no sale

Part of the problem with sending out hundreds of thousands of resumes is that there comes a point when you have no idea where you’ve applied or what position you’ve applied for. Between clicking the little ‘send’ button on multiple internet sites to printing out resume after resume and dropping them into the mail, I no longer have any clue who may end up getting my resume or why I sent it to them in the first place.

Granted, I could always keep a running tab on where I’ve applied by creating a fancy little spreadsheet with the company name, position applied for, and date that I sent it to them, in order to be the perfect example of organization…but this takes work and time which could be better spent, such as watching Dr. Phil solve many of the world’s dire problems like catching cheaters on tape. Besides, if I had a physical record of all the places I applied too, I’d simply end up being depressed upon realizing that not one of several thousand businesses which I applied to felt that my resume warranted a call back. And at this point, more watching of Dr. Phil would be needed to cure my depression.

So when I got a call for an interview last week, I had absolutely no idea what position I was interviewing for. Luckily, the lady who called to set up the interview mentioned the name of the company before she hung up and I was able to reconstruct what I had probably applied for…which, I was certain, was a sales position with a textbook company.

By this point in my unemployment, with the number of weeks that the government will actually continue providing me with money rapidly dwindling, I’ve come to realize that I need a job pretty fast. I’ve interviewed for other sales positions…selling insurance, selling advertising space, selling corn meal to Mexican immigrants in order to increase productivity on their chicken farms…but have never shown enough enthusiasm for the act of selling. I ask questions about promotions within the company, which lead the interviewer to correctly assume that I really don’t want to sell…which then leads the interviewer to not hire me.

Thus, I was determined to show Pat, the lady who was interviewing me today, that I loved to sell. That I was put on this Earth to sell. That while all the other kids in elementary school wanted to grow up and become firemen, and policemen, and movie stars, my ambition in life was to become a salesman. And while I don’t want to be a salesman and I generally dislike salespeople, my desire to continue getting paychecks is stronger than my desire not to sell.

So I went into the interview prepared to convey my love of selling things to Pat. I was certain that if I could project the proper enthusiasm and love for sales, the job would be mine.

We sat down and Pat asked the standard question, ‘so why did you apply for this position?’ And my answer was perfect. Never in the history of interviews has an answer been so well crafted. I only wish that I had a tape recorder on hand to capture the profound and articulate response that I gave, which I could pass down to future generations of job seekers. My answer was just this good.

And it remained a truly great answer, right up until the point where I mentioned how my combined education and business experience made me a perfect candidate for selling textbooks. Because it was at this point that Pat gave me an odd look and said, ‘We don’t sell textbooks.’

Not to be deterred, I quickly switched tracks and waxed poetic for a few minutes on the importance of technology in education, thinking that the sales position must be for the technology and software end of the company. I assured Pat that I would be the ideal candidate to sell educational software.

Pat, again with the blank look on her face, said, ‘while technology is important, that isn’t what you would be selling either.’

And as it turns out, I had applied to the segment of a textbook company that sells neither textbooks nor software. Rather, they sold educational supplies. Supplies that, I highly suspect, I won’t be selling anytime soon.