CHAPTER 1

The Origin of the Career Launch Method

I was the first person on my mom’s side of the family to go to a four-year college, and my dad was the first person in his family to do so, after he attended community college.

My life changed in the middle of my junior year. At the age of twenty, I hadn’t given any thought to life after college. I was sitting in Professor Al Ferrer’s sports management class at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I had transferred after attending a community college. Professor Ferrer told the class he had five summer internships with professional sports teams to hand out.

He asked the students, “Who’s interested?”

As you might imagine with a class of sports management students, everyone’s hand went up.

Professor Ferrer went on to say, “The only fair way I know to select who receives the internships is to reward the students with the best grades.”

Upon hearing this, my shoulders slumped and I put my head down. I was far from being one of the best students. My grades consisted of mostly Bs and a few Cs.

But then Professor Ferrer continued, “If you are not one of the students with the best grades but you consider yourself a hard worker, come see me during my office hours and I will provide some tips to increase your chances of landing an internship with a professional sports team, even if you do not have any connections.”

That line resonated with me because I considered myself a hard worker. My first job, during middle school, was delivering newspapers door to door at 4:00 a.m. In high school, I played sports and still worked as a cashier at the local pizza restaurant. In my first year of college, I started a four-year stint working for the kitchen knife company Cutco.

Although I had this work experience, I didn’t have a résumé or cover letter. So I went home, found some examples on my career center’s website, and quickly put together the documents. I showed up at my professor’s office hours the next day, eager to learn about how to land an internship with a professional sports team.

Professor Ferrer told me that I needed to “zig when others zag.” Applying to sports internships on the internet, well, that is what everybody does (zagging). I needed to take a different approach. I needed to have a holistic and proactive approach that included being targeted and strategic (zigging). I needed to do more than the typical student to stand out.

HOW TO ZIG WHEN OTHERS ZAG

That night, I made a list of the five professional sports teams that I would love to work for. Being a San Francisco Bay Area native, I targeted the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, San Francisco Giants, Oakland A’s, and Golden State Warriors.

Next, I made a list of the employees I thought could be strategically beneficial to me at each team. I realized that chief executive officers, chief financial officers, and chief operating officers don’t hire interns. Neither do entry-level employees. At most reasonably sized organizations, people in director or manager positions hire interns. So I went to each team’s website and online search engines (LinkedIn did not exist at the time), researched the names of all the directors and managers I could find, and added the names to a spreadsheet. I wasn’t picky about finding the perfect department or division within the organization because I simply wanted to get my foot in the door.

On my spreadsheet, I added any additional information I could find about these people. For example, their email addresses, phone numbers, mailing address, and miscellaneous information such as educational background (and institutions), prior employers, favorite books, hobbies, and the like.

When I finished the spreadsheet, I narrowed my list to six directors at each of the five teams for whom I had enough information to reach out. I had a total of thirty business professionals who could potentially help me land an internship.

That was the easy part. Now it was time to figure out how to get any of these directors to engage with me. I thought to myself, I’m going to go old school. I’m going to send a cover letter and résumé via the U.S. Postal Service—snail mail. Not only that, but I also decided to print the documents on extra-thick card stock paper to showcase my extra effort. From my job experience with Cutco, I knew that little things can make a big difference in standing out from the crowd.

I purchased oversize envelopes (9 × 12 inches), because I knew that an oversize envelope was more likely to get noticed and opened than a regular-size envelope. I even thought about what type of pen I would use to handwrite the address and return address on the envelope. I knew a ballpoint pen would look puny, so I decided to use a Sharpie.

It took many hours over several days to create thirty envelopes with personalized cover letters to each director, but I felt that this was what it would take to land an internship in one of the most competitive industries in the world. I was very excited when I finished the project, and I dropped off the thirty envelopes at the post office. But was my excitement realistic? I knew that all thirty people wouldn’t respond to me, but how many would? Two or three? Five or six? Ten or twelve?

