From Engineering Manager to General Manager
E.C. had been a NASA manager for 20 years. He sought to use in industry the skills he had used in government, so he went to work for a major aerospace company as an engineering manager at a good salary. However, E.C. soon discovered that the scope of his responsibilities was much below his capabilities and his desires for a career outside of government. He obtained a copy of and initiated a campaign after first deciding exactly what he was looking for. E.C. wanted to remain in the same geographical area but to have total engineering responsibilities for a company. This implied responsibilities as either a director or vice president of engineering.
E.C.'s campaign involved sending sales letters, answering advertisements both through a targeted letter alone and in combination with use of the telephone, contacting search firms, and using personal contacts.
Because he was employed at the time, his campaign was conducted in secret.
Being a careful engineer, E.C. kept precise records of both the input to and the output from his campaign. These were as follows:
Sales letters sent, 196 Ads answered, 25 Search firms contacted, 15 Personal contacts, 8 Total inquiries, 244
That was the input. The output was as follows:
Sales letters resulted in 4 interviews and 2 offers. Written responses to ads by themselves resulted in 2 interviews with 0 offers.
Phone responses to advertisements combined with written responses resulted in 2 interviews with 1 offer.
Search firms resulted in 1 interview with 0 offers. Personal contacts resulted in 4 interviews with 1 offer.
E.C.'s entire campaign took 83 days and resulted in a position as director of engineering for a well known company with a significant salary increase.
The letter he sent to me immediately after obtaining his job speaks for itself regarding how he felt about the campaign which he had just completed: "The battle is over. I have a new job. Substantial credit for the success belongs to you."
E.C.'s success story, however, didn't end then. Thirty days later the group vice president of his corporation flew out to talk to E.C. personally and to announce that he had been promoted to general manager of the division for which he had been hired initially as director of engineering.
From Assistant Project Manager to Director of Advertising
M.H. was the assistant project manager of a fund raising program for a major university. Although she was very happy with her job, she was called in one day by her boss, the project director, and told that the program would terminate in five weeks.
M.H.'s background has been in advertising. In fact, the one other job she had held after graduating from college was in advertising for the garment industry. She had left this to become an assistant project manager at the university. However, the warning that her project was terminating left her with her MBA not yet completed.
M.H. thought herself qualified to be the director of advertising for a firm in the garment industry similar to the one she had already worked for. Her campaign involved a mailing to 200 firms in this industry, which resulted in five interviews and one offer. The offer was from the same firm that she had worked for earlier, but as director of advertising, two levels higher than the job she had previously held. Her new salary represented a 17% increase. Her campaign took approximately four weeks.
From Out of Work to Assistant Product Manager
F.R. was a reentry student of mine in a marketing class and out of work. Here is what F.R. wrote: "I received some news yesterday that's very exciting to me, and since I believe that your course and some of your ideas are greatly responsible for this good news, I wanted you to be one of the first to know. I was extended a job offer with a company, and in a position which is almost exactly what I was hoping for. The company is [a Fortune 500 company], and the position is assistant product manager. As I see it, your help was tremendously important, beyond the simple encouragement and interest you showed in my search: first, of course, were the direct mail techniques you taught in class, and more precisely your book which covered these techniques. Although I tailored your suggestions slightly toward my own needs, the guidelines were invaluable. These are the interviewing techniques that got me the job."
