team and countless more hours doing interview prep; the least they could do was acknowledge me with a polite decline.
I was only a first year so I hadn’t yet developed the thick recruiting skin that I have now. My baseline assumption was that companies would treat me as a valuable candidate whether or not they ultimately decided to bring me on board. By the middle of my second year at business school, I adjusted my ideas regarding recruiting, and I began to assume that companies would decline to get back to me if they had decided not to move forward with my candidacy. I found myself pleasantly surprised when I would actually receive the polite refusal email. “How thoughtful,” I would find myself thinking. “It was truly considerate of the recruiter to send me a three sentence email to inform me that they had decided to make an offer to another candidate. Gee, all I did was set up calls with a couple of alums at the company, research the company online, travel cross country to get to company headquarters, and interview all day with members of the team, all on my own dime.”
As an applicant, I generally felt powerless; the companies seemed to hold all the cards. However, I eventually realized that perhaps that wasn’t the case. I relayed the story of my silent rejection to my friend and she listened thoughtfully. Then a wide grin stole across her face as she gleefully announced “BOYCOTT!” and proceeded to explain her family's tradition of boycotting.
Admittedly, the boycott would have a rather limited financial impact as I never really ate much fast food to begin with, but that detail is beside the point. The main goal that a boycott would accomplish is a psychological one. Namely: I am not purchasing your products because I was disinclined to do so in the first place; no, I am rejecting your brand in order to relay the message that your company sucks at life.
Unfortunately, when you are interviewing with as many companies as I am, and summarily boycotting all products made by those that rejected you, you quickly find that shopping becomes a challenge. I can’t buy half of the products in grocery stores, and the deodorant category leaves me in dire straights. I am a stubborn human being, though, so I pressed on and made substitutions as necessarily to support my boycotts.
A severe blow was dealt to my boycotting strategy when I was rejected by one of my favorite retail stores. I began to rationalize that perhaps I could make an exception. Just because they didn’t recognize talent didn’t necessarily mean that I had to cut them out of my life entirely. We could still be friends, right? My enthusiasm for boycotts collapsed completely the day that one of my favorite cosmetic brands refused me. There was NO WAY that I was going without mascara and skin toner.
I hang in head in shame, knowing that I do not have the boycotting fortitude of my friend's family. At least my teeth will be minty fresh, my skin glowing, and my hair shiny. Disgrace looks good on me.
I first heard this boycotting tale during the spring of my first year at business school. I was still recruiting for a summer internship (even as a first year, I was a late bloomer), but I had a couple of promising prospects. One of those was a marketing role with a major fast food company. Because I wasn’t a local candidate, I had several rounds of phone interviews. For the first round, I spoke with a recruiter and for the second round, I interviewed with several marketing managers. During my second set of phone interviews, they put me through the wringer. I wasn’t asked a softball question like what my favorite brand was or asked to provide an example of what I thought was a poorly designed advertising campaign; no, I was calculating breakeven ROI in my head (Excel wouldn’t load quickly enough since I still had Crystal Ball installed on my computer – rookie mistake). I held my own, though, and managed to crank out the numbers. At the end of the interview, I was given a decision timeline.
The requisite two weeks passed, and still I heard nothing. I called the recruiter to touch base and she was very apologetic as she explained that management had been away for Fastfood-a-palooza. Because they had been busy crowd surfing to french fry chants, they hadn’t had a chance to review intern candidates, but she promised that they would make a decision very soon. Another two weeks passed, and still there was nothing but silence on my end. At this point, I realized that a decision had been made and the decision was no. However, I was irate that nobody had even bothered to send me a generic email update. I had spent close to three hours on the phone interviewing with members of their team and countless more hours doing interview prep; the least they could do was acknowledge me with a polite decline.
I was only a first year so I hadn’t yet developed the thick recruiting skin that I have now. My baseline assumption was that companies would treat me as a valuable candidate whether or not they ultimately decided to bring me on board. By the middle of my second year at business school, I adjusted my ideas regarding recruiting, and I began to assume that companies would decline to get back to me if they had decided not to move forward with my candidacy. I found myself pleasantly surprised when I would actually receive the polite refusal email. “How thoughtful,” I would find myself thinking. “It was truly considerate of the recruiter to send me a three sentence email to inform me that they had decided to make an offer to another candidate. Gee, all I did was set up calls with a couple of alums at the company, research the company online, travel cross country to get to company headquarters, and interview all day with members of the team, all on my own dime.”
As an applicant, I generally felt powerless; the companies seemed to hold all the cards. However, I eventually realized that perhaps that wasn’t the case. I relayed the story of my silent rejection to my friend and she listened thoughtfully. Then a wide grin stole across her face as she gleefully announced “BOYCOTT!” and proceeded to explain her family's tradition of boycotting.
Admittedly, the boycott would have a rather limited financial impact as I never really ate much fast food to begin with, but that detail is beside the point. The main goal that a boycott would accomplish is a psychological one. Namely: I am not purchasing your products because I was disinclined to do so in the first place; no, I am rejecting your brand in order to relay the message that your company sucks at life.
Unfortunately, when you are interviewing with as many companies as I am, and summarily boycotting all products made by those that rejected you, you quickly find that shopping becomes a challenge. I can’t buy half of the products in grocery stores, and the deodorant category leaves me in dire straights. I am a stubborn human being, though, so I pressed on and made substitutions as necessarily to support my boycotts.
A severe blow was dealt to my boycotting strategy when I was rejected by one of my favorite retail stores. I began to rationalize that perhaps I could make an exception. Just because they didn’t recognize talent didn’t necessarily mean that I had to cut them out of my life entirely. We could still be friends, right? My enthusiasm for boycotts collapsed completely the day that one of my favorite cosmetic brands refused me. There was NO WAY that I was going without mascara and skin toner.
I hang in head in shame, knowing that I do not have the boycotting fortitude of my friend's family. At least my teeth will be minty fresh, my skin glowing, and my hair shiny. Disgrace looks good on me.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Push It Real Good
The story that I’m about to share is a trading urban legend dating back to circa 2000.
It was a dreary morning and one of the clerks was braving the rain to get to work. He was just walking out of the parking garage when the CEO of the company pulled up in his Porsche.
“Hey, I’m running late. Park my car and bring the keys down to me on the floor.”
And so the CEO jumped out of his car and headed into the Merc, leaving the clerk to park his Porsche. Having no choice, the clerk slid into the driver’s seat, and Salt N’Pepa’s “Push It” immediately hit his eardrums. The song was blaring. Thinking it was the radio, the clerk went to change the station. But it was not the radio. No friends, it was a CD (remember this was back in the dark ages before iPods).
Yes, the CEO, a white guy in his mid thirties, had been rolling around Chicago pumping some serious jams. Push it, push it real good!
After hearing this story, I was no longer intimidated by my boss. Sure, he might yell sometimes, and he understood trading at a level that I could never hope to come close to, but at the end of the day, we were really the same. We both liked Salt N’Pepa.
It was a dreary morning and one of the clerks was braving the rain to get to work. He was just walking out of the parking garage when the CEO of the company pulled up in his Porsche.
“Hey, I’m running late. Park my car and bring the keys down to me on the floor.”
And so the CEO jumped out of his car and headed into the Merc, leaving the clerk to park his Porsche. Having no choice, the clerk slid into the driver’s seat, and Salt N’Pepa’s “Push It” immediately hit his eardrums. The song was blaring. Thinking it was the radio, the clerk went to change the station. But it was not the radio. No friends, it was a CD (remember this was back in the dark ages before iPods).
Yes, the CEO, a white guy in his mid thirties, had been rolling around Chicago pumping some serious jams. Push it, push it real good!
After hearing this story, I was no longer intimidated by my boss. Sure, he might yell sometimes, and he understood trading at a level that I could never hope to come close to, but at the end of the day, we were really the same. We both liked Salt N’Pepa.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
What I Really Learned in Business School
I had begun my second year of business school in high spirits, but recruiting began to rain on my parade almost immediately when I returned to campus. Apparently, the fact that I didn’t receive an offer at the end of my summer internships was considered a huge black mark against me, even though the company hired exclusively on an as-needed basis. Why didn’t anyone tell me that I would be penalized for interning at a company that didn't have a formal MBA recruiting program?
Fortunately, business school had equipped me with the ability to handle just such an issue, even though I may not have realized it at the time. At first, I broke into a cold sweat every time that a professor looked in my direction during class, certain that a cold call was headed my way. It usually was as business school professors seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect fear. One minute I’d be minding my own business, flipping through the case and trying to look like I was really busy taking notes on all of the professor’s brilliant insights, and the next minute the professor would swivel his head in slow motion to where I was sitting, locking in on his next cold call target. At that moment, I had to make a critical decision: should I boldly make eye contact in the hopes that my confidence would persuade the professor to move on and seek out the true weak gazelle or should I double down my efforts to concentrate on my notes, just daring the professor to interrupt my learning? The scientific method confirmed that it actually didn’t matter what I did; in general, once a professor had made the decision to cold call a certain student, that student was getting called on period.
As much as I may have dreaded cold calls, I must admit that they prepared me to think on my feet. In other words, cold calls forced me to learn the fine art of bullshitting. Didn’t read beyond the first paragraph of the case? Randomly select one of Porter’s Five Forces and expound upon why supplier power is important in a particular industry. Came up with a number that’s not remotely close to the professor’s solution? Identify an input that you are positive is correct and explain how you calculated it.
Business school had taught me how to be resourceful and creative. Reality was irrelevant; all that truly mattered was how you spun it.
Fortunately, business school had equipped me with the ability to handle just such an issue, even though I may not have realized it at the time. At first, I broke into a cold sweat every time that a professor looked in my direction during class, certain that a cold call was headed my way. It usually was as business school professors seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect fear. One minute I’d be minding my own business, flipping through the case and trying to look like I was really busy taking notes on all of the professor’s brilliant insights, and the next minute the professor would swivel his head in slow motion to where I was sitting, locking in on his next cold call target. At that moment, I had to make a critical decision: should I boldly make eye contact in the hopes that my confidence would persuade the professor to move on and seek out the true weak gazelle or should I double down my efforts to concentrate on my notes, just daring the professor to interrupt my learning? The scientific method confirmed that it actually didn’t matter what I did; in general, once a professor had made the decision to cold call a certain student, that student was getting called on period.
As much as I may have dreaded cold calls, I must admit that they prepared me to think on my feet. In other words, cold calls forced me to learn the fine art of bullshitting. Didn’t read beyond the first paragraph of the case? Randomly select one of Porter’s Five Forces and expound upon why supplier power is important in a particular industry. Came up with a number that’s not remotely close to the professor’s solution? Identify an input that you are positive is correct and explain how you calculated it.
Business school had taught me how to be resourceful and creative. Reality was irrelevant; all that truly mattered was how you spun it.
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