Coming Clean
This week marks six months of job interviews on Help Wanted. It is a good time to confess that not every one of these interviews has left me crestfallen and without a prayer of paying rent.
I could have four jobs by now, or if you include the scams and pyramid schemes, potentially as many as nine. Even so, it took me almost three months to get a job as a “paid audience participant,” which requires little more than eyes and the ability to laugh on cue, and it was not until a few weeks ago that I was offered regular work for more than minimum wage, selling home improvement packages over the phone ($10). By then, my interview chops were getting better: I was hired the following week to manage a sales office hawking flame retardant, and most recently to fundraise for a pot-for-profit legal fund at dispensaries around LA county. I’ve learned that the main secret to entry-level job interviewing is to say “Yes,” always and confidently, to nearly anything you are asked.
Oddly, there was no interview at all for the job I actually ended up working, waiting tables at a restaurant called Speranza (“hope”) a mile from my house. My brother hailed the owner through the window of her jeep while it was idling at the farmer’s market, checked that he had the right person, and said I was looking for work. Over the next two weeks I made a point of waving from my bicycle whenever I passed Hieu’s silver Mercedes on the streets of Silverlake. I dropped off a resume at the restaurant, stopped by again to check in, and a third time to get a phone number where I could reach her. She called me the next day to start training that afternoon. On the job, Hieu introduced me to her boyfriend and partner as “Bronx,” and said “I found him on the street,” trailing off in a high-pitched cackle.
When I first started interviewing around LA, I really did need a job. I spent three weeks shedding paper all over the east side, wishing I had the prior experience employers demanded in order to merit more experience waiting tables or folding clothes. Without it, it seemed lucky to get a job at Speranza or anywhere else. The stacks of applications to which I added mine at neighborhood restaurants like Alegria and Blair’s were as thick as Bibles. But I do not have kids, credit card debt, or health problems. I was able to stay rent-free when I first moved to town and save a bit of cash. My joblessness was cushioned.
And yet, I nearly told Mr. Singh I’d be happy to work for him on his Republican congressional campaign. If they’d offered me a job doing college prep tutoring for seven-year-olds in Koreatown, I might have taken it. I was taken aback by the strength of the power dynamics at play in a routine job interview—how willing I was to to mute my personality and temper my opinions in the service of making a good impression. This is something that stuck with me in interviews even after I had a job: the powerful pull to conform, the push to reassure and sway employers in your favor.
Most of the interviews I’ve been on in the past few months were more like a liability waiver or a rules agreement than they were a real evaluation of character and capability. “Yes I can sell this” or “Yes I will do that” were the deepest answers employers sought from the candidates. Only one interview—to become a youth hostel receptionist—required me to share anything much of my personality and creativity, and only two—to work as a sandwich chef and as a waiter for a catering service—included any concrete evaluation of skill. At the youth hostel, I was asked to describe a color as I would to a blind person. At the others, I was asked to cut an onion and fill out a multiple choice exam, respectively.
If this is the degree of blandness we can expect from mid-level employers, what would it be like to interview at McDonald’s, Ikea, or Walmart? After six months, I can say about job interviews only what we already knew: that they are mostly nerve-wracking, boring, and fake. The people that have to endure them are a far more interesting subject, and they will be the focus of Help Wanted from here on out.
