Tejas – You pronounce the J. It is NOT Tehas

I told one of my friends that i am moving to Seattle, Washington to work for Microsoft. And his first reaction was, how did you manage to get into Microsoft? hmmm, i can take it two ways, may be he meant to say, “how the hell did YOU get into Microsoft?” or may be “wow, what did you do get in Microsoft?”

I’ll take the second one, because i know my friend meant it in nice way or at least that’s how i would like to see it. To answer, “how did you manage to do that?”, first thing i do is laugh and than i go and tell my story that one beautiful day in October a recruiter called me and told me that he found my resume and told me about the position.

However, here’s the real thing. It’s the search industry. It is really really hot right now, all the companies, small and large, have slowly begin to see the advantages of online advertising and how easy and cheap it is compared to other advertising mediums. Costs are low, ROI is high compared to other mediums. Plus you can reach wide number of customers by advertising online. Especially, with MSN advertising, you can target based on country, time of the day, day of the week, age group, male/female criterias. Most of my friends/family are just unfamiliar with online advertising and search because this industry is in its infancy and may be one day in near future everyone will take notice of it.
Online advertising is so hot now that, all the jobs i have applied to, related to online marketing, i have at least received a phone call and sometimes in-office interviews. Now, how amazing is that? So this is what Internet Boom felt like in late 90s, huh? I dont’ mean to brag but i have received calls from small SEO firms to big companies like JCPenny, Fossil, Hotels.com, and Verizon. You must be wondering, how come i didn’t get job there? Well, because they wanted someone with managerial experience which i don’t have, at least right now.

So, next time when someone asks me, “how did you manage to get in Microsoft?”, may be i’ll explain to them the search industry or may be i will just point them to this blog and they’ll understand.

Tejas Shah