How I Failed To Land My Dream Job, Twice
There’s a new story everyday about how YOU too can land your dream job — here’s the story of how I didn’t.
Twice, New England Sports Network (NESN) listed marketing positions. Twice I applied. Twice I failed. But I got creative along the way.
The latter attempt is really more interesting, so I’ll breeze past the former.
Fool Me Once, Shame On You
NESN was my top choice for a summer internship back in 2014. After meeting the recruiter at an internship fair, I interviewed for the role and was turned down.
Instead, I landed a SEO gig.
That next semester in college, I had a class with the girl who got the NESN job. She had the broadcast background I lacked, even though the recruiter’s reason for my rejection was that I didn’t have the excel skills.
Lesson learned: You never know what qualifications they’re actually seeking in a candidate.
Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me
I think Einstein said it best:
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The run-of-the-mill application process didn’t cut it the first time. I had to do something a little different second time around.
In the 2 years that had passed since the first interview, a close friend had joined NESN on the production side. She put in a good word for me and learned they’d be reviewing applications at the end of the week. This meant I had a few days to put together something clever.
After submitting my resume through their standard application form, it was time to get creative.
Here were the constraints of my initiatives:
- They had to be implemented immediately
- Budget under $50
- Only visible to those at NESN in Watertown
Snapchat to the Rescue
In the hopes of catching their eye, I created a Snapchat filter with the help of my friend Sam.
Playing on the concept of “NESN’s Next Producer,” a little Photoshop work turned their logo into “NESN’s Next Marketer,” aka me.
Doesn’t that look great? We thought so! 😃
By selecting the exact area on a map I wanted the filter visible, I ensured only those at NESN would see it on a certain day.
Cost would be $17 and change. Time spent was about an hour for Sam and me.
Snapchat reviews submissions within 24 hours. After submitting the design in the evening, it was rejected late the following morning (and I was never charged that $17).
I found the reason in the fine print:
Given that I would have to redesign the filter and resubmit it for approval, I was losing valuable time. Onto the next strategy.
When Your Interviewer Googles You
Regardless of Snapchat, I had planned to run an ad campaign for my branded term — my name. When the recruiter and manager searched for me, they’d see my ad.
Fingers crossed.
This required a paid search campaign, a landing page, and some conversion points.
My personal website is built on Wordpress, so I used a free plugin to create the landing page. It automatically maintained the same design as my site but the WYSIWYG editor was a little challenging, so I coded the content by hand.
You can see the full page live here.
On the page itself, there are in-text CTAs that open an email message when clicked, subject line included and my email already in the the “To” box.
As for the campaign itself, I drafted 2 ads with an estimated bid of $3.60 per click. They were targeted to only appear in area code 02472, where NESN’s office is located. Due to the specificity of the ads, I preferred that other potential employers not stumble upon my unconventional application attempts.
Here are the results:
Did you notice how many clicks they received? How about impressions? Go back and take a look.
Zip, zilch, nada. Whomp whomp.
Cost was $0 (excluding existing website costs). Time spent was about 2 hours.
Needless to say, I never got that job.
Lessons learned:
How to build a free landing page in Wordpress
How to create an in-text CTA that opens an email with a pre-written subject line and email address
Your interviewers don’t always Google you — maybe LinkedIn ads would’ve been more effective
My name is only worth about $3.60
PS: Here’s the line of code for CTA:
<a href=“mailto:email@example.com?Subject=Your%20Subject%20Line” target=”_top”>Call To Action</a>
Related works by yours truly:
