Unemployment Update: The Fall of our Discontent

As we begin month three of my unemployment, I have received two more rejections (both for jobs at the U.S. Mint — times must be tough when people want jobs writing about the joys of the mint) and I have done one phone interview.

The interview was for the RedEye, which I wrote a previous entry about. I did actually call on that Friday, but the editor was off site at a meeting, so I left a message. The Monday, as I was arriving in Kansas (moving the roommate - more on this later), I received an e-mail from a Tribune company recruiter asking me to fill out a questionnaire and return it no later than Sept. 1, which was the next day. So the next morning I got up, went to the Bagel Express down the street from my now former roommate's parent's house (okay, this is getting confusing. Her name is Alice, and she will heretofore be referred to as such.) and spent a couple hours answering the following questions:

1. Why are you currently on the job market?

2. What is your current (or most recent) compensation?

3. What is your desired salary range/ requirement?

4. Current authorization to work in the US:

5. Availability for a phone screening/Best number to reach you:

6. How are you innovative? Give an example of ideas that you’ve come up at work – can be a big or small idea or a project.

7. How are you solutions-oriented? Give an example of how you navigate workplace challenges.

8. What do you think makes RedEye work as a newspaper? What could be improved?

9. List four adjectives that best describe you.

Apparently my answers were good because the next day (I think we're at Wednesday now), I got an e-mail from the editor, asking if I could do a phone interview at noon on Friday. And thus the phone interview was born. Aside from forgetting that there was an hour time difference between Chicago and New York and spending about 30 minutes in excruciating agony wondering why she wasn't calling before realizing that fact, I think the call went well. I liked what she had to say about the paper and the position and she seemed to like my answers to her questions. She had several, "I agree with what you said about..." moments. She also said they were looking for someone outside the paper, someone with a "fresh perspective," which is a point in my favor.

She also said I would hear back from her within two weeks, one way or the other. I hope its one way and not the other! This has become my dream job, ensuring that I will not get it and for sure, wind up in Little Rock.