Want to interview for the job? Send us 8 story ideas first!

Next time I'm a hiring manager at a publication, I'm going to ask applicants to provided cupcakes.

Seems about as fair as asking for story ideas that you don't compensate them for.

 

I'm going to do it but I'm not thrilled with the fact that I'm taking time over the holidays to research story ideas at this stage of the process. If I'd been selected for an interview and felt that I had very good shot at getting the job, it might make more sense.

By the way, I'm not a local candidate for this job and have never lived in this city, so coming up with 8 ideas is a lot more labor intensive than it would be for a candidate who knows local politics in this region.

A few weeks ago, I actually took a 5 hour test for another job and didn't even make it to the interview stage. Landing a 30k job sure is a time consuming chore in this industry.

 

Eight story ideas is way too many, but it is far less work than some desk editors are asked to perform during interviews. It can take a couple days or more to properly critique a sports section and prepare a detailed, written analysis. Most of the time it's just free consulting for the paper. That's one thing about the newspaper sports hiring process that I used to hate.

I remember awhile back when The Sporting News posted an assistant editor's job (or was it two of them?) with the most egregious 'homework' assignment that I had ever seen. The job was posted here and I can't remember the details now, but the requested critique was just outrageous.

I don't think they ever hired anybody and eventually brought in Garry Howard to run the ship.

 

If you're a freelance (read: out of work) journalist, your ideas are your only real commodity. Unless you're very lucky and editors routinely throw you assignments, your financial solvency depends heavily on the strength of your ideas and how well you can tailor them to various publications.

I wouldn't toss your best ones out there casually or blindly.

 

The first serious interview I had someplace really first-rate, I was too inexperienced to know what I was doing. Kind of marked up the week's sections they sent me and wrote three or four pages. The SE said, "Jeez, I wrote 100 pages to get this job." I never wrote anything like 100, but was usually somewhere in the 20s after that. Usually took me three or four days of nearly constant effort, in addition to the regular job. There was a time in the late 1980s when I must have critiqued six or eight papers one after another. Not sure I could maintain that pace now. I was, I must say, an excellent critiquer after the 100-page guy taught me how to approach the task. One guy's deputy told me I was too mean and the SE didn't want to talk to me -- like, ever. But most were very appreciative of the effort and the ability of a desk guy to deliver a 25-page report that contained no fat and moved seamlessly and logically from one section to the next. It's a chance to demonstrate ALL your skills, even those that aren't part of the job in question, such as department-head decision-making and writing ability. You can take the three or four days and prove to them you can hit to all fields, and that will get their attention. And then you can have your life back.

 

To me, critiquing a paper like you did is basically working for them for free. I can understand asking for a couple of thoughts about the section, both positive and negative, but a 25-page critique? That's a heckuva lot of work and time for essentially serving as a free consultant. And that's not taking into account how receptive they would be to a new employee's ideas if you were hired.

My story idea for a job story: Few months before I was laid off by Gannett, I saw a job available for a niche magazine. I sent in my resume, clips, etc. Got an e-mail back from the publisher asking me to pick up a copy of her magazine, read it over, and send her a couple of story ideas and ways to improve it. Fair enough. So I did it (maybe 3 or 4 pages).

She sends me back an e-mail saying that my ideas didn't match up with what they were looking for. How I should be a mind-reader and know what she was looking for is beyond me. Anyways, didn't get an intervew. Fine.

Then, I pick up her mag a couple of months later and found both my story ideas in there. I grumbled to myself, but oh well.

Couple months later, the job opens again, this time to work for a few months temporarily while the person who had the job was on maternity leave. I soon found out that this job was a major revolving door, although I didn't know for sure what the reasons were (although I could guess). I e-mail the publisher again, she asks me to send my stuff again, along with the two story ideas and ways to improve the section. So I did it a second time. Got the same rejection, and, you guessed it, a few months later, found my two story ideas done again in the mag.

About another 8, 9 months pass, and the job was open AGAIN (like I said, a revolving door). I knew better, but since I was unemployed, I sent her my stuff again. Same thing happend a third time, only this time, she only used one of my two story ideas.

