Adaptability

It was late at night when I received an email inviting me to interview for a Marketing Communications Manager position at Indeed. Needless to say, I was too excited to ease myself down to get a good night's sleep. The next morning I responded to the email with an open schedule to set our appointment and immediately after, I got the meeting invite. I was so ready to knock 'em dead!

You would think that by being the top job website in the world, Indeed's recruiters would do magic job interviews. Well, for me it was, in fact, a little bit more interesting than that.😊

The recruiter and I had agreed to connect at a certain time before noon, but for some reason, she called 10 minutes late. It was not a big deal at all — and I can be extremely flexible in situations like these regardless of the circumstances. However, I do believe first impressions are critical in these cases. I think the interest to make a good first impression should be reciprocal between candidates and recruiters. To be honest, it discouraged me a little. And I got distracted thinking that she could have forgotten our call or just feel somehow uninterested; somehow it made me think that my time may not have been valuable to her.

Question: "How casual and laid-back should you be in order to fit in, but at the same time, to not fall onto being unprofessional?"

The very first thing she told me after presenting herself was: "I don't know if you've noticed, but I've changed the title for this position to 'Brand Advertising Manager.'" So, at that point, I knew I was facing more of a challenge rather than an interview for a job.

• Branding is promoting what your company believes in. It promotes loyalty and long-term commitment.  

• Every message including all social media interactions, customer service, personal relationships, printed materials, websites, etc. is Marketing. 

• Advertising is a subset of marketing, focused mostly on acquiring customers and driving sales.

Although I still managed to quickly shift from selling my skills as the best bilingual Marketing Communications Manager to the best Brand Advertising Manager, I think my answers to her questions became longer rather than efficient.  

I didn't get the time to expand on my creative skills as I would have wanted, therefore, I sent a follow-up email to the recruiter, sharing the idea found below, and hoping I could get a second opportunity to interview:

You pointed out how this position requires a high level of creativity, therefore, I would like to share an example of my creative reach and originality. As a user of Indeed in both mobile and desktop versions, I believe it would be great to incorporate a "Record a Video" feature to replace the inconvenience of having to write a tailored cover letter on mobile. Here are some benefits:

★ It's user-friendly for job seekers
★ It's lively, active, fast, effective therefore beneficial for employers (6 seconds to make an impression)
★ It's another innovating product offered by Indeed to boost the hiring process at a global level

I did get a thank you email a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately, this opportunity was offered to a different candidate. Meanwhile, I keep learning from my experiences and I trust I will do better next time.