McCoy College’s award-winning Center for Professional Sales hosts exclusive flagship event

SAN MARCOS, Texas — On Feb. 27, the Center for Professional Sales at the McCoy College of Business hosted its semiannual flagship event, Interview Express, at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in San Marcos.

The Center for Professional Sales invited McCoy College sales students and the center's corporate partners to attend the exclusive event for a day of one-on-one interviews, networking, and career-building opportunities. The all-day event also included a luncheon that allowed the center to provide an update on current projects and goals and share best practices with the center's partners and advisory board members.

The Interview Express event allows partners to engage with top-tier sales students while giving students the chance to interview for internships and full-time positions with some of the leading companies in the nation.

The center's director, Dr. Linda Alkire, emphasized that Interview Express is not just another job fair. It is a high-end event designed for meaningful industry engagement.

"I don't like to refer to it as a career fair because in my mind, it is more than that," Alkire said. “It is an opportunity for our corporate partners and sales students to get together to exchange knowledge, connect, and discuss opportunities, whether for internships or full-time opportunities. It is also an opportunity for sales faculty and the center to connect with the corporate partners one-on-one and discuss their needs, how they are seeing the market, and learn from each other.”

Alkire continued: “What makes it a valuable opportunity is it is basically corporate partners who are looking for sales talent and sales students who are looking for future opportunities in professional sales. So, it is exclusive to the sales profession as opposed to regular career fairs.”

For many students, Interview Express is their first real-world professional sales experience. The event is designed to push students outside their comfort zones, preparing them for corporate business environments.

"I think [students] all come worried, but then as they start going through these, it is so wonderful to see them engage with these companies, learn about them, connect with them," Alkire said. “I think it is really an eye-opening experience for our students.”

Alkire said hosting the event at Embassy Suites Conference Center was a deliberate choice to provide students with a professional corporate environment, allowing them to experience firsthand how business events are conducted. The setting also encourages students to explore leadership opportunities within the Center for Professional Sales, such as becoming sales ambassadors.

Katherine Mendoza, a senior marketing major with a sales concentration and a sales ambassador for the center, has attended Interview Express multiple times and said participating in the event helped her land a summer internship with Cintas, one of the center's corporate partners.

"It is a huge networking opportunity you wouldn't find anywhere else," Mendoza said. "I have not heard of other places that have all of these specific companies coming in to talk to you, so it is very helpful for finding a well-paying career, not just a job, after graduation and even before for internships."

For students like Kheely Brooks, who is interested in sales, the event "took networking to the next level by connecting Texas State students with corporate partners directly, which allows students to really learn and develop their communication skills and gain experience with talking to representatives within these companies."

She also said talking to corporate representatives who graduated from the Center for Professional Sales and “have been in my shoes allowed me to gain some insider perspective about how they got to where they are now."

Corporate Partners Value the Sales Talent Pipeline

For employers, Interview Express is a game-changer in sales recruitment. Partners who attend are looking for the college’s top sales talent.

"We've had the ability to recruit at other universities and how prepared [the center's students] are from being in the sales program, the resumes, their eye contact when they're talking to you what they're able to talk about, and their confidence," said Kyle Krueger, agency manager at Comparion Insurance, a Liberty Mutual Company and one of the center's partners. "We know that we are getting the best of the best from the Center for Professional Sales at Texas State."

Kryslin Johnson, also an agency manager at Comparion, echoed that sentiment.

"I would say that it is really nice to see the students come in in a professional way and be able to display their confidence and their background," she said. "We get to know them a little bit more personally. I would say that their grit and determination are always something that we look for with any candidate, and these students definitely show that their confidence is just head and shoulders above the rest."

Unlike traditional job fairs, where recruiters must sift through a large pool of general applicants, Interview Express provides an experience where partners can engage with top sales candidates.

"Time is valuable," Krueger said. “[Knowing] that we are getting to talk to those students that really want to be in sales and have that career. It makes it work out really well for us as a company and hopefully for the students who are getting jobs.”

Johnson shared her appreciation of the center's selective process when choosing corporate partners.

"I love that the Center for Professional Sales is selective in who they choose as corporate partners because you could come in here and there could be a bunch of corporate partners and it would water down the talent pool or the ability for us to connect with the students."

One of the unique aspects of Interview Express is that many former attendees return as corporate recruiters.

Paige Franklin, a Texas State alumni and former Interview Express attendee, now represents Comparion Insurance as a recruiter at the event.

"I was a senior graduate assistant for the Center for Professional Sales," Franklin said. “Just getting to go as many times [as I did], I was able to kind of talk to every single company. I just learned how to market myself. What more can prepare you for your future than being immersed with all these Fortune 500 companies?”

Her biggest piece of advice for students: "I would say be confident, be competitive, and just march in there like you own the place," Franklin said. They're looking for people who are confident, and they're looking for people who have that competitive sales drive.

Sales Ambassadors and Volunteers: The Student Leaders Behind the Event

Interview Express is largely student-led, with sales ambassadors and sales student employees playing a significant role in assisting throughout the event.

"I'm grateful for the students," Dr. Alkire said. "We don't have a full-time staff member that technically works for the Center for Professional Sales, so it is all the sales students and sales ambassadors who help set up the event. So, a big thank you to them. We are so proud of them."

With Interview Express continuing to grow, Dr. Alkire's goal is to sustain its success while strengthening corporate partnerships.

"Interview Express is our flagship event, and we want to continue delivering the program's quality that is reflected in the quality of our students, as well as strengthening the relationships with our partners," Alkire said. “We don't have any turnover. All our corporate partners have been with us for a very long time. We have a waitlist of companies who want to join our program, so we are managing high demand.”

Beyond the event, the Center for Professional Sales — which was named the Best Sales Program worldwide by the University Sales Center Alliance in 2024 — is expanding its reach by building its social media presence, upgrading the 3M sales labs with new technology, and increasing research efforts and outreach.

“These are the top priorities for the next year, but there's so much more and so much enthusiasm from our outstanding sales faculty, engaged sales students, and world-class corporate partners!”

For inquiries, please visit the Center for Professional Sales website and connect with its director, Dr. Linda Alkire. ✯

For more information about this story or other news, email Vallie Figueroa, communications specialist for the McCoy College of Business, at vlf23@txstate.edu.

About the McCoy College of Business 
Established in 1970, Texas State’s business school officially became the McCoy College of Business in 2004 following a transformational gift of $20 million by Emmett and Miriam McCoy. The college, which offers classes in San Marcos, Round Rock, and online, is accredited by AACSB in both business and accounting, and has graduated more than 45,000 alumni.