Another day another job.....application

Before I knew it two months of my summer had flown by and the best news I had gotten concerning a job was from a station in Idaho Falls. The news director told me that I had a lot of talent and he really liked my reporting style. I thought, yes finally something, maybe a job or a least the conversation about a potential job. Then....that infamous word...BUT. I knew it, this just wasn't my time to become employed. He said..... but.... we've decided to go with someone else. You were in the top three candidates thou. I graciously thanked him and hung up the phone.

I've tried so hard this summer to not get discouraged and frustrated. I mean I knew it wouldn't be easy to get a job but I had no idea it would be THIS hard! I think I've sent out at least 40 tapes at this point. I've heard from other broadcast professionals that it took them 100 tapes. Ugh, seriously. But, rejection is part of the business. I have a tough skin and I'm confident I will eventually find a job. The worst part of the job hunt is hearing that I have talent and hearing that I have good journalistic ability, but I don't have commercial television reporting experience. Now, I can't have the experience if I can't get a job. Oh the irony.

For every tape I sent out I followed up with at least 5 phone calls to each news director, mostly just leaving messages. Occasionally I actually spoke with them on the phone only to hear that they were sifting through a stack of tapes and would get back to me if I made 'the short list' meaning the people they were interested in enough to interview. I called over and over again, because more often than not, in this business it pays to be persistent. As my mom says, "the squeaky wheel gets the oil."

Earlier this week I was making my weekly phone calls to the laundry list of stations that I had applied to leaving one message after another. I set down my phone a sighed deeply wondering if something will ever happen, then my phone rang. It was the news director of a station in California. I was shocked that she returned my phone call. She went onto tell me that she was finished hiring reporters and the ones she did hire had commercial television experience. So, I hung my head and thanked her for returning my phone call. The she said, "well how do you feel about producing to get your foot in the door?" I said, "that sounds great!" The next day I had a phone interview with her and the EP (executive producer). My first phone interview of the summer. At least something was finally happening! It went well and the news director asked me to shadow a producer in the small market that I live in and get back to her. She wants to make sure I would actually like producing in a small market, because I had originally applied to be a reporter. She's making sure I won't hate the job. The news director in California said we would talk after my shadowing. So, today I'm shadowing a producer and then time will tell! Oh, finally a step in the right direction.

But, this wasn't the only good news I got this week. When it rains in pours. More to come...