If you’ve been here for long enough, you remember the dark days of the beginning of 2020, even before the pandemic, when I was struggling to get my footing freelancing and was also trying to apply to a million jobs outside of journalism. I had just wrapped up my contract at the Times — honestly, my favorite journalism job I ever had, a dynamic newsroom role that had me working closely with editors from different desks in addition to the product and design teams — and had inadvertently launched myself into a media market with a ton of layoffs. I was now competing for jobs against a lot of really excellent people who had just lost their jobs, and I was not doing well. One trillion-dollar tech company with a well-built-out news apparatus sent me through the ringer of 7 rounds of interviews and a three-hour edit test (unpaid! Honestly this was the most offensive thing to me. I hope this trillion dollar tech company pays people for edit tests now.) before deciding that my being a public-facing figure who tweeted was going to be a problem for them. Another now-defunct newsroom ghosted me for two months, only to reemerge apologetically the night before they announced the hire they made for the role I’d interviewed for. I would be in the final two applicants for a job and get passed up for the role. I felt so demoralized and started applying to jobs outside of journalism. I didn’t really know what I was doing, just that if I were ever going to be pragmatic and apply my skills elsewhere, February 2020 was probably a good time to do it. I went on a lot of job interviews somewhat blindly, fumbling through explanations for why my background in journalism made me a good fit for a product marketing manager for a tech company or a social media manager for the NYC ferry (an a longtime NYC ferry evangelist, I was most bummed this one didn’t work out). I felt very stupid and incapable. I met with
Paying it forward
Paying it forward
Paying it forward
If you’ve been here for long enough, you remember the dark days of the beginning of 2020, even before the pandemic, when I was struggling to get my footing freelancing and was also trying to apply to a million jobs outside of journalism. I had just wrapped up my contract at the Times — honestly, my favorite journalism job I ever had, a dynamic newsroom role that had me working closely with editors from different desks in addition to the product and design teams — and had inadvertently launched myself into a media market with a ton of layoffs. I was now competing for jobs against a lot of really excellent people who had just lost their jobs, and I was not doing well. One trillion-dollar tech company with a well-built-out news apparatus sent me through the ringer of 7 rounds of interviews and a three-hour edit test (unpaid! Honestly this was the most offensive thing to me. I hope this trillion dollar tech company pays people for edit tests now.) before deciding that my being a public-facing figure who tweeted was going to be a problem for them. Another now-defunct newsroom ghosted me for two months, only to reemerge apologetically the night before they announced the hire they made for the role I’d interviewed for. I would be in the final two applicants for a job and get passed up for the role. I felt so demoralized and started applying to jobs outside of journalism. I didn’t really know what I was doing, just that if I were ever going to be pragmatic and apply my skills elsewhere, February 2020 was probably a good time to do it. I went on a lot of job interviews somewhat blindly, fumbling through explanations for why my background in journalism made me a good fit for a product marketing manager for a tech company or a social media manager for the NYC ferry (an a longtime NYC ferry evangelist, I was most bummed this one didn’t work out). I felt very stupid and incapable. I met with