LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- When Dr. William Strahle (left), associate professor of marketing at Rider University, had his students in 1990 prepare a video-taped job interview based on personal selling and critiqued by outsiders, he probably had no idea his innovative teaching approach would some day become the backbone of a major corporation's national scholarship competition.

But this year Northwestern Mutual Life (NML) has launched a nationwide video scholarship competition that draws from Dr. Strahle's classroom techniques. More than 300 NML offices across the country are participating.

Over the years, Dr. Strahle, a resident of Lower Makefield, PA,. has had a close working relationship with Joseph Savino, general agent for NML's Princeton office. Savino has long been involved in the video-taped presentations and had often attended marketing classes and Marketing Club meetings. Savino then presented the idea for the national competition to NML's national headquarters in Milwaukee, WI.

"This national competition will allow students to hone their selling skills," Savino said. "It lets them understand the professional aspects of what we do and what professional sales people do."

"As business professors, we have to do whatever necessary to prepare our students for the outside world," added Dr. Strahle. "This is a win-win situation. The students gain a lot and Northwestern Mutual wins too. They get to see some outstanding students."

There will be three phases to the competition.

In the first phase, students will prepare their video-taped sales presentations on a consumer grocery product during the fall semester. At Rider, the fall winner will be announced in early December. There will also be a spring semester competition with winners announced in February.

In the second phase, the top five to ten students will be interviewed at district agencies. The agency will then announce the local winners and award a scholarship on the local level. The amount of the award will vary by office.

District winners will have their video tapes sent to NML headquarters in Milwaukee where the field will be narrowed to ten finalists. Not surprisingly, Dr. Strahle will head a team of six judges, all nationally recognized sales and marketing educators. They will select six winners; the first place winner will receive a $2,500 scholarship, second place winner a $1,500 scholarship, third place winner a $1,000 scholarship, and the third through six place winners $500 scholarships.

Local winners will be announced by March 1, 1998, and the national winners will be announced in May 1998.

To promote its national scholarship competition, NML prepared a promotional video on the Rider campus to explain the program and benefits to its district offices.

Savino explains there is a very positive recruiting aspects to this competition for NML. "It allows us to see many more students in a role play situation and identify talented individuals. The cost of the video competition is virtually nothing. It also enhances our reputation on campus."

Gianmichele Gennari of Princeton, a senior business management major at Rider who won the 1997 NML local scholarship competition which was offered through Rider's marketing department and before the program went national, had this to say about the program:

"As a student goes through the educational steps to obtain a degree, there are only scarce opportunities to build the skills needed to intelligently and successfully interview with a company. The experience I gained going through the process of both preparing and executing my skills in this interview helped me to become a more confident interviewee. I am now implementing my experience with NML in present and future interviews. I presently have two job offers."