Dream internship: Here’s how 2 won a $120,000 yearlong gig at a Sonoma County winery
In March 2021, the marketing team with Sonoma County based Murphy-Goode Winery launched a nationwide search, looking for the person who’d be willing to “live out their ultimate dream job in wine country” by essentially becoming a wine industry intern.
The offer?
An annual salary of $120,000 a year, rent-free living in Sonoma County and 30 cases of wine to boot.
The response?
More than 7,000 people leaped on the winery’s “A Really Goode Job” solicitation, making their case on what they would bring to the position with videos.
People from many aspects of the company — sales, public relations, marketing, direct-to-consumer services — reviewed the video applications. The director of recruiting, Erica Thompson, watched all 7,266 incoming videos. Seventeen finalists were chosen.
The applicants went all out to convince the judges of their originality and qualifications: a wine rap, a musical theater-like original song, a Murphy-Goode bottle scavenger hunt, and a disappearing act. One fellow, wearing a wine logo T-shirt, jumped out of a plane to show that he was a real risk taker.
“At first we thought we’d fly out the top 10 candidates, but there were too many we really liked,” said Murphy-Goode winemaker Dave Ready Jr., who began watching when the submissions were down to about 100.
Whether you name it a publicity stunt or marketing genius, Ready said the idea to reprise “A Really Good Job” grew out of what he calls the “Murphy-Goode DNA”:
“We have this ethos of ‘doing goode’ and ‘being goode’ that included our participation in Operation Homefront, which helps returning veterans. In our brainstorming, we considered how people have been suffering from being out of work, and from the pandemic, so we said let’s do something big to give people hope, have a lot of fun, and break things open in terms of recruiting into our industry. Barbara Banke said ‘yes’ right away, and Jackson Family Wines supported it. And I mean they supported it.”
Banke is the chairperson and proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, company co-founder and wife of the late wine icon Jess Jackson. The company acquired Murphy-Goode in 2006.
Now 51, Ready has been Murphy-Goode’s winemaker for the last 20 years. His late father, David Ready Sr., founded the winery in 1985 with his good friends Tim Murphy and Dale Goode following a session of their weekly game of Liar’s Dice. Ready Jr. would later set the style for “Liar’s Dice,” “Snake Eyes” and other Murphy-Goode zinfandel wines.
Ready said that the wine industry can be tradition-bound. In looking at candidates for a dream job, the selection team was seeking new perspectives and fresh points of view.
“Our thought was to open it up to everyone,” he said. “What if you were an accountant in Des Moines but had the guts and the passion to take a big risk and come out to California wine country for the opportunity of a lifetime?”
“Everything during this process was fluid,” he said further. “Just like how the decision for two winners instead of one came about. When we were looking for a house to rent for the applicant, we found two beautiful houses in Healdsburg next to each other on vineyard property that was owned by families we knew. We said, we’ll take both of ’em.”
The team was intent on finding candidates with passion, not only for wine, but for life. That is why they spent three days, not only conducting one-on-one interviews but also interacting with the 17 finalists at lunches, dinners, wine tastings and a Kendall-Jackson Garden visit. They even played Liar’s Dice together.
“It’s true that video submissions got them here, but we needed to gauge their ability to fit into the culture because wine is about socializing and making authentic connections, it is about being excited and enthusiastic about what you do,” Ready said. “This is how we at Murphy-Goode make our wines.”
This year’s winning interns
Lindsay Perry was working in the marketing department of FloSports, a live streaming sports broadcaster based in Austin, Texas, when friends began inundating her with postings about Murphy-Goode’s wine industry dream job competition. Along with cheerleading, which is the sport she had excelled at and subsequently promoted through her job, wine is Perry’s passion. Her Instagram profile is @Lindsaywinesalot.
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