
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993                   TAG: 9305280004
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LEIGH ALLEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IF THEY KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOU COULD GET LUCKY

Brian Robinson was strolling through the Radford University jobs fair last fall when his eye landed on a display promoting New York securities brokerage Smith Barney Harris Upham & Co. Inc.

Wall Street.

A 21-year-old finance major with a modest 3.1 grade-point average at Radford, Robinson had aspired to work for an accounting firm somewhere near his home in Northern Virginia.

But after a brief conversation with the Smith Barney recruiter, Robinson dropped in his resume with an estimated 10,000 other applications from around the country.

This week, he's packing for New York, one of 12 people Smith Barney hired for its capital markets units trading corporate bonds.

Robinson is quick to reveal his secret to defying lottery-size odds in order to land what he calls "the greatest job out of the whole business department" at Radford: Keep reminding them of who you are, he said.

"I would read The Wall Street Journal every day and start picking up on the names of the big hitters," Robinson said.

He would then pick up the telephone and call them in their offices in New York.

"I'd say, `Hey, I understood what you were saying and I agree with you,' " Robinson said. "Sometimes they would talk to me for five minutes; if they had time, sometimes a little longer."

Then, Robinson would end the conversation by asking if he could send the Smith Barney broker a resume. He said he made several contacts that way who helped him get the job.

"All it takes is to have someone remember your name to move your resume from one pile to another," he said. "You just have to keep reminding them of who you are."

by CNB