One of the perks of studying at UCD for one of your CEMS semesters is that you get to be involved with the huge tech firms that reside in Dublin! There are many companies with their EMEA HQ in Dublin, including Google, Facebook, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Indeed, Hubspot, and more. Because of this, the area is even referred to as the 'Silicon Docks'!

This time, on February 14th, 2020, we were lucky enough to have a skill seminar at Google HQ, hosted by a CEMS alumni, Lorenzo Signoretti. We were taught 'The Google Way of Selling', which gave insight on how sales is done in Google, what positions were available for graduates, and potential career pathways. It's a dream for many to work at Google, so this seminar was very useful and motivating for our fellow CEMsies. 

To end the seminar, we had a fun exercise where 3 volunteers had to try to sell 'a banana' to Lorenzo, as he was role playing as somebody else. The banana was fully peeled and put on a plate. Each volunteer had a different angle on it, but ultimately the healthy lifestyle just wasn't a point of interested for the potential buyer. One participant, Priscilla, even pitched the banana as an important symbol for Valentine's Day! But it was no use.

Little did those volunteers know that the buyer was actually a cancer researcher, and he was on the brink of a new discovery found in the peel of Irish bananas. This researcher (Lorenzo) was willing to pay up to a million euro for the banan! Had the volunteers really focused on who the buyer was, or what his intentions were, they might have had more luck. Of all three attempts, the banana had been sold for 20 cents! This fun exercise was apparently tried on many, including VPs and yet, nobody had managed to sell the banana for a million euro. It was very interesting to watch and of course, a memorable day overall.

To top it off, one of only two Google stores were in the building, so of course we all had a pick of what merchandise we wanted to represent.

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