Internship

It looks like I will start an internship at California Magazine at UC Berkely in the second week of January. The internship is five days a week 10-5 and it will be for three months so I will finish before I graduate from San Jose State.

I am surprised this happened because I'm used to companies just taking my resume and emailing me back two weeks later with "Unfortunately we had A LOT of super good applications for this spot so we obviously didn't take your mediocre one."

At this point I don't even remember how I found the internship in the first place. It might have been the SJSU job site but it might have been Craigslist. I had originally applied to California Magazine back in June but at that point I was still commuting to San Jose twice a week so the editor I corresponded with told me to apply again for the next semester.

In November I had several more failed applications so I sent in a lackluster two sentence email reply to the original thread saying "Hey, still jobless...You said apply again so this is me applying again." I didn't think I would get any response so I put a minimum of effort into it, only because I knew I would feel worse if I never tried at all. I also attached my new resume because the career center helped me make it actually good.

However, the same editor did message me back a week later and called me to arrange an interview. (Of course I happened to be in the magazine room at SJSU getting ready to work on SHiFT so several people heard the conversation and it was awkward to have to take a phone call because no one calls me ever argh!)

The editor asked me to come in with two pitches for the magazine. They didn't have to be anything elaborate and they didn't have to be written down. So I after trolling the UC Berkeley news website I came up with four and wrote them down with bullet points and links. 

On Thursday (December 7) I dressed up pretty, printed out my neatly-typed pitches and another copy of my resume, threw two SJSU magazines I had worked on into my backpack, and took the BART up to downtown Berkeley. My clipper card came in handy because I could put money onto it directly instead of buying a ticket.

I found the office with no trouble even though the email had gotten the street name wrong. (Apparently this was my "first test." Ha.) but the email had described a gate around the side so when I passed a gate near my destination I managed to figure out it was the one I needed when I walked through and saw a sign for the Magazine office on the side of the building.

Inside I got to meet the editor in chief, employees, and other interns. If you know me, you will know I'm not actually that good at interviews. Or meeting people for the first time. Or projecting a sense of confidence while talking. So I think I could have done better at the interview. However, it turned out the editor had taught English in Japan some years ago, so we had a weird connection there.

Bringing extra pitches turned out to be a good idea because he didn't like three out of the four of them because they were too bland or didn't fit the tone of the magazine. He also said that none of my pitches had a "wow factor." I felt like I could have done better with the pitches, but I also wanted to say that I charge extra for wow factor.

On the bright side, he seemed impressed with my level of experience and the work I had done on SJSU magazines in the past. I had actually forgotten I was the co-editor of Access until he flipped open the cover and there was my picture inside. Oops. In general, I don't think magazines for your own school "count" because they're often requirements or electives for students only. Sometimes no one even wants to work on it. So it made me happy that someone thought a couple semesters writing mini-articles was an accomplishment.

He also seemed satisfied with my answers about why I was interested in this magazine in particular and my career goals in the future. I pretty much said I loved the writing part and wanted experience doing something not SJSU related, but that I knew journalism jobs were hard to come by and I might have to compromise. Luckily for me, my interviewer said he was looking for the realistic answer. I could have gotten someone who wanted unbridled confidence, the type of person who would answer "I've wanted this since I could walk I'll never do anything else ever even if I destroy myself trying to make it because I have such big ideas!" (i.e. not me)

I left two magazines behind thinking it was the right gesture even if turned out to be the equivalent of throwing those copies in the trash. I also took two copies of California Magazine, which I now realize I could have used as karmic revenge, but at the time I just wanted to seem interested in the magazine.

I returned home thinking that I wasn't the best candidate ever but I should feel proud no matter what because I had taken a chance and put myself out there. The editor told me several other candidates would be interviewing and I would hear before he left on vacation on the 17th.

That Saturday I told my mom I had interviewed for an internship but they would probably give the spot to someone on campus. She agreed with me (THANKS MOM FOR YOUR BOUNDLESS CONFIDENCE) and in general dissed my recent job hunting efforts.

As the week went on I kept checking my inbox even though I felt stupid doing it. When I didn't hear back I felt more and more sure that I hadn't gotten the internship. However, as I gained distance from the interview the idea of the magazine had less allure for me and I began thinking about other things so I wouldn't feel too bummed out if I got another rejection.

On Friday I lay down in the afternoon and woke up to see a voicemail on my phone. It was from the editor at the magazine. He just said he wanted to talk with me soon because he was leaving for vacation the next day.

My mental process was "Hmmmmm...I don't think he would go through the trouble of asking me to call him back just to tell me I didn't get the position."

Cynicism is the way to go.

So he asked if I still wanted the position and I said, "Yep, second week of January is fine." Surprisingly, he also suggested that I write an article based on the one pitch he didn't think was terrible. (Even with no "wow factor????")

It was pretty undramatic but I took great pleasure in gloating to my family about how totally awesome I was. My mom took credit and said having a parent who went to Berkeley must have tipped the scales in my favor.

However, I respectfully disagree and say I did it all by myself by hard work and talent. Weirdly, even though I've had a professor give me generous assistance in the way of writing letters of recommendations and finding internships to apply for, this one in particular I found on my own.

Recently, I've been thinking that my skills and experience aren't valuable and I will always lose out to someone who has a slightly better resume, or even someone who doesn't have a lot of skill who talks a good talk and projects a huge amount of passion and confidence. Sometimes I do feel really down on myself, that I'm just some unlikable person who's not good at anything.

Now I'm looking forward to an exciting work opportunity. So far I am the only confirmed intern but they will likely be hiring another one. I don't know what happened to the other people who interviewed. Maybe my preparation did help me seem more reliable. I could have come in with no pitches written down and no previous work to show and expected to get by on being a good talker.

I don't know the real story, but it gives me more confidence to think that something good about me stood out.