Slimy Salesman...

As much as I enjoy shows like The Apprentice and Dragons Den, I’ve never really seen myself fitting in with the whole corporate, sales driven world of business. The thought of spending my working day making hundreds of phone calls to soulless, pin stripe suit wearing “MD’s” has never been a world I thought I could cut it in. However, I have decided that if I am going to stay living in London town then I really do need to start earning some more money. So after giving it some thought and after a prod from a friend, last Friday I signed up with a recruitment agency who specialise in setting up new university graduates in sales jobs.

To my surprise they managed to set me up with an interview for the following Monday, so earlier this week I found myself sat in a rather plush meeting room in central London with seven other fresh faced, suited and booted young candidates. The last time I did a group interview was to gain my place at university, which went pretty well, so I initially went in feeling confident. This confidence soon started to dip however when after all candidates were present, I realised I was the only male in the room not wearing a suit. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be so naive as to go to an interview in flip flops and board shorts, I had on a smart pair of trousers, shoes, a white shirt and a black v neck jumper, but no jacket or tie.

After a short talk from one of the assessors from the company recruiting, we were set to work with our first task of selling the candidate sat next to us. I know people who have been through this sort of interview task and I’ve never been too intimidated by presentations, so at first felt pretty confident. However, after speaking to my “sales pitch” sat next to me ( a smartly dressed German girl who spoke with an American twang) it was clear very quickly she was way, way more qualified in sales than me! No problem, I thought, she’ll be easy to sell.

After doing my presentation to the dozen or so people in the room, I sat and listened to the rest of the sales pitches, and after each one thought of another thing I should have put in my own. At one point the girl I’d been interviewing also slipped me a note informing me I’d forgotten to put in my pitch that she spoke “conversational Taiwanese”. “I shouldn’t worry yourself” I thought, “I’m sure the other half a dozen languages I mentioned you speak will count in your favour.”
Next on the agenda was a group exercise where we had to imagine we were stranded on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean with 15 items salvaged, and put them in order of importance to survive. It became apparent very quickly that I am no Ray Mears or Andy McNab, as the rest of the group disagreed with just about everything I suggested we put near the top of the list. No problem I thought, the face to face, one on one interview will be my chance to win them over....

However, this stage only lasted about 2 minutes where I was asked to describe my biggest weakness as a candidate, “pray tell, what are you supposed to say when asked this in an interview???”, and was asked if I had ever been described as being “too casual?”. Later I wondered if this was due to my non wearing of a suit, although I maintain that if I had worn the whole three piece complete with tie, I would have arrived sweating and rather red in the face, as Monday was fairly hot.

Suffice to say, I was not invited to a second interview, but I would definitely feel more confident about a second similar interview. I have a couple of friends working in sales who earn more in commission than I do at all in a month, so it’s something I want to pursue. I will keep you posted, and if anyone knows something intelligent to say when asked what their biggest weakness is, then please feel free to comment.......