Steve Wilson was on top of the world. Three years after first sending out his resume, then following up with over 100 query letters, he thought he’d finally gotten his foot in the door at Chicago’s Glancy Advertising.
He soon discovered, however, that he’d misread the address and had mistakenly gotten his foot in the door of an entirely different company – VeraLite Luggage, also located in the Parsons Building, but on the floor directly above Glancy.
“They tell you how important it is to get your foot in the door,” says Wilson, 25, an aspiring copywriter. “What they should tell you is to double check to make sure you’re getting it in the right door.”
At any given time there are 34 million people trying to get their foot in the door of a US company, says Dr. Glenn Simmon of the Pinsicle Institute. Amazingly, he says, 3.6 percent get it in the wrong door.
“Most of them realize their mistake and pull it right back out,” says Simmon. “With some, on the other hand, it doesn’t hit them until after they’ve been hired.” He cites one case of a man, now in his late 70s, who 50 years ago thought he’d gotten his foot in the door of a New York tattoo parlor. Instead, it was in the door of a hotel, and he ultimately became a real estate billionaire and politician.
Wilson – who had been anxious to start using some of his advertising ideas like singing porcupines and nuns racing each other in golf carts – found himself working at VeraLite and wondering how to get his foot back in Glancy’s door. But after just two weeks he was promoted to make-up case specialist, and now he says he’s considering staying put.
“There’s probably more security,” he says. “People are always going to need to pack.”
