In Spring of my senior year at college. I heard that Procter & Gamble would be interviewing on campus for their brand management positions. This was always said to be the pinnacle of marketing and I wanted the job. Feeling shy that I didn’t have an MBA, I skipped the interview at that time and asked another classmate how it went for him. All other P&G Brand Assistants there had MBA’s from top schools like Harvard, Stamford, etc. He didn’t get the job. But, he told me how the interview went. I thought I still had a chance.

I found out the name of the interviewer and wrote him a letter asking if I could still have an opportunity to interview for brand management. I stated that I had successfully founded a small advertising agency in my junior year (to earn tuition) and asked if they would like to have the president of an advertising agency interview for an entry-level brand management job.

It worked. I debriefed my classmate to find out what they asked him. Then I interviewed grocers in the area to get their feedback on P&G. One said that “they’re so big, they could be successful with anything.” I fully researched P&G and the division which they were interviewing me for. I researched their annual reports and Advertising Age and knew their brands. Without the Internet!

They flew me out to Cincinnati and had me interview with brand managers. I told the BM on Crest that one grocer I talked to said that they could be successful with any new products, because they were so big. His response was “how do you think we got to be that way?” Touché. I got the job. And now, much later in life, I’ve had a market research firm I founded 30 years ago in high tech, glad that P&G is the first job on my credentials. Be creative and dig deep! Be more than well informed, talk to people and ask good questions in the interview. It demonstrates what you’ll be like on the job.