One time, a boy left a deep impression on me. Many of the candidates in this interview have talked about a lot of glamorous internships in multinational companies, he did not. Because he is a science student, his school is very important, and he spends most of his time on his homework. Asked about his experience in social practice, he said frankly no.
Ask again, he asked: “Is it worth selling milk on campus?”
He said that when he saw a brand milk company recruiting a part-time sales manager at the school on the BBS, he went to apply. Said to be a sales manager, in fact, is to order milk. And he is willing to do it, because there are more than 10,000 people living in the school, even if only half of them book milk, this number is huge. A bottle of milk can earn four cents, he has calculated, I think it can be done.
Really doing it, he found out that things are not that simple. First, developing subscribers is far more difficult than he imagined. Selling on the floor of your own dormitory, there are very few people who order milk. Many people think that drinking milk every day is too much trouble. If you want to drink, you can buy it again.
I think that girls may be more willing to order milk, but he can’t enter the girls’ dormitory. After running for a day, he found that running more than 90 dormitory buildings in a complete school is not something that one can do. He decided to recruit more people.
He divided the school into seven districts and recruited seven people through the BBS. He gave the four cents of milk per bottle a profit to these people. These people started to be very happy. After one day of sales, some people retired and said that there are too few people who are really willing to order milk. How to do it? He thought of printing an advertisement for milk at the restaurant door and letting everyone taste the milk for free.
In the first month, he did not make a penny, the money was in the cost: to the seven students; print advertising; buy the temporarily canceled milk. From the second month onwards, he changed his strategy: he told his classmates when ordering milk. If you want to cancel the delivery, you need to advance three days in advance because he reports to the milk company every three days.
In the second month, he started making money, but not much. An important reason is loss, there is a mistake, there are orders that are not updated in time, there are temporary unsubscribe.
He found that these errors were caused by the company’s ordering system, because the system could not reflect the situation of each subscriber and was updated in three days, which was not flexible. So he updated from time to time, manually recorded the order of milk and milk. Since then, the error rate has dropped a lot. At the beginning of the third month, he made more money.
In the fifth month, he decided not to do it. Because the summer vacation is over, he is too tired. When you send milk, you get up at four or five every day to receive the goods. From day to night, he has to deal with a lot of calls. He also often encourages seven “subordinates” to deal with the contradictions between them. “I am not afraid of hardship, but I feel that through these I have exercised the ability to communicate, coordinate, and bring teams. I decided not to do it.
He passed the face and entered the final group. The group face was made in English and he was obviously struggling. After the group ended, when discussing him, the company’s global HRD (Human Resources Director) directly said NO, but I have different opinions: “He did not perform well in the first 50 minutes, but I think he will be more and more in the future. The better. He is slow-heating, I think it can still be considered.”
“He didn’t show leadership!”
“There is some candidate’s leadership through a strong and powerful tone, strong gestures and a confident expression. He is not, he is exerting influence through his own ideas.”
“His expression is not good.”
“Exactly, his English ability is not good. When he is in the face, he can express himself very clearly. And English can be trained in the end.”
There are other interviewers who support my point of view. Finally, the global HRD is convinced. During the break, HRD in China communicated with me. He said: “You are very good. We can really recruit such people. Foreigners like smart children, but we need children who can work hard and work hard.”