Then, few months later, she e-mailed me out of the blue, asking if I was still interested, because the job was coming open AGAIN. I replied that I was, and she said that she had my resume already, but she wanted me to bring a couple of story ideas to the interview. I know I shouldn't have, being unemployed at the time, but I wrote back telling her that she already used five of my previous six submitted ideas and listed the dates of the publication. She wrote back saying that she didn't think it would work out and that there was no reason to meet. Which told me plenty, not only about the job (odds are I would have been running away too in a few months), but about the person that I would be working for.

Like I said, it's one thing to ask for one or two ideas, or a brief critique. But to seek 8 ideas, or a 25-page critique, to me, just seems like exploitation to me.

 

I agree. It is exploitation. I recall interviewing at a place giving an idea only to see the guy use two of the ideas the following week. I didn't get the gig and was pissed that he'd used my ideas.

 

I am sorry you got half a handjob, Baron. I won't pretend this does not happen. Something like that happend to me with a magazine a few years ago. I let her know exactly what I thought of this, too. She got axed last year, so she never got a chance to use every idea I gave her.

However, if I am investing 20 to 30 hours in a critique and I am not learning something, then I am not doing it right. I am not a political candidate simply spouting my views, and I am not a consultant who cares whether you follow my advice. It is an exercise, and I should be stretching myself in ways in which I don't always get to do, because my day-to-day job keeps me busy with other stuff. For example, in the early 1990s when I was trying for a job as night sports editor, I completely redummied a week's worth of their sections (on hard-copy dummy pages) although I had not actually done any layout in something like five years and probably would not have to do much if any as the NSE because the job description was primarily directing things. The purpose was to demonstrate that I still had big-city skills at that task and could coach their layout people to become even better than they were, even though it's not my best talent and none of my references would say it is. The end result was I did not get that job; however, I scraped off some rust in that area philosophically and technically, and it helped me on the next critique for a different paper.

Interviewed someplace maybe 10 years ago and the guy (a news-sider) was a bit close-mouthed during the interview about how they did some stuff and I told him flat-out that regardless of the hiring decision I wanted this to be beneficial for both of us. If he doesn't come away with at least one great idea from me, it's a waste of his day. If I don't go home with at least one great idea from him, it's a waste of my day. It is the difference between two good guitarists jamming together and the same guys just playing a thousand miles apart and sending sound clips to be mixed at a studio. Well, it was like hitting a light switch with that guy. I'll tell you one thing -- he probably never thought of job interviews in the same way ever again. And I kind of confirmed my long-held belief (which better editors than I am had kind of taught me in previous job interviews) that this is an opportunity, regardless of the outcome. I'd just never been that blunt about it before. This is a chance to get a little bit inside the head of a journalist who presumably is as good or better than I am, and vice versa. It'd be a shame to not make full use of that chance simply because I think the other guy may get more from it than I will.

A boss once asked me what she should say when experienced candidates act insulted about having to take an editing test. The easy answer is, I had to take the test too, so blow me if you don't like it. The better answer is, some people view tests as a weeding-out device. It is that, too -- but also our test is designed to identify talents that may have gone unnoticed by your previous managers; we do not let editors at other places do our thinking for us. I was only half full of shit on that.

 

This. I couldn't say it better. Hell, I have really enjoyed the section reviews and story-idea generating I've had to do. It's a lot of work, but it's fun and stimulating work that should improve you as a journalist.

 

There is little honor in the media industry. Companies are just looking for free help. Anyone editor looking for eight story ideas needs to be told to piss off.

 

While I think the eight ideas is a bit much, in fairness, six are ideas for blog posts. Still a lot, but I don't think you can automatically assume that people are looking to steal ideas.

I've headed up some hiring processes for designers and been involved in processes for copy editor/designers for our sports desk before we went to a universal desk. I always ask for a candidate's thoughts on several days' worth of papers -- what they like, what they'd change, what's missing, etc. It's never been a way to get ideas just to get them (I can't even remember if we every used any of these ideas). It's a way to see how someone thinks.

If you're hiring for a writer, you want to see what kind of story ideas you can expect. It's part of the job, and I don't see why it's so frowned upon by some to make it part of the hiring process to ask this. Is there a way to evaluate this without asking for ideas? Clips can be good, but who can say those ideas weren't given to the candidate by his editor?

 

Free weekly? Political? I dunno. I think it'd be very hard to know politics somewhere else if you're not from there.

Good luck with it, but that just seems like a jackass free weekly guy with dumb standards. Is the paper any good?