After the first four days, I didn’t have any responses.

After a week, still no responses.

After ten days, nothing. Not even an email acknowledging my gesture.

After fourteen days, I walked into Professor Ferrer’s office and told him I had not received any responses. I was frustrated and depressed. The excitement that I had two weeks prior was long gone.

Professor Ferrer replied, “You know what you need to do next, right?”

I said no.

He said, “You need to call them.”

I said, “Call them?” There was no way I could call these professionals. I was a pimple-faced, dyed-hair college student with average grades. Who was I to be intruding on their time? It would be rude of me to call them. Plus, I didn’t know what I would say or what to do if they answered the phone.

Professor Ferrer said, “You’re telling me that you can’t dial someone’s phone number and when they answer, say ‘Hi, this is Sean O’Keefe, a student at UC Santa Barbara. I sent you a letter in the mail and I was wondering if you received it.’ You can’t say that?”

“Okay,” I said. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“If they say ‘Yes, I did,’ you then ask the person to advise you about the next step they would suggest for a student like you to take in obtaining an informational interview or internship. And if they say ‘No, I didn’t get your letter,’ you say that you’re interested in earning an informational interview or internship and ask if it would be okay to send them an email with a copy of your résumé and cover letter.”

Despite feeling apprehensive, I brightened up and said, “Yeah, I can do that.”

So, for the next three days, I called ten of the professionals on my list each day. I was hoping that someone would invite me into the interview process for a summer internship, or at least an informational interview.

Most people didn’t answer the phone call and I had to leave voice mail messages. Some of the people who did answer told me I needed to contact the human resources department, some told me to call back in a couple months, and some told me there were no internships available in their department.

I received many rejections in response to my inquiries. In total, nobody invited me in for any kind of interview. I was dejected and feeling defeated. I gave serious thought to giving up. But the story is not over. Through my proactive outreach, by zigging, I was building a positive personal brand and reputation.

MOVING PAST REJECTION

After these rejections, I remembered my manager at Cutco, Stephen Torres, teaching me about the art of professional persistence. Professional persistence means that people who are asking for something should walk the line between being aggressive and avoiding follow-up. Continually contacting busy professionals is rude, but well-timed follow-up messages can show your commitment and increase your chances of success. Professional persistence alone will not earn you the position you want. You must demonstrate competence and confidence that you will excel in the job or internship you are seeking.

I decided I would send a follow-up email to each of the thirty professionals the next week, call again the week after that, and send another email the week after that. If somebody gave me a definitive no, then I would cross them off my list and stop reaching out to them.

I was extremely nervous during my calls and voice mails, pacing around my dorm room, but I tried to sound more calm and mature than I felt. I reminded myself that the worst thing that could happen was someone saying no to my requests.

I knew that landing an internship would increase my chances of landing a job after graduation, so I tried all sorts of strategies and tactics to get my foot in the door. I asked for informational interviews. I asked when and how the formal interview process for interns would occur. I explained how I would do a great job in the role, if given the opportunity.

And you know what?

It worked!

Ten weeks after beginning this process and mailing out thirty envelopes, I landed an internship. I would report to Lisa Wood in the marketing department of the Oakland A’s!

Lisa told me that she had created the internship for me because of my efforts. I had convinced her that I could add value to her department. She told me that other candidates had reached out to her with better-looking résumés (higher GPAs, leadership positions with on-campus clubs, better experience, and so forth), but that because of my professional persistence and communication of competencies, she had felt compelled to create and design an internship for me.

Even though I grew up rooting for the San Francisco Giants, I was thrilled to have secured an internship with their rival Oakland A’s. You can’t be too picky when you are trying to land positions in highly competitive industries.

This was a pivotal point in my life. I had proven to myself, with help and advice from Professor Ferrer and Stephen Torres, that I could accomplish my lofty goal despite having no prior connections to the industry.

