Description
In Chapter 8 of 13, Caroline Giegerich shares how she landed a marketing job at HBO. After a personal network introduction to the HBO job opportunity, Giegerich finds herself faced with answering "How Many Gas Stations Are There in Iowa?"
Transcript
Erick Michielson: How did you land your job at HBO? Caroline Giegerich: Well I was at the LA Times and to be honest I felt like the group that I was working at was a very small part of a company that was struggling. Well at the time, a friend from college actually was working at HBO and called me up and he said, “You know, there’s a new position here at HBO. It's basically exactly what you do there but, you know here at HBO, would you be interested in”—well I have been wanting to work at HBO since I was a kid. Well yes, I’d be interested. And so I came in and I flew in from LA, I got to the interview and I actually had five meetings with HBO the first day and all of them were different you know. You have the person that was very easy pleasy and you could just have a casual conversation. And then I will never forget it. The person that I never expected to ask me the Microsoft question, ask me the following question. She’s very like adorable woman that works in sales and she said to me, “Well let me ask you this, if you are to tell me how many gas stations there were in the State of Iowa what would you say?” And so I’m like, she’s really asking me this! Oh my God! And so, like hold on for a second. I got up my pad, I think I wrote something that—I think OF, you know on a piece of paper. And then I started thinking, Oh God, okay so how many people are there in Iowa? How many people that's in gas station and then I gave her some—some answer right and I’m just freaking out. I’m sitting in my sit freaking out and she goes that is exactly the answer that I gave on my interview three years ago, whatever, I’m like whoah. So I actually think that the proper answer to that Iowa Gas Station conversation is part of the reason I got my job at HBO.
