Recently I received something cool in my inbox, a job offer from Monster.com with a company I'd love to work for. I decided that not only did I want the job, I had to have it!
I'm not going to say too much about the position yet, but rather talk about what I am doing in an effort to get the job.
I started by sending a covering letter and sent it away attached it to my CV.
After four days I had received no reply, ok sure thats not that much time, but I was not prepaired to just sit and wait for them to come to me. I decided action had to be taken.
I starting working on an plan to make sure I got noticed. I researched the company on the Internet and wrote a magazine style display ad promoting myself (one that any advertising agency would be proud of) as the ideal candidate for the position..
Now I had to make sure this got into the hands of the right person. I needed to find out the first name of the person in charge of hiring for that position. I already had a first initial, but I needed more to succeed with my bizarre plan.
In order to find out what this important persons name was, I rang their office to ask, or at least, I tried to ring. Nobody answered the telephone number I found on the Internet. I wondered if the information I had found on the Internet was incorrect. So I called the German office, I could have asked in English because it is an international company and Germans are well known for having a reasonable English ability (they learn it in school from a young age), but I decided my accent would win some respect (relatively few foreigners bother to learn German) and told the operator I had to send a package to this person at the Spanish office.
5 mins later I had found out:
- she was a woman
- what her full name was
- the physical address of the office
- and even got her unlisted direct phone number!
Part two of the plan involved some theatrics.
I went to a shopping mall and purchase the following items:
- A Star shaped gift box
- Coloured balloons
- A Hello Kitty helium filled balloon (pictured here)
I put my one page ad/presentation into the gift box Attached it to the balloons and drove in to the companies head office.
This company office is normally closed to the public, but because I showed up with a car full of balloons and told security "I had a delivery", I was ushered in.
I had only expected to drop the package at reception content in knowing that it would get to its destination and get noticed, but the receptionist was so excited by all the balloons, she insisted I deliver them in person to the woman concerned. 5 mins later I had an on the spot interview in person. It was a bit awkward at first, and maybe just a little uncomfortable for both of us, but we managed. I worried a bit that my Spanish was good enough, but she said it was the most interesting job application she had ever received, so thats got to count for something doesn't it?
I have since passed two more stages of the application process and have been waiting for some kind of indication as to whether I will get to the next and final stage (a formal interview with the head of department). Regardless I'm pretty pleased I got so far, I guess I'll now just have to wait and see...
EDIT: I have since been ask to go in for an interview. It went well, but I'm just waiting to hear the bad news (can you feel my pessimism?). Still I'm really pleased with what I achieved and I guess its now 50/50.
EDIT #2 (two week later): I got the Job! that just goes to show how thinking out side can improve your chances! I start in two months :)
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