What an internship it was! Driving to the office meant driving to Oakland Coliseum, where the A’s played their baseball games. I got to be the note taker during marketing meetings and to interact with fans during ball games. I also did lots of grunt work, like stuffing envelopes, which I did with joy.

At the end of the internship, I asked Lisa for, and received, a letter of recommendation that would be valuable for future job applications and interviews.

LEVERAGING ONE INTERNSHIP TO LAND ANOTHER

One week later, I was back in school at UC Santa Barbara. My summer internship with the A’s gave me some credibility in the professional sports world, and I felt that I could use my momentum to make a compelling case to land another internship during my senior year. In my opinion, the greatest benefit of an internship is the opportunity to build personal relationships with people who make hiring decisions about full-time employees.

I now had industry experience and a letter of recommendation that I could strategically utilize as a reason to get back in touch with professionals from the other teams I had been contacting earlier in the year.

A San Francisco 49ers employee named Drew Casani in the Player Personnel Department had always taken my phone calls. It seemed like every time I called, he picked up. He would always begin, “Forty-Niners, this is Drew.”

When I had first started reaching out to Drew, he told me that the personnel department hired an intern every winter to help out with the college draft. However, he said that this position was always filled by somebody close to the team’s family (a son or daughter, niece or nephew, next-door neighbor, or similar), because the intern had access to highly confidential information.

At this point, I had spoken to Drew four or five times on the phone. I had a feeling I needed to create a stronger relationship with him. I told him about my experience with the A’s and my letter of recommendation, and I asked him if it would be okay if I stopped by his office to put a face to my voice when I headed home for Thanksgiving. He agreed.

As you can probably imagine, I put a lot of thought into how this face-to-face interaction would go. I planned out how I would greet him in the lobby, what kind of small talk I would make, what questions I would ask, and so on. (We’ll cover these details later.) I also thought about how I would strategically finish the conversation by handing him a hard copy of my letter of recommendation from the Oakland A’s, which would be inside the portfolio/notepad I would be carrying.

And that’s exactly what I did. When we spoke in the lobby of 49ers headquarters, I could tell that Drew appreciated my effort to meet him in person. One of the questions I asked during our conversation was whether the team had filled the internship since our last conversation. He said they hadn’t, and that if the team ended up in a situation where they didn’t have anyone “close to the family,” he would be sure to have the team interview me.

Even though this interview wasn’t guaranteed, I was already nervous. I would potentially get a chance to speak to the team’s leadership, and I didn’t want to blow it. To prepare, I scheduled a meeting with a career counselor through my school’s career center. The counselor was very helpful and recommended I schedule another appointment to utilize the center’s mock interview technology so that I could record myself conducting a practice interview. I did, and it boosted my confidence for a potential interview with Drew’s boss.

Fast-forward to January. I received a call from Drew saying that General Manager Terry Donohue would like to interview me for the winter internship.

I was excited beyond belief. Football was my favorite sport. Interning in the marketing department for the Oakland A’s was amazing, but the possibility of interning for the San Francisco 49ers’ Player Personnel Department was even more thrilling. I would be working directly for their coaches and scouts. Talk about a dream internship!

I thought about all the various aspects of successful interviewing, such as making small talk in the beginning, using stories to support answers to behavioral questions, maintaining good posture while seated, and making eye contact. I also studied 49ers history and statistics, but I was advised by my professor to not talk too much about being a fan of the team. It was much more important to convey how I would be effective in performing the duties of the internship.

On the day of the interview, there was no chance I was going to arrive late and jeopardize my opportunity. I planned to arrive thirty minutes before the interview and assumed the worst-case transportation scenario. There ended up being no issues, and I arrived seventy-five minutes early. Instead of checking in so early, I walked to a nearby coffee shop and reviewed my notes and the questions I had prepared. Twelve minutes prior to my interview time slot, I entered the 49ers building and checked in with the front desk. I was excited and nervous.

