(March 22, 2018) Getting asked a question in the job interview to which you don’t have an answer can feel like a deal breaker. For Brennan Mense, it was a chance to turn a potential negative into a positive. His quick thinking has helped Mense land with the Gary SouthShore RailCats as a broadcasting and media relations assistant.
Mense applied for the position after learning about it through STAA. “I didn’t hear anything back so I didn’t really think anything about it,” he says. “Then out of the blue in early February I received an email from Jared Shlensky, the Gary No. 1, looking to interview me.”
During the interview, Shlensky (also an STAA member) surprised Mense by asking if he had ideas for improving the RailCats social media brand. “I said I didn’t off the top of my head, but offered to brainstorm some ideas and send them to him,” says Mense, who shared his ideas the next day.
“I felt good that I basically volunteered to do a homework project on behalf of their organization, even when I was nowhere close to pulling down the job.”
Mense’s baseball resume includes interning in the Kansas City Royals media relations department and broadcasting games in the independent Pecos League. Gary is Mense’s first opportunity to do both for an organization.
“With the Royals, I was exclusively doing media relations, but I was helping out three other staff members, so while the experience was great, I also didn’t need to do as much. In the Pecos League, there wasn’t much else to do besides broadcasting because there’s no such thing as media relations there.”
Now Mense will spend the summer honing those skills for an organization he admires. “Gary is consistently competitive and plays in a league that offers good, quality baseball.”
(Visit Brennan’s LinkedIn page).