Step One: Hear About the Show
When you’re looking for a job, anything sounds good. “They’re strippers who are also spies? That’s totally plausible, and I wouldn’t be at all ashamed to tell my mom I worked on that movie.”
Step Two: Research
Once I decide to apply, I immediately IMDb everyone involved in the project, search Variety for any interesting information, and check if XKCD has added a new comic recently. (This last one doesn’t have anything to do with research; I just think it’s a funny comic.)
The goal is to find something, anything, that I can intelligently talk to the interviewer about. This can backfire. When I applied for the remake of The Lodger, I spent twenty minutes of the phone interview explaining to the APOC how the original was the best of Hitchock’s silent work.
Step Three: Apply
I’ll re-read my cover letter and resume for the seventy thousandth time, and once again discover a spelling error. This is the end of the line for most of my applications.
Step Four: Interview
This part’s simple. I walk in, they realize I’m awesome, I get the job.
I once arrived for an interview just as the guy ahead of me was leaving. He was wearing a suit and a tie and carried an attaché case. I was wearing jeans and a Ninja Turtles T-shirt, and I’d forgotten to shave that morning. The interviewer said, “You’re going to have to be pretty amazing to impress me after that guy.”
I got the job.
So, what happens once I get the job? Tune in tomorrow.
4 Responses
Love your blog. I work in tv in toronto and can relate (in your latest entry to the enemy. for me it’s often the sycophant who has my boss totally fooled, not my actual boss) – amazingly, Canadians in television can be assholes too, although it’s even more senseless because the amounts of money involved are generally miniscule and if 1/2 a million people watch your show, it’s a hit…
look forward to reading more.
liz