Consider these two actual job-hunting cold-calls, recorded this fall:
CONVERSATION 1
(The phone rings. A woman answers)
WOMAN: ________ Editing Company, can I help you?
ME: Yes, actually, I'm a recent Northwestern grad looking into the post-production market in the Twin Cities, and I was wondering if you could-
WOMAN: Let me skip ahead of you here. I can't promise anything, but I'd be happy to set up an informational interview with you next week sometime, show you around at least.
ME: Oh… wow, that's great! I'd really appreciate it.
(Then we set up an interview, and hang up. A week later I go down to ________ Editing Company, talk to them for a while, but they aren't hiring anyone right now.)
CONVERSATION 2
(The phone rings. A woman answers)
WOMAN: ________ Editing Company, can I help you?
ME: Yes, actually, I'm a recent Northwestern grad looking into the post-production market in the Twin Cities, and I was wondering if you could-
WOMAN: Let me skip ahead of you here. We aren't hiring, the market sucks right now, and no one here wants to speak with you about anything.
ME: Oh… wow, that's… wait.
WOMAN: And your mother is a whore.
ME: Is that really necessary?
(The conversation pretty much ends right there)
Despite their subtle differences, these two conversations have a couple of key characteristics in common. One, they both happened (more or less), and two, they both led to me not getting a job. Because apparently we live in an Upton Sinclair-esque age of ridiculous unemployment, where no one can get a job doing anything unless you want to work in a meatpacking plant. Unless you're in Minneapolis, of course, where even the meatpacking plants are laying people off.
OK maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you'd think a guy with a Northwestern degree could at least find a job making tape copies in a dungeon-like dub-room somewhere. I could not, but I did learn an awful lot about the process. And rule number one is that it really doesn't matter how much you know or how hard you try - all that really matters is timing. Being in the right place at the right time when a job actually does exist, and not being too stupid to miss it.
Who you know is also very important. But let's assume for a moment that I am connected to no one in the media industry (and this is how the media industry works - ain't my future bright). Or this could apply to anyone in any industry. What you're left with then is the arduous tactic known as the "cold call" (unless you're one of those "smart" people who used their "college" to help find them a job. Nerds.) The cold call involves somehow finding the number of potential place of employment and just ringing them up out of the blue to see if they have any jobs. Media companies receive many such calls every week, which is why they don't need to drastic things like publicize any jobs they do have. So you call them without having any idea who you're talking to, and try to hack your way through the thicket of receptionists and voicemail trees, and try to speak to someone who actually knows something. This doesn't usually happen on the first try, so you call again, then again, and then you do this with ninety-five other similar companies with few positive results. Eventually you can set up some informational interviews and perhaps finally find a place that's looking for someone, but it's a very slow process to say the least.
In your cold calls, you will speak to many different people. One time it might be a new receptionist who has no idea which way is up, much less any helpful job-seeking advice. Other times you might reach the President and CEO of a two-person company who may actually know something but isn't likely to have a hefty offer to throw your way. Very rarely do you immediately reach the person in charge of hiring - much trickery and subterfuge is required to track down this person. Everyone else falls somewhere on the spectrum of not-helpful, but they can be pretty much classified into four main types:
The Roadblock
The Roadblock is a typically a low-level employee who doesn't have any say in or even knowledge of the hiring process, just that they were once told not bother their superiors with calls from people like you. They answer phones and file files and basically just do what they're told, but can be quite the obstacle in the grand road of the job hunt.
ME: Hi, I was wondering who I might speak to in regards to learning more about getting into the post-production business around here.
ROADBLOCK: Um… I'm afraid I can't give out that information over the phone.
ME: Well is there a person who handles Human Resources?
ROADBLOCK: Oh, yeah, Christie does.
ME: Is she there? May I speak to her?
ROADBLOCK: Um… no. She doesn't like to take calls like this.
ME: What do you mean? Calls like what?
ROADBLOCK: I'm afraid I can't give out that information over the phone.
The Roadblock knows not of such things as "hiring" or "strategic vision" - they only know that they could be fired if they displease those above them, in other words everyone else in the company. So they'll do whatever they can do figure out who you are and never let you talk to anyone else, lest you should inform their higher-upes that they aren't being quite as good minion as they could be.
The Sympathizer
The Sympathizer knows exactly what it is to be an unfortunate job-seeker. They too have felt the pain of the blistering sun of unemployment. They too have felt the stinging freeze of frustration wrought by the harsh winds of an ice-cold economy. They don't have a job for you, but man, do they feel bad about it.
SYMPATHIZER: Man, I feel for ya. I was in your shoes just about a year ago. Sucks, don't it?
ME: Yeah.
SYMPATHIZER: I went like three years without a steady job! Just when I thought I had something, bam! It just slipped away. You know what I mean?
ME: Yeah.
SYMPATHIZER: Yup, sure wish I could help you out. There's nothing worse that job hunting. Not having any money, not knowing when it's going to end, the way you just feel horrible about yourself all the time, like you must be totally worthless not to be able to find… is any of this helping at all?
ME: It's doing wonders. Thanks.
It's good in a way to hear the comforting voice of someone who's clearly been through they same sorry situation you're in, though hearing another person repeat back to you just how pathetic your situation is can only really go so far to cheer you up.
The Talker
The Talker is actually often very helpful - they just talk your ear off in the process. I once spent an hour on the phone with a woman who ended up giving me the names of six or seven people in other companies I might call, while carrying on a rousing monologue about the economy, fishing, and state of the Republican party these days. Now I'm not republican, but I was afraid a "sorry, I'd love to keep listening to you ramble on, but I have to go scratch myself" might have decreased my receiving more help in the future. Another guy talked to me for forty-minutes or so about new media and sketch comedy, which was actually somewhat interesting, before inviting me over to his "office", which turned out to be a dingy apartment filled with editing equipment and a really creepy studio space he used for shooting "personal projects". None of the Talker exchanges have been transcribed here - I figure one person being subjected to those conversations is quite enough.
