I have thought a lot lately about what I want to do when I finish my degree in May. My background and experience qualifies me to work in agricultural sales and marketing. However, having worked in the corn and soybean sales industry, I have learned that I did not excell running my own territory. While I was working in Ohio, I managed $3 million dollars in seed sales. I was very good in front of people, I knew my products and gave good information to customers I came in contact with. I also learned that I am not ready to run my own business. I had a hard time understanding how much time to spend with which clients. This lead to a lot of confussion and not a lot gets done when you don't know where to go next.
I believe I am ready for a new challenge. I want to work in an industry where everyday I can learn something new and work with people who care about my success. Where I need to rely on the expertise of others and at the same time bring my knowledge and experience to the table to make a company grow. I think I found this opportunity with National City Bank. I found an advertisement for a job on www.monster.com in Western Pennsylvania as an agricultural representative.
In this position I would work with the company's large agricultural accounts to build relationships and trust. I would serve as a liason between the other branches of the bank and the agricultural lending division to relay the issues and special needs of our agricultural clients. 50% of the position is based on growing and improving the quality of the agricultural portfolio and the other 50% is working with branch managers and other National City team members to keep them up to date on the needs of our agricultural customers.
In the qualifications section of the job ad, National City states they would like someone with a degree in agriculture, business or the work experience equivilant. They also want someone with five years of business experience with consultive sales training. The last section of the job qualifications talks about someone who can independently analyze and solve problems and has excellent problem solving skills with leadership training. I believe I possess all of the skills neccessary for this job and I bring unique experiences that will allow me to excell within the company. I will recieve a degree in agricultural communications from a well respected program (Michigan State University) and I have spent the last year working for the largest agribusiness in the world. I also sold agricultural equipment advertising for three years for the largest agricultural newspaper in the state of Michigan. I spent a year on Michigan State's livestock judging team, traveling the country analyzing and making independent decisions on some of the best livestock in the world. I have worked independently within the agricultural industry and have recieved leadership training from leaders within the agricultural industry since I entered high school.
Throughout the job description, there are several key phrases that give great insight into the skills needed for this job. I believe I have the skills and drive to accomplish all of these things and find a home with National City.
Independently analyze problems: While working for Syngenta, I worked on my own with customers to satisfy their needs. I also have experience with problem solving while selling advertising in Michigan and serving in leadership positions within clubs and organizations thoughout high school and college.
Act on decisions: Following though on situations is what I did everyday while running my seed business or making independent decisions on livestock selections that effect many people.
Customer problem solving skills: While working in Ohio, many of the phone calls I recieved everyday were dealing with customer problems. I learned to deal with people individually and how to handle situations and make decisions that were best for my business. I also have dealt with problem solving in the retail business while working for Family Video.
Consultive sales: Determining a customers wants and needs is what I have been taught is the most important part of selling. In everything I have sold, it is about knowing your product well enough so that you can evaluate what the customer needs and adapting your products or services to meet those needs.
Customer relationships: I had it drilled into my head at Syngenta that customer relationships are the key to selling. It will be my job to find and develop these relationships with customers within the lending industry to establish trust to ensure a positive business relationship.
Customer service: Working with people is what I have built my career training around. I have tried to experience many areas of the agricultural industry to broaden my background to better serve the people I work with. However, the most important thing I have learned about customer service is that you must know your product and what your customers need from you.
My dad has worked in the agricultural lending industry for most of his life. I have never been interested in that line of work until I stumbled across this job advertisement. I believe that I would enjoy the challenge of working with people outside the agricultural industry, while still being a part of it. Although I am not familiar with the banking industry, I have skills and talents that would benefit National City Bank in their Agricultural Representative position.
http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=78468287&JobTitle=Agricultu...
Selling Seed
Yeah I never really thought about the agricultural side of sales and marketing. Selling seed to farmers seems like a good business from what you said. I actually come from a small town where agriculture affects a large portion of the town. We have always had classes on farming and agriculture but the classes never really focus on the sales and marketing side of it. I think the opportunity with National City Bank sounds like a great job though. Working for a bank always seems like a great idea for people in sales and marketing. It is good that you were involved into the agricultural business at a young age. That will probably help you get an edge on other people in the agricultural business. Especially with the economy and everything recently, having an edge on other people is very important.
Serving as a liason between the bank and the agricultural companies sounds pretty interesting. It is kind of interesting because your just being the middle man to a business you already know. I would have never thought that a bank needs a person to communicate within businesses. I am going for a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and everyone always thinks that working for manufacturing companies or other businesses is the only thing to do after college. Before getting into Mechanical Engineering I heard that Mechanical Engineering Sales is a prosperous business. It is sort of the same thing as what you are talking about with branching out into other businesses. Although going through four years of college to not use your degree to its full potential would be different. But the sales industry can be promising enough to succeed with the degree you originally went for.
Instructor commentary
OK, I think this is overall a very well-formed response. It really provides a lot of interesting details about how you and this position are well-suited for each other. The section in which you identify specific key words in the job ad and describe how you match them is also quite useful. However, in this section, you want to be specific and concrete in your descriptions. Stating: "Following though on situations is what I did everyday while running my seed business or making independent decisions on livestock selections that effect many people," is probably not as effective as providing an explicit example of an instance when you had to make a specific tough decision and see it through to the end. Think what a great story you could tell by briefly establishing a real dilemma that you had to face on the job and how you were able to show strong decision-making ability and leadership. Think how much better a concrete example would be than just stating that you make hard decisions all the time. The golden rule of employment documents is show, don't tell. Specific stories stick; general statements don't.
Also, you should turn to a discussion of how your analysis shapes your cover letter (and other documents). Recall that the assignment description states: "Think of the Job Ad Analysis as a prelude to the Cover Letter." You should make tentative determinations about what the central theme or argument of your cover letter will be and how you will use the material in this analysis correspondingly. You want to treat this analysis as groundwork for the documents ahead of you, which means attention to both content and structure.
Overall, however, you've got a fine start, and you should be able to mine much of this content for your other employment documents.