Student reaches for career at Under Amour with perseverance
Written by Marc Schlecht, Photo courtesy of Marc Schlecht
Last year, I was in search of opportunities for the coming summer. I have always wanted to work at Under Armour. At the time, I was in the process of getting a summer internship there. However, after an interview, I found out I didn’t make the cut for the internship. Since this was my second summer in a row I got this far in the internship process and didn’t get it, I thought I had to come up with a new approach. I wanted to stand out by making myself seem like a valuable person. I quickly googled, “What are Under Armour’s biggest problems” clicking on the first link it brought me to an article that broke down all the things Under Armour needed to do to improve its business.
I chose one and began thinking how I could use my skills as a designer to help solve or at the very least, put a dent in this problem. I developed some mind maps and created a concept for what I thought would work. Like in all our classes, I decided to research this data so I could back up my concept and have this idea be taken more seriously. I did some simple primary research such as interviewing a few random people. Another way to make my idea taken more seriously was to research some basic ways that Under Armour could go about implementing this concept.
I google searched recruiters at Under Armour and was able to find all their contact information. I wrote a letter about who I was, why I was taking on this challenge and why I would be a great addition to the Under Armour team. I made a separate PDF for each person I was cold emailing to make it more personal and not just a mass email. The subject line of the email was “I SOLVED A UA PROBLEM.”
This caught the eye of one recruiter. He passed my name around the company and someone else was impressed and reached out to me. He said if I was ever in the area, I should get in contact with him. So, this summer I drove down with the mission to meet this guy and the recruiter. The experience was great. He took the time out of his day to give me a tour of the whole headquarters where I got to see everything and meet even more people.
The project, in total, took five hours from the first google search to sending the email. By sending one email, I found myself in the heart of my dream company to work for, interviewing for a position. At first I was worried I was wasting five hours of my time, but it ended being the most valuable five hours I spent. Now, I wish I spent more to really wow them. For me, this was great. Like many designers, I am introverted and bad at interviewing, but this tactic allowed me to play to my strengths rather than having to play to my weaknesses.
