Corporate gatekeepers: how they help and hurt & five sure fire ways to get past them

Hispanic Times Magazine, May-June, 1997 by Valentino B. Martinez

College students! Working professionals! Looking for access to some of the best jobs of the future? How about a key point of contact to promote your product(s) or service(s)? Well good luck in trying to gain access to corporate America. Ever notice how, when you call, visit or write-"they" are either in: "meetings, traveling, on vacation, on the other line, gone for the afternoon, in training, booked for the rest of the day, week, month or year, or are simply not responding to the page." Of is it just for me? Depending on who and what your purpose is for the contact-they can be artful dodgers in terms of avoiding contact. And when and if you finally do make contact, "they" will immediately refer you on to someone more appropriately positioned to "handle" you. Well, it's not bad manners and, mostly it's not personal. It's business. By design most executives simply don't have the time it would take to meet and greet, or, at minimum, correspond with all those who seek contact. For this reason they depend on intermediaries. Go-betweens. I call them "gatekeepers" of Gks, for short. They take the referral and, for the lack of a better term, intercept and deal with it?

The dependable, efficient and always available "gatekeeper" can occupy a range of positions. They can be receptionists, secretaries, executives, human resources administrators, employment managers of senior recruiters. When I recently approached Texaco to suggest my availability and interest in assisting with their human resources debacle, the gatekeeper who sprung forward was their public relations director (by letter). However, I suspect his secretary is actually working off a signed form letter and sending out bundles in response to all of us who want to help. So depending on what your purpose is, a variety of corporate representatives are on the ready to snag you and dispatch you post haste. And dispatch you they will. In moments a GK can convert you into: toast, history, dust, a file to bury, an after thought or what typically remain s of Wile E. Coyote after an ACME product disaster. They're good as slice and dicers. They take special pride in their job of making short work of the unwanted, uninvited and the undeserving. Sometimes you and sometimes me.

Understanding this dynamic helps you appreciate that gatekeepers have a basic mission. That is to: block, stop, defer, screen, reject, prevent, halt or approve your access. If you meet, match, fit, resemble or have the personal chemistry or contacts, service, product or hook they seek-you're in. If not-you're out. If you are uninvited-you're pretty much DOA (dead on arrival). GKs pride themselves on protecting their respective companies from the non-fitting "traffic" that seeks entrance and therefore access to: jobs, service contracts, partnerships, key people, etc. And don't even think about corresponding with the powers that beCEOs, Presidents and even Vice Presidents. They're busy. Too busy for the likes of you and I. Unless you're invited or can pass the gauntlet of gatekeeper levels-forget about it. You are not getting in.

So what can you do? Do you have options? Well, once again, you have come to the right place, Hispanic Times magazine, and an access strategist with both scar tissue and accomplishments to speak of. Having been there and done that to some degree, I am happy to share a few of my insights based on real-life tales of successful access by me and others. In this presentation I will also highlight five concepts for your consideration. Having knowledge of them may be helpful in your next trek out into corporate America. My intent is to give you five ways of gaining better access regardless of the corporate GK capability. Ready?

Five Ways to Get Past the Gatekeeper Way #1). Take Rejection Personal--categorize and learn from its instructional lessons.

Take it personal in the sense that "rejection" is always instructional. Learn from it and categorize what you have learned about yourself, your approach, your presentation, your interface and your retreat. Rejection and failure are rich with motivatots and benchmarkers from which to improve on. Don't get mad, get smart. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is a "crash and burn" here and there. It's a reminder not to take yourself, your luck of your circumstances for granted. Life can be fickle, but it's always fluid. Often, what works today is canceled. Whether you are attempting to get a date, apply for a job of make a sale. Rejection suggests that something is out of sync and it may be wholly on your side of the equation. Bad breath? Lousy sales presentation? Weak resume? It can happen, but it also suggests that it can be repaired. Brush regularly, practice, practice and practice some more that genuinely embraced sales pitch. Benchmark other resume styles and ways of projecting your experience on paper. Also, keep an eye out for the deeper mesage. Maybe the chemistry is not there. This job, company or customer may not be for you. Get over it and beyond it. Stay hungry and ready to learn from your stumbles, for your next step forward.