too picky?

am in the hiring process (actually down to a couple of pretty good finalists) for a sports editor and interviewed a young lady who was a recent college grad coming off a media relations internship. pretty good writer but the job i'm filling really needs someone who has experienced doing the whole show at a small daily.

a sister weekly in same county had a sports opening that didn't require the experience i needed. the publisher offered her $24-25k and though most of her work would be for the weekly, a lot, especially varsity football and features, would also run in our paper. she turned him down, saying something along the lines that "you don't make it to the dallas morning news from a weekly." now i realize you don't go from a weekly to a major metro but you also don't normally make that jump from job 1 to job 2 either.

seems someone was being a little too picky turning down $24-25k for your 1st job out of college, even if it is at a weekly. i thought people needed jobs in this industry paying better than 7-11 or blockbuster.

 

Those are people you don't want.

If they have that kind of attitude, they want to be big-time at your paper instead of taking the experience and running with it.

 

I wouldn't have made the dallas morning news comment, but I also would have never worked at a weekly out of college, even if it did pay 25k. In my humble opinoin people working at a weekly are there for a reason, and it's not a good one.

 

This girl's attitude aside, you clearly have some kind of agenda bringing this up. By naming her previous employer you're essentially identifying her and branding her as a bad seed with second-hand information. That's fucked up.

 

The way the DMN is apparently headed, she may get there sooner than expected.

 

you're right about the former employer as an identifier. that's my bad.

 

i've seen some pretty good talent at weeklies, especially ones just starting out. there are just so many jobs to go around at dailies. should a person go without a job instead of taking what they can get at a pretty decent starting salary. you obviously never had to face the bill collector.

 

Yeah, because ambition is a terrible thing. Maybe she didn't want to take a job she felt would stunt her growth, particularly if she felt being choosy -- which might be a more appropriate word than "picky" -- might result in a better job if she were patient. Some people enter this business for the sole reason of a desire to play in the big leagues. That's her decision, and it's her career to chart. It's not your place to judge.

The salary you mentioned is not the type of money you jump at, even if it is your first job. I don't blame her a bit.

needles

 

Neither side shines here. Her comment and attitude screamed entitled, and the response screamed small time.

 

If she actually applied for your opening, the fact that she was a recent college with an internship applying for a sports editor position was probably a tipoff.
I mean, don't ask, don't get but she was overreaching, wasn't she?

As for Needles' comment (who, by his bio, is not the kid he sounds like he is but in fact 37 years old), it's not a lifetime commitment. And it's a lot easier to get a better job when you already have a job. I don't know what the market is like out there these days, but that doesn't sound like a terrible starting salary to me. And a weekly with an opportunity to get your stuff published in a daily is a hell of a lot better than a weekly with no such hope.

Then again, maybe she's a "studette-in-training." Let's ask Mizzougrad. ;D

 

I don't buy this. That kind of money is pretty good straight out of college unless you are an effin stud, and she obviously isn't one or she wouldn't be interviewing at weeklies anyway.
And I guess that is my question. If she is so dead set on working for the DMN or a major metro, why the hell is she applying at weeklies and wasting their time?

 

If I was a talented female coming out of school, I'd turn this job down too.