Amanda-sana vs. Cover Letter Lady: 1-0
That's right, folks: Cover Letter Lady may have some good points, but I got a great callback on Friday-- from the yoga studio! It negates the whole idea of not bothering to take a risk applying for something you may not be qualified for. It's nice that I can throw that particular advice out of the window, especially since I'm interested in a lot of positions I'm not qualified for, although I will hold onto the rest of those tidbits for now.I went to the yoga studio this morning for an interview. Allow me depict the temperature of the lobby:
Did I mention it was a HOT yoga studio? As in, they do all their moves in a 105 degree room. Basically they are en fuego. I was sitting right next to the HOT room during the interview, and so it was about 85 degrees where I was sitting. I'll get to the deets of the position now.
Pros of this position: they'd want me to build up the business in this studio and potentially open up another studio in the city. The opportunity to learn this much about a business would be really cool, plus I'd be able to carry out my marketing, sales, and design ideas. I'd have a ton of responsibitiy, which would be cool, and it would be very un-corporate.
Cons of this position: "undefined position" sounds a lot to me like "you do EVERYTHING we think of!" Could be pretty crazy. I'm really interested in learning this much about a business, and being so hands-on, but I'd have to be pretty passionate about yoga. Which may or may not work for me.
Two interesting conclusions from this interview:
1) I actually do have a lot of business experience. I found that I was able to sell myself pretty well to this guy, which surprised me. As it turns out, I have done a lot of work in marketing, sales, analysis, and business development. My resume actually ties together, which is news to me. I think I may have learned from this new and better ways to present myself to future employers.
2) Retail is retail is retail. Which gets me thinking: is selling yoga any different than selling anything else? Selling books or yoga or education or whatever it is, if you're selling it, it's retail, and your job is to separate people from their money and get it into your pocket. It's all about month to month growth and selling your product. Yoga has great health benefits, but my job wouldn't be to sing its health benefits, but to sell annual memberships over monthly memberships, and to upsell the yoga mat and the CD and the water bottle and whatever else I can get them to buy. And that, my friends, makes me feel like this:
So where does that leave me now? Well, I haven't totally decided if I'm up for a second interview with the yoga place. It has potential to be a great opportunity; however, if I am going to go into retail of some sort, I think there are places I'd prefer (like those pottery places, for example). Maybe I'll just go to one of those places and scope out the situation.
Another suggestion that came up this weekend: working in HR at a bit company, maybe getting a masters in HR.
I'm off to my event planning gig tonight to check out that industry for the night. I'll let you know how pouring wine for millionaires goes (if they even let me that close to them ;-)).
Maybe I should quit all this and try for Deal or No Deal. Eh, Howie? NO DEAL!!!! [crowd goes wild with greed]
posted by amandascareer @ 12:59 PM
2 Comments:
I think, in some ways, every job--even not-for-profit work--is about selling something, be it a product or an ideal. I think that, as far as product goes, yoga isn't such a bad thing to sell. Aside from all the needless accoutrements you described, yoga is really good for people in terms of their physical and mental well-being, so I don't think you should think of yourself as a total grinch. It's not like you're trying to convince toddlers to smoke...that would definitely not be a wise career move.
Yeah, plus I've already got the smoking-toddlers market covered. Crack-smoking toddlers, too.
If you're interested in learning more about the HR beat, you could talk to my roommate, who's in that department at Christies.
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