In-person Job Interviews

The news industry is by no stretch of the imagination the only business like that, though. Mine certainly is.

 

I always used regular days off and, if necessary, vacation days. Never had a problem with a job interview situation -- although I did have one supervisor who asked me with two weeks notice if I would consider canceling a vacation that had been scheduled months ago because "we're hurting on the schedule and can't find anyone to do your job." I told him sure, as long as the paper could reimburse me for prepaid travel arrangements. That ended the conversation.

 

Ha ha hawwwww ... And I'm guessing that somehow the job got done, right?

Bonus points if it fell to your manager. That's usually why they start moaning about "I can't find anyone ... "

 

The same supervisor also scheduled a longtime designer (who reported to me at the time) to work the afternoon after having a colonoscopy, despite doctor's orders to take it easy the rest of the day. Designer was outraged and threatened to get a note from his doctor and present it to HR. The schedule was reworked in record time.

 

This, and it also makes the hiring process a lot harder by greatly reducing the talent pool you're drawing from.
We had an opening last year and it was hellish trying to find someone because my publisher insisted on bringing them in for a face-to-face interview. Unfortunately, we're a small paper and flying in even three finalists and putting them up for a night or two at a hotel is going to cost a couple thousand dollars that we could really use in other places -- especially when there's no guarantee the person will take the job. We flew in one guy we really liked and offered him the job, but he turned it down. That was $600 down the drain, and it makes you realize you can't afford to do that every time until you find someone. The in-person interview almost needs to be a formality to make sure the person isn't a raving psychopath.

We got several dozen resumés, but after that one guy declined we decided to pivot to finding someone within driving distance. One guy was a good 14-hour drive away, seemed like a capable hand, but he didn't want to drive down and my publisher didn't want to do a Skype interview. So he was out. Another guy from Atlanta flaked out before we even got to scheduling an interview.
So now we're down to in-state candidates, preferably recent college grads, of which there was an astonishing scarcity. The J-school professors were no help at all. It took us four months to fill a vacancy. Meanwhile, I have 30 or 40 resumés in my inbox that are worthless no matter how good they are, because there's no way we're flying someone in from New York when there's a less than 10 percent chance of them taking the job.

 

I was hired after a phone interview once. Paper was a bit off the beaten path and didn't really fly anyone in. I had just returned from a workout when they made their first call, so I did the interview with the ME and news editor in gym shorts and socks and I took the offer the next day. First time I met both of them was when I went to town a week after the interview apartment hunting.

 

My first (and so far only) job in the business, I interviewed entirely over the phone. I drove 1,000 miles on July 4 weekend to interview at another paper two states away. My mom tracked me down to tell me Paper B wanted to interview me, figuring, "Well, while you're out ..." but it just wasn't going to work to drive a whole extra day to get there. Mom isn't very savvy in the ways of geography. So I talked to the SE at Paper B on the phone and we set up another phone interview for when I got back home.
Long story short, I was offered both jobs, took the one at Paper B because it seemed like a better situation, and moved there two weeks later. I had never been to the town and the first time I met anyone from the paper in person was my first day of work.

 

The only time I have ever been flown out for an in-person interview with a paper, I ended up being offered the job. Other than that, it's mostly been over the phone or sometimes Skype.

 

More than a decade ago, three separate papers flew me out for interviews, two of them from Left Coast to East Coast. Wound up taking the job in SoCal.

For my second job out of J-school, they flew me in (which was my first time ever on a plane), including a turbo-prop where they had folks change seats to balance the plane. I took grammar books to study up on before my interview, but I said fuck it and drank Scotch at the hotel bar the night before my all-day interview. Aced that interview and was offered the job the next week (while spending a week in Rock Springs, Wyo.).

 

Do papers really bring in multiple finalists or is it usually the one they like the most to meet them and see if they are normal?

 

Interestingly, I have never been a finalist for a job where I did not interview in-person (but every job I've worked was largely local to where I live).

What I find interesting is the culture of journalism vs. my current field (education).

In journalism, it's largely expected that 1) you will be job-hunting, and 2) you will NOT tell your employer about it, as that makes you a target for the next layoff/job cut.

So, after a few years in my teaching gig, I interviewed (and was the runner-up for) for a communications/PR gig at a neighboring district. Didn't tell anybody - because that's the culture I came from. At the newspaper, you were treated as a completely disloyal outcast if you even thought about interviewing for another job (even one that was clearly a step up). A couple months later, my principal is in a meeting and says "I've heard of interviews where a candidate walks in, is asked 'does your principal know you are here,' and if the answer is no, the interview is over." OK. So, next time I interviewed for a job, I made sure to tell the boss. Again, was the runner-up, but I felt good about putting a bug in their ear that might create some leverage in the future.

 

Our office likes to drag its feet on the hiring process, which really puts an extra strain on the guys already employed. We've had hiring processes take up to 6-8 months because we do one at a time. First the SE does a phone interview, then we bring them to town, ME has to decide whether to offer the job, then the applicant has a few days to decide if they want the job. If they say no, we're back to square one and a couple of weeks behind schedule. And as people decline, the farther away we get from the initial job posting, and many times our next favorite candidate has already withdrawn their name because they found something different. It's very frustrating, and then we have a greater likelihood of settling for a candidate just to fill the vacancy rather than because it's a good fit.