I was talking to a group of college age kids last night, and one of them was bemoaning the issue of applying for a job without a college degree.
Instead of quoting what these kids said, I will jump to an interpretation and say that what I felt from them was a sense of hopelessness and despondency. They had experienced numerous failures in terms of simply not getting a chance to even interview for a job because they did not meet the requirement of having a college degree.
So for what it’s worth, and for anyone who does not have a college degree and would like to apply for a job that requires one, here is a slightly different take:
One of the sad undocumented failures of the academic industrial complex is that it fails to address one of the primary purposes of “getting educated,” which is that of simply “making the sale.” While I have nothing against knowledge for knowledge’s sake, a big reason for getting trained at something is to go out and get paid for doing that kind of work. And all work results, not from the possession of knowledge, but from making the sale of the use of that knowledge.
So, ok, the HR people are being unresponsive? An unresponsive customer? I’m shocked to hear of such a thing. Well, how about looking at them, not as an authority figure who is denying you what you want, but . . . as a customer? Start thinking like a marketer. Find out everything you can about them. What is their “buyer persona”? What do they want? What is their goal in life? What appeals to them? What are their secret longings? What is their biggest problem? What is their favorite brand of beer? “Getting hired” is a form of selling or marketing, and just because a customer thinks they have to have a Ford doesn’t mean you can’t get them to buy a Chevy.
When you apply for a job, you are engaged in the act of marketing. Granted, it’s not always easy. It took the Wright Brothers 5 years to make their first sale, and they had the only airplane in the world.
There is a story of a kid selling lemonade for $25 a glass. A marketing expert sees this and says, “Young man, you won’t sell much lemonade at this price point.” The kid replied, “I only gotta sell one.”
Marketing is not about following procedure. It’s about offering someone something that, until now, they didn’t know existed, but now they have to have it. Degree requirements be damned, this is sales. It’s about customer desire. Discover that, meet that, and the job is yours. There’s nothing special about your competition.
© Justin Locke