Drew came to the lobby to greet me and escorted me upstairs to a conference room where we spoke for about ten minutes until Terry Donohue, known as TD by his staff, was ready for us. Mr. Donohue’s assistant escorted me into his enormous office. TD greeted me and asked me to sit in a chair in front of his oversize dark brown desk.

He told me I had been highly recommended by Drew and he asked some general questions about my schooling and experience interning with the Oakland A’s. There were no trick questions or difficult questions about 49ers history.

In hindsight, I realize that the interview was simply a check on Drew’s recommendation, because after about fifteen minutes TD started asking questions as if I were already hired. He asked me about the number of hours I preferred to work per week and what my ideal end date would be. And then he gave me a verbal offer for a paid internship!

I, of course, said yes, and then he had his staff prepare a written offer letter before I left the building. I signed and returned the letter the next day.

My dream internship got even better on my first day. I was told that I would have access to the weight room and have my own locker in the employee locker room. Additionally, I would be flying with team personnel to the NFL combine in Indianapolis. I’d have my own hotel room, free meals, and a close-up view to watch all the college players run the forty-yard dash.

Again, I had to pinch myself.

I was the “average grade” college student. I didn’t have any prior connections to people at professional sports teams. But here I was with a football fan’s internship of a lifetime. And it would not have occurred if I hadn’t used the momentum from my A’s internship as a reason to circle back with Drew.

GRADUATING WITHOUT A JOB

I knew my internships with the Oakland A’s and San Francisco 49ers would increase my chances of earning a full-time position in professional sports after graduation, but I also knew that, like most things in life, it wasn’t guaranteed. Professional sports teams do not operate like the accounting industry, in which summer interns frequently receive full-time offers for after graduation, soon after their internship ends.

During spring quarter of my senior year, I spent a lot of time trying, once again, to get job interviews with sports teams, but I was unsuccessful.

I graduated from UC Santa Barbara that June without a job.

I was pretty disappointed in myself. Why hadn’t my efforts paid off with a full-time job?

My instincts told me that focusing solely on online applications was not going to land me a job I wanted, so I decided to double down on my approach of building relationships with professionals. I expanded my search from only sports teams to also include sports companies such as Nike, Under Armour, and Callaway Golf. In total, I conducted more than twenty career conversations and formal job interviews.

I still wasn’t successful, and I was quickly running out of money. All I had was a bunch of rejection letters and emails. I had moved back home with my parents after graduation. They supported my desire for a job in sports, but they told me I could only live with them rent-free until September 1.

The end of summer came and I needed money to pay rent, so I took the first job I could get. This job turned out to be with Boise Cascade, a company that sells paper and office furniture. However, instead of settling into my role as a Boise employee and giving up entirely on the jobs I really wanted, I spent my lunch hours, nights, and weekends in pursuit of a position in sports, because I knew I would be more valuable to such an organization and would be more fulfilled personally.

One of the directors at the Oakland A’s told me in August that the A’s would be hiring three people for their business development team after the baseball season ended in late September/ October. I knew I had a competitive advantage over other candidates because of my internships and the relationships I had built with employees from the marketing department who could recommend me.

On nights and weekends, I took time to reach out to these people. I made sure to express my enthusiasm for the business development role and I spent a lot of time thinking about strategic ways to stay in frequent contact with these people without annoying them. For example, in October, before the interview process began, I sent an email to the director of business development that included letters of recommendations from Lisa Wood, Stephen Torres, and Al Ferrer. Each letter affirmed my competence for the job. Subsequently, I spaced out follow-up emails and mailed handwritten notes to further express my qualifications and desire to join the business development team.

My proactive, strategic communication worked!

In November 2002, five months after graduation, I landed a full-time job in the business development department of the Oakland A’s. I was responsible for finding businesses and organizations to purchase season tickets and luxury suites to utilize for client entertainment and employee benefits.

My hiring manager told me that my follow-up from August to November demonstrated my ability to communicate professionally and made it an easy decision to select me for one of the three open positions.

It took a lot of effort, but I accomplished my goal and launched my career.