S1E4 The Hunt for a Marketing Midas: “Day 3 - Anamika”
Divya K
“Mogu, I’m telling you, if you forget to bring tinde today evening, I won’t make food for you ever again.” Mrs. Mogambo, boiling with fury, warned Mr. Mogambo.
“Uff… she never makes peace with her bhindis and tindas.” Mr. Mogambo murmured to himself.
“Yeah yeah. I will not forget to bring your tindas dear.” Saying this, Mr. Mogambo left for work.
On reaching his office and settling into his room, he logged into Expertite and reviewed the candidate’s profile to refresh himself. As he was about to check his emails, Ramlal’s call came.
“Sir, a lady is here for the interview.”
“Okay. Send her in.”
Anamika who had come for the interview was a beautiful lady, with a happy face, wide mouth and defined features. Looks impressive, thought Mr. Mogambo.
“Hello Sir, May I come in?”
“Hello Anamika, please come in. I hope you didn’t face any difficulty reaching here.”
“No No, Sir. It was all very comfortable, just that the cab driver was so talkative. The whole time he kept talking and talking and talking. He wouldn’t even listen to me. Just kept babbling about the roads, potholes, rain, traffic and only God remembers what else. I was so bored. I’m telling you these Uber and Ola drivers can be sometimes very talkative. Why, even last evening … ” and she went on and on for about 2 - 3 minutes more.
A little shaken by the abrupt outburst from her, Mr. Mogambo took a few moments to calm down and then he said, “Okay, so Anamika, tell me something briefly about yourself.”
“Basically, I am the Marketing Team lead at [blanked out] and a dramatics enthusiast. I have a very rich work experience in sales & marketing. I am an artist at heart and I believe that creativity plays a big role in enhancing sales and market value. I must tell you this link between marketing and creativity is just the tip of the iceberg. It is so deep. I believe that…” and again she went on and on.
Mr. Mogambo tried to break her speech by asking her something but couldn’t stop her flow. So he thought it was wiser to just wait for her to stop herself.
And as she stopped for a second to catch her breath perhaps, Mr. Mogambo found the loophole he was seeking to start speaking, and he popped the next question, “Tell me about your strengths, very briefly please.”
Anamika started again, “I am good at conceptualising, designing and implementing comprehensive marketing strategies to create meaningful awareness about the company's business activities, products, services, achievements, moments of pride and glory, corporate social responsibility, environmental sensitivity and other aspects in the minds of the target audience through both mainstream, social and alternative media. I believe I am a pro at supervising the marketing department and providing guidance and feedback to other marketing professionals as well as to other stakeholders in the Company who may have indirect linkages to how the marketing function could potentially be impacting their areas of operation, in a large or small manner. Last but not the least, producing creative ideas for promotional events or activities and organizing them efficiently and effectively, within budget constraints and extremely tight deadlines, is something I get kudos in.”
Mr. Mogambo had not tried to interrupt this time. Thankfully, this answer, though neither crisp nor concise, was relatively better than the last one. So he dived into his next question, “Do you consider yourself suitable for the position here in Bitter Chocolate Inc.?”
“Of course, I do. I believe my immensely rich and diverse experience in every aspect of marketing from offline to online, from brick and mortar to digital, from manual to automated, from business to business, to business to consumer, to business to government, from small teams to large teams, across marketing budgets, small or large, as well as my team leadership experience and mentoring abilities has built a strong foundation for my candidature. So, overall, I really consider myself suitable for this job here in Bitter Chocolate Inc.”
“Sounds a lot. Please tell me about the biggest challenge you've faced till date?”
“Once we were struggling with inbound lead generation, and hence losing our ability to attract future prospects. And a struggle with lead generation also meant that we were losing sales which were hurting our financials. There was a lot of blame game which created a very negative environment in our organisation. You know how one thing leads to another, right? This problem was probably caused by ineffective measures used to reach and engage our target audience. So, what I did was that I started reassessing which methods we were utilizing to reach our target audience. I personally spoke to several prospects from this audience?...” and she went on and on and on.
Mr. Mogambo looked at this watch, it had been more than an hour and a half since the interview started and he had another meeting starting in 30 minutes. None of his efforts to hint to her that this was an interview, not a marketing seminar on inbound lead generation, seemed to be fruitful.
“Uh… okay… Umm. Yeah, I understand…Fine… Anamika…” Mogambo kept trying to cut her softly, but still no success.
“You know, using referrals to grow brand awareness is a cost-effective solution. If you’re not focusing on referral marketing, maybe now it’s time to get started. That’s what the mantra is.”
And finally her lecture came to an end, well, let’s say, “hopefully”.
Mogambo thought to himself, “Leading a team not only requires good knowledge but also listening skills, a very crucial aspect that this lady seems to be perhaps missing. Just speaking without listening can be a limiting factor in many respects.”
Breaking his thoughts, he said, “Okay Anamika, it was nice talking to you. I think we should wrap up our discussion for today. You do have good ideas. But I hope you give a chance to others to speak up and listen to them as well.”
“Oh yes, I am a very good listener, my mom thinks so at least!”
To this, Mogambo’s eyes became wide but he restrained himself from showing his disagreement, and responded with a smile.
“Thank you so much, Sir. It was really nice talking to you. You know I had an uncle who looked just like you, before he left for his heavenly abode. You reminded me of him. He loved it when I made tinde for him. You know what happened once when I was going to office and…” and her story started once again.
Mr. Mogambo ignored all of her ramblings and smiled and said, “Okay, Anamika, our HR will communicate further with you. Take care.”
“Thank you, Sir. You too.”
As the lady left the room, Mr. Mogambo was again a little dejected by the loss of one more day over a ‘not-so-efficient’ candidate. But he also believed that a little wait for what’s worth was fine. At least she reminded me about the tindas, otherwise my lady would throw me out forever. He thought and smiled to himself. And ran for his meeting.
Don’t miss to check on the next episode with another candidate.
About the author: Divya K
In case you missed the last 3 episodes, here they are: