The usual place for my only suit, a size 38-short navy blue number I've owned since my senior year of high school, is on a hanger in my closet. Like bad cover bands, most of the time it has just played weddings, graduation parties and bar mitzvahs. But this summer my suit got its big break. This summer I needed a job and I soon realized that my suit was to become my most constant companion.Twenty-three years old, one year out of college and one year of part-time high school sports writing for The Washington Post, I wanted -- no, I needed -- a real job.Day Two of the weeklong journey up the East Coast that followed my six-week Summer Fellowship for Young Journalists at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., began with some fruitful research that wasn't too hard to find. It was all there on Ken Otterbourg's blog. He had a Jack Russell-beagle mix named Dula. I considered myself lucky to have an 11-year-old Jack Russell of my own.
Pretending to read his newspaper, I watched as Otterbourg, the thin managing editor of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, approached while I sat in a small, quiet waiting area inside the newsroom. I uncrossed my legs, smoothed my suit and took a deep breath.
At the end of this trip loomed an indefinite stay in my childhood bedroom. Indefinite because I had no job.
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Before leaving Poynter, I set up four interviews spanning four days and 1,325 miles of Interstate highways. First stop, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, where sports editor Lynn Hoppes schooled me to improve my schlocky interviewing style. It didn't help that a button fell off my suit mid-conversation.
A same-day, eight-hour dash from Orlando to a hotel in Charlotte, N.C., where I rested for the night, followed. When I arrived in Winston-Salem around noon the next day, I had enough time to mine the Journal's news briefs for gold coins that I could exchange for story pitches. To my delight, Otterbourg had a blog on which he highlighted his newsroom's top stories and included a "Q&A" with information about his personal life. That's how I knew about his Jack Russell. I decided to break the ice by talking about Dula.
I was flustered for the entire 45-minute interview. ... I fumbled my notes, scribbled on hotel stationery pulled from my suit pocket.A brief walk to his office followed our short introduction. I began:
"So, you know, I have a Jack Russell terrier, too. His name is Rocky. We've had him for a while and he's getting a little old, but he's still rambunctious as you know that breed can be ..."
No response.
We entered his office, sat down and I handed him an envelope with my clips inside.
"Why did you just tell me about your dog?" Otterbourg asked.
 Click on the image above to find out more about Poynter's Summer Fellowship for Young Journalists. The application deadline is Nov. 15, 2006. |
"Oh, okay. You read the blog," he said. Awkward seat-shifting from us both. "So tell me about yourself."
I was flustered for the entire 45-minute interview. My carefully constructed story proposal about a prospective hospital owner crumbled into nonsense. I fumbled my notes, scribbled on hotel stationery pulled from my suit pocket. I read them verbatim, without taking my eyes from the page. A promising discussion about why I wanted to switch from sports to news derailed when I admitted I had never glanced at a city budget, or any budget for that matter.
Otterbourg advised me to go into news writing, perhaps somewhere smaller, and said that he was looking forward to keeping in touch. I hurried to the parking lot and couldn't wait to reach my hotel room two hours later in Raleigh, N.C.
The remaining two interviews went better, despite the time difference: 15 minutes with the recruiter, Carole Tanzer Miller, at The News & Observer in Raleigh on Wednesday and nearly five hours with sports editor Doug Roberson at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., on Thursday.
They both came to the same conclusion: "Let's keep in touch."
Nineteen hours after I arrived back at my parents' place outside Philly, the dread of being unemployed worked its way into me as if it had seeped through the headphones of my iPod while I took out the trash. I dedicated myself to cover letters and JournalismJobs.com. Just in case, I took my suit to the dry cleaner.
Over five days, I sent out wave after wave of packets generally consisting of a cover letter, resume, references and seven clips with a separate cover letter explaining why I liked these stories. By the third day, the cashier at the U.S. Post Office didn't have to ask if all my letters weighed the same.At Poynter, I was advised to target my job search to newspapers with circulations between 60,000 and 120,000. Using an Excel spreadsheet listing all those papers, some tips from teachers and friends and a few geographical whims of my own, I cobbled together an inventory. Over five days, I sent out wave after wave of packets generally consisting of a cover letter, resume, references and seven clips with a separate cover letter explaining why I liked these stories. By the third day, the cashier at the Post Office didn't have to ask if all my letters weighed the same. She just handed me a book of 87-cent stamps and 24-cent stamps -- yes, they make both of them -- and let me affix the $1.11 to the envelopes myself.
Then came the waiting. I monitored the job boards. I watched "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." I picked up my suit from the cleaner. I got restless. Eight days after I sent out my first letter and the day after I sent a Poynter mentor a panicked e-mail about the lack of response, I got my first hit: Jim Beck, metro editor the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana, wanted to talk. The following day an e-mail came from Jeff Gauger, managing editor at the Rockford Register Star in Illinois. Two days later, I received a call from Todd Pratt, a bureau editor at the Naples Daily News in Florida.
Short conversations with Beck and Pratt turned into interviews and I didn't want to waste time. Now mid-August, I scheduled them both for the following week. Monday and Tuesday in Evansville, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Naples with a short layover at my home in Philly Tuesday night. My suit would have another grueling week.
 Jeremy Gilbert/Poynter
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In Naples, I had a few hours to write a story about the opening of the first two Best Buy electronics stores in a Florida county. By the time I sank into the seat and shut my eyes on the flight home Saturday afternoon, I had a job offer from Evansville and a great feeling about Naples.
The Evansville editor, Bruce Baumann, left for a week's vacation so I had some time before I needed to make a decision and for Allen Bartlett, the city editor in Naples, to get back to me. During that week, I spoke with friends, mentors and my parents about the pros and cons of both places. I even received a few more feelers. I wrote two practice police briefs and a practice story based on e-mailed notes for metro editor Fred Kalmbach of The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. Michelle Holmes, managing editor of the Post-Tribune outside Gary, Ind., called and flew me out the following Sunday and Monday. The interview process there was much the same. My test there was -- shudder -- a short math exam.
I turned off my cell phone and tried to clear my head. During my trip back home, marred and extended by construction traffic on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I weighed options.The day after I returned from Gary, I received calls from Baumann, Bartlett and Holmes and formal offers from all three papers I'd visited. I had two days to decide. On Wednesday, I drove to New York to see a friend. I turned off my cell phone and tried to clear my head. During my trip back home, marred and extended by construction traffic on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I weighed options. A discussion with my parents and sister followed in our small den.
Thursday morning I made my choice. I phoned Bartlett and accepted a general assignment position at a small island bureau of the Naples Daily News. The bureau consists of me and one other person who splits her time between there and a section of the city. I'm excited and happy. I've even resolved, once I can save a bit of money, to make my first big purchase -- a new suit, maybe navy blue.
Sunday, the day after I returned from my week in Evansville and Naples, my dog woke me up at 6:45 a.m. My parents were driving my sister back to college and Rocky needed to go out. Wearing little more than my birthday suit, I didn't even bother to put in my contact lenses or grab my glasses, which cured my 20/1,000,000 vision. I walked outside, closed the back door and immediately realized I had just locked myself out.
In the ensuing two hours, using a helpful neighbor, an open second-floor window and a ladder, I was able to get back in. But standing there on the stone steps outside my back door before help arrived, I considered my condition. Here I was, nearly naked, blind, with no one to call -- all my phone numbers are programmed into my cell phone -- and forced to rely on the generosity of neighbors I hardly knew. It's kind of like being a new reporter in a new town.
Editor's note: Liam Dillon started work in the Naples Daily News' Marco Island bureau on Sept. 25. He lives in an apartment within walking distance of his office -- that is, if anyone in Florida walked anywhere. He has covered five city council meetings, two boil-water notices and one hotel liquidation sale. He is learning to love manatees.
