Do you have what it takes to be a 'Windows guru'?
Can you "take the fear and complexity out of technology and make it easy and enjoyable"? "Answer questions and offer solutions to retail customers that surpass their expectations"? And are you willing to work for $20 an hour, full-time, including weekends?
If so, you might be just the kind of person Microsoft is looking to hire as one of its Windows gurus.
Last week, Microsoft kicked off its $300 million marketing campaign aimed at improving the image of Windows in the retail market. Some of those millions will be spent on a new ad campaign, the first installment of which aired last week. But Microsoft also is dedicating some of the $300 million pie to bringing on 155 or so "Windows gurus," whose jobs will be to evangelize Windows technologies inside Best Buy , Circuit City and other retail outlets.
Microsoft is looking to place its first wave of gurus in major cities on both coasts, as well as some smaller, suburban-mall-heavy venues (Framingham, Mass., Paramus, N.J., Tacoma, Wash., etc.) in between. (Microsoft blogger Sean Earp ran a list of the cities where Microsoft is looking to add gurus -- plus the full guru job description.)
The Windows gurus will be "full-time, blue-badge positions" who won't be on commission, a Microsoft official said last week. When it announced its intention to hire these new "personal shoppers," Microsoft had 2,000 applicants in five days, officials added.
Microsoft is aware that 155 evangelists is a drop in the bucket when it comes to improving the company's retail image, and is planning to add more gurus to its ranks before and after this holiday season, officials said.
Perhaps Microsoft should allocate some of its marketing millions to paying PC makers to take their crapware off new PCs, too... Or maybe the Windows gurus can get into the crapware-uninstall business themselves.
Do you think these new gurus will help Microsoft improve the perception of Windows Vista, Windows Mobile and Windows Live among retail customers?