While the boys of my office are at the Toronto Film Festival, it means only the VP and I are at the office. I think it is the first time ever that only females have been in the office! We are normally outnumbered two to one. To make things even weirder since she doesn’t work Fridays, I am all alone at the office for two Fridays. I have been alone at the office before but not for an entire day. Let me say after my first alone Friday, it was very strange. I thought it might be nice to have the office all to myself, but I was wrong. The day started productively, but by noon I had finished literally all of my work. Amazing how productive I can be when the phone isn’t ringing off the hook. I’ll let you know next week, if my second “alone” Friday is just as uneventful. Also while the office was quiet, I was put in charge of hiring new interns.
Well this is definitely a new experience for me! Since I have always been the interviewee, it was interesting to be on the other side of things. First off, I received some BAD resumes. Maybe I am just picky because I was a journalism student. Writing standout resumes was pretty much hardwired into us. It’s hard for me to overlook glaring mistakes that some industries see as fine. First off, please refrain from “fun” fonts. There is a time and a place for these fonts, and your resume is not it. Second, you graduated last year. Why is your resume two-pages long? I understand how important being a cashier at your college concession stand was to you, but it means nothing to the entertainment industry or me. Third, use some variation in your bullet points! If more than three start with the same word, you need to spice it up a little bit and pull out a thesaurus. Fourth, please use a professional email. Brainwasher@hotmail.com is never acceptable. If Brainwasher wasn’t bad enough, a hotmail account shows you are out of date. Fifth, I absolutely don’t care about your middle school GPA. If you are in college, don’t even put your high school GPA unless you were valedictorian, and you are a freshman. The one that pained me the most was from a graduate with an English degree who contributed to their campus newspaper! How were you not familiar with AP style?! Sorry for the rant, but I cringe that the important skill of resume writing is obviously not being taught at other universities.
After I have sifted the okay resumes from the terrible, it was time for the interview process. Normally our other assistant handles this, but it fell on me since he is in Toronto. The night before the interviews, I tossed and turned thinking about what I could possibly ask these potential interns. They were going to realize I have never done this, or the fact I am younger than many of them. I did my best to calm my nerves, but when the first potential intern arrived I was shaking slightly. Thankfully I pulled it together and did my best, “Hi. Nice to meet you. You can follow me to the conference room.” Some interviews were short. I am talking less then 10 minutes. They had nothing to say, and I was all out of questions. I could tell one guy was really nervous. I mean the works: swaying the chair back and forth, sweating and continually rubbing his hands on his legs. I feel bad because I have been in the hot seat so many times before, but there was nothing I could do to calm his nerves. After eight grueling interviews, I narrowed 25 submissions into four new interns! All together I think I had a successful few days alone in the office but will be glad when everyone is back in the office!!
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