The Bastard
Not that The Bastard really needs to be described, but this is a character that actually seems to take pleasure in your misfortune. Like the kind of people who laugh at sad movies, or push old ladies down stairs. The frustrating part is that these people often are well-connected and might even know of some job leads, but they've worked in the media business too long and are now embittered at the world and everyone in it.
ME: Anything you might have at all, a piece of advice, someone you've worked with who might know more…
BASTARD: Oh, sure, I know lots of people.
ME: Anyone I could speak to?
BASTARD: No. They're my contacts, not yours.
ME: Just any information you could give me would be so helpful…
BASTARD: Uh-oh! My finger, it's… getting really heavy. Heading towards the phone…
ME: Please sir, just here me out…
BASTARD: No, hand, no! Don't hang up on the poor boy!
ME: Please sir…
BASTARD: Must… resist… Aw I give up.
(CLICK)
Note that none of these categories is "The Person Who Has a Job Opening". Thus, my hundreds of hours on the phone with various people, powerful and peon, articulate and mono-syllabic, all being extremely successful at keeping me from having a job, whether intentionally or not. I started a call-log, in fact, to keep track of everyone I talked to, just so I wouldn't sound like an idiot calling the same place nine days in a row. This document included names, contact into, and what happened each time I called… and by the end of my search was about 34 pages long. I even color-coded things so I could see what needed to be done. Damn I'm organized. But it was all for naught, until that one fateful day I actually called a place that happened to be looking for someone. I spent perhaps 15 total minutes on the phone with the Whitehouse before I interviewed and they hired me - perhaps 1/1000th of my total job-hunting time. It really is all timing, I guess. Anyway, the job hunt has for now subsided, but I leave you with a few actual entries from my job-call-log, and rest assured that as pathetic as they are, I finally do have a job, and have learned much in the process. Now I just have to find a second job to be able to afford to pay back my loans.
Power Post
NOTES - Couldn't find website. Yellow pages add looks like they do mostly corporate and industrial video.
9/4 - The phone guy said they're not hiring, but Jean Sanders is the lady in charge of that if they were. She'll be back on Monday. I left a message saying to contact me if they need anyone, want to see a resume, or whatever. She won't call back. Bug again later in the fall if nothing I've nothing else yet.
11/3 - Spoke to Jean, who passed me along to the voice mail of John Gruber, who apparently is REALLY in charge of hiring. I left another message about the whole info-interview thing, left my number. He won't call back either, so call back next week and find out if indeed he is the guy to talk to.
11/11 - Sorted out some of these confusions… Jean is the accounting girl who occasionally does HR stuff, and John is the production manager but is on vacation. So, I guess he really is the guy to talk to, he's just not there. Call back next week and try and set up a meeting or something.
11/19 - Finally talked to John - set up an informational interview for Thursday at 10am. Hurray!
11/22 - John called to change the meeting to next week.
11/25 - INTERVIEW - It was pretty useless. John was pudgy, suggested I look more into the self-contained corporate entity thing? What the hell does that mean? Those big machines in their dub room went really fast.
Frame by Frame Productions
NOTES - Couldn't find the web-page they listed, though they did have a nice DVD-Graphics-Streaming-Editing box in the yellow pages.
7/6 - Called, but their number was disconnected too. I guess they don't exist.
11/22 - While visiting LIV Media I walked past a deserted office with a broken down sign that said "Frame by Frame Productions". Yup. They're dead alright.
Digitales, Inc.
NOTES - Couldn't find a webpage, but internet gossip has it they're into AVID and Media 100 stuff…
11/18 - Got a weird speak-n-spell-sounding answering machine… strange. Call back tomorrow just to make sure…
11/19 - Yup. Weird.
Reel Time
NOTES - In St. Paul, lots of multimedia and CD-rom type stuff…
Goddamn it. Another no-web page, number-disconnected thing. What is wrong with this place?
Big Production Studios
NOTES - Wasn't able to find the webpage on Google, though that's not surprising given the name…
11/12 - Called, got a machine at 9:30am.
11/13 - Called, talked to some unhelpful guy who refused to tell me anything except that they didn't have any openings. Yah eat a bowl of dicks.
Layer Productions
NOTES - I'm currently browsing their webpage… red flags are going up in my head… maybe it's the photos of laundry on their homepage or the huge ad banner across the top. Might be a small-time deally. Call if become very very desperate... Agh! There's also a link to a site about using technology to proclaim your love for Jesus. Get me out of here!
Seven Times Video
NOTES - Decent webpage, seems like a more transfer-oriented kind of place, but I should call to see what they got.
11-21 - Got a worthless machine the first time… the second time got a worthless human being. No opening, no one is hiring, ever. Suck fat cock.
Shinder Productions
NOTES - Couldn't find website, but whatever.
11/22 - Guy on phone was extremely sarcastic and also sounded like he was talking through a pot-holder. Said I should talk to the film board, but I got the feeling he just wasn't in the mood for conversation… Plus they're just a small two-man gig anyhow. Lick das balls.
New Age Video & Film
NOTES - FCP, Media 100, After Effects.
11/22 - Answering machine on the end was that of Rob Shinder… not the monstrous bastard I just spoke to at Shinder Productions, was it? Good god. Try back later today, make sure this is New Age Video.
11/25/26 - OK, I kept getting his message machine… forget it. I give up.
