Busy busy busy... those are the only words to describe how my life has been this past week. It is currently 3:15a.m. and I am working on this ridiculous business law paper. I've been up late every night and getting up early every morning as well. It's funny though, the only people in the library this late are all the business law students working on this paper because we all have to use the same books and none of these books are aloud to leave the library. I think that I have made more friends in my business law class than any other class just because of this stupid paper, so I guess that's a plus.
On top of this unnecessary 20 page paper for an intro level class that I have to write I still have homework, tests, and quizzes in all my other classes plus other homework for that class I'm writing a paper in. I know typical college stuff right? Well that would be all fine and dandy if that was all I was doing... I'm also trying to work on top of that (someone's gotta pay the bills) ;) and I got 2 interviews this week with two different companies.
I received a called over spring break from a company called IKON wanting me to come in for an interview. I said yes if nothing else to get interviewing experience. This was my first professional interview and I was so incredibly nervous. There were two guys interviewing me and the one guy was the guy I gave my resume to at the Career fair and he was extremely nice. At first I know they could tell I was nervous, I was sitting straight as a board, so stiff not moving and I felt very uncomfortable. The guy who was mainly interviewing me said he wanted this interview to seem informal and he just wanted to get to know me, and instantly I loosened up thinking Hey, I know me... this will be easy.. this isn't a test... I can talk about me... what do you want to know I'm an open book...
I think I was so nervous because the classes I have taken the the people I talk to say know the company you're interviewing for, do research, impress them by your knowledge.... So hearing those things made me nervous I did some research to get to know the company but I didn't know exactly what I needed to know I felt like I was studying all the wrong things for a test and I didn't want to go in there looking like a fool... Well I in fact did not. People freaked me out too much about this.. The company wanted to get to know me and my strengths and my goals and what I could contribute to them. I could sit there and be myself. I felt good about myself being able to share my experiences with someone who could use them for their company. I know I'm only a junior but they said they want to keep a relationship with me and know where I'm at and what I'm doing because when I do graduate they want to be there to recruit me.
Some of the things that impressed me about the company the most are that they are very close knit company with their employees. By the way the Director of Sales was talking they hire all their promotions within house and they seek a certain type of person. As he was describing that person I felt deep down that he was describing me to a T and I hope that they got that information from what I had to say. Another thing that I shared was my gymnastics experience and how it related to sales.. had to throw that in there and I feel the need to share on here.. and to be honest I've never really thought of it before until I was speaking it in my interview...
As most all of you know from first hand or previous blogs I was a gymnast and in gymnastics competition is basically and individual sport. You have to work hard to get to be the best, you set goals for yourself you want to achieve and work hard to achieve them, and you can't be afraid to try new things to make yourself stand out. BUT even though you are working hard on your own to achieve your goals you are doing everything FOR your team. Just one person cannot make a team. Everyone's hard work and ability needs to come together to gain true excellence. And this is the same things for what I want to do with my life, SALES as a sales rep I will need to go out and make my own visits, appointments, and calls if I want to succeed... but even though I would be doing this all on my own it is all being done for the company as a whole to make one big team. All the little scores get added to make one big score. Everyone there is a team as well and without the other sales reps it couldn't make a complete team. It is exactly the same.
The sales director said that his daughter was a gymnast and said after watching her practice he said that it had to be the hardest sport ever and that if I could be a gymnast that I could handle anything. It's funny how I thought going into the interview the only highlight I could talk about gymnastics was being captain but I got so much more out of it than that.
Another connection I made was the director of sale's son is on the Ball State football team. Not only do I work at the football stadium but his son is in my business law class and we were working on our paper's together. Lucky for me after my interview I got back to the library and Brooks (the son) was there and said that his Dad and the other interviewer were both really impressed by me that I have a side source to get the information. It made me realize though how important it is to make relationships and network with people. It truly can make all the difference.
I wasn't expecting my blog to be this long. I kinda went on a tangent but I was so excited about my interview I wanted to share.. I could probably go on and on but I'll spare you the reading if you do want to read/hear more feel free to ask. :) I have one more interview tomorrow...
Oh I also just back from spring break so I will surely post about that soon!
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