I can barely even read through stories like this any more. But this story is a fairly dead-on portrayal of the Sisyphean task of hunting for journalism jobs today. Especially with lines such as:
Apparently, even a canned response was impossible in New York.
I usually describe the process as a perpetual cycle of screaming into the void, especially back in yonder ancient days when you could spend hours a day assembling packets of clips (and resumes, and cover letters, and clip descriptions, and printed-out versions of online content) and dropping them into a mailbox, releasing the package to some terrible in-pile purgatory or waste bin damnation, maybe never even given the humble nobility of having a pen knife slid across the glue seal to release some of the pressurized optimism stuffed inside. Maybe it wasn’t all that bad, but I would have no way of knowing otherwise.
If science (once it’s done fighting the moon over there so we don’t have to fight it here) ever explores the outer reaches of the galaxy, I would not be surprised to hear a report one day of the mysterious texture of some extra-solar planet, with jagged rock formations and sloping dusty mountainsides, barren save for a small, slowly growing pile of 11×17 manilla envelopes seemingly expelled from the sky above and left there unmolested, their glue seals and optimism still firmly in place.
And this is one of the better ideas I’ve heard in a while:
Katie launched into “Nowhere Man,” then “In My Life,” the sax’s mournful wail ringing through the tunnels in the Times Square subway station on a Friday afternoon. Her sign read: “Don’t Give Money, Give Business Cards.”
Jobs Wanted, Any Jobs at All
(NYT) SEVENTEEN months out of Rutgers University, they live in an unwelcome continuum of mass rejection. Between them, Kristy and Katie Barry, identical twins who grew up in Ohio, have applied for some 150 jobs: a magazine for diabetics, a Web site about board games and a commercial for green tea-flavored gum; fact-checking at Scholastic Books, copy editing for the celebrity baby section ofPeople.com, road-tripping for College Sports Television.
They did not get any of these. More than a year has lapsed without so much as an interview. Apparently, even a canned response was impossible in New York.
“I wake up hopeful and check my e-mail and then all there is is the Merriam-Webster word of the day,” Katie lamented. “Or a stupid Facebook thing. So-and-so sent you a puppy. Or a drink. Great!”
Is a profile in the Times a fast-track to getting employment? Daily Intel is following.
Inverted Soapbox 
No joke, the whole time I was reading I thought, “Will the guy giving them free stuff get fired” and Then I clicked the Daily Intel link.
I had to cancel my subscription to the MW word of the day because of the rotten crushing of my hope every morning when I saw “(1)” next to the word “Inbox.”
I now find it more efficient for all parties to stop applying for work altogether. I don’t worry about whether my carefully crafted application was ever seen, and the potential employer has more time to ignore other candidates.
I used to describe my application process as taking $50 bills, folding them into origami cranes and shooting them into the sun. Seems we’re on the same page.
@megan, where are you getting these fifties? How about you just send them my way, instead.
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss tells you it has a hiring freeze right now.”
I want to know whether Cribbs thinks either twin is a “banger.”
Neither. I reserve that adjective for special occasions.
like mass emails to everyone we’ve ever worked with
That’s not untrue.
@conal: fiddy dolla bills is soooo 2007. Now I’m dropping benjamins on apps. let’s see where this takes me….