To employers in the media and publishing industries in San Francisco (or Mountain View!), I am here to introduce an offer that you cannot refuse. It’s easy, cheap, and guaranteed to be beneficial to both the long and short term growth of your business. The offer is simple, and can be summed up in two words: hire me.
This is the internet, so let me provide you with a short listicle of reasons as to why adopting me into your publication’s fold would be a win/win situation:
- Occasionally I am actually kind of smart. I like to think that intelligence is a major commodity in a market that was essentially destroyed by stupidity. I’m about to graduate from NYU with a 3.75 GPA, and I have the subway system down pat. This means that I am both school and street smart.
- I am what one might call savvy, which means that I am well-versed in the Tools and Trade of the Internet. Social media? I was practically tweeting at birth! I got my first AIM screen name when I was eight. I can build a webpage from scratch using HTML and CSS. I can help raise your Google Index through SEO. I can even make that div float so that the text doesn’t get all messy. Don’t know what that means? See, you really should hire me.
- Despite being only 22 years old, I have a lot of writing, blogging and publishing industry experience. Currently, I’m the editor-in-chief of hyperlocal campus news blog NYU Local, which gets well over 10,000 unique hits a day. I’ve interned for the Nieman Journalism Lab and Salon. I’m currently a Staff Editor and Developer for the soon-to-be-launched New York Times East Village Local blog. You can read my full resume here.
- My secretarial skills could put Joan Holloway to shame; just ask my bosses at The Library Journal Book Review, where I’ve been an editorial and administrative assistant for over a year. I am highly experienced in fighting with copy machines (usually the paper jam is imaginary, but it takes experience to figure that out). I also am well-versed in both PC and Mac usage, as well as software packages like Microsoft Office and Adobe Suite. If you hire me, I would be happy to Photoshop you into a picture with President Obama.
- I was reared during the internet age, most consciously during the dot com bust. I am also only 22, meaning that I am the definition of cheap labor. No, seriously, I think that getting paid anything more than $12/hour is “living large,” and getting paid $12/hour is “extremely manageable.”(UPDATE: Please see this comment. I guess I was lowballing.)
Now here’s where we get a little earnest, so if your publication is all about snark, then you may want to just skip this part. The deal is this: I’ve wanted to live in San Francisco since I was 10 years old. The reasons at this point are irrelevant (so what if, like most other suburban kids, I thought On the Road was life changing?), but I have always taken major risks in the name of San Francisco. These risks have almost always paid off. The summer before my senior year of high school, I decided to live in Berkeley for a summer and take a course there. Shy and awful at meeting people, I was naturally terrified of having to adjust my lifestyle so dramatically. Ultimately, the experience was incredibly rewarding, and I ended up meeting two of my best friends through the program.
To move to San Francisco now will be one of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken. Most media and writing jobs are here in New York, my network is here, my connections are here; but my heart is–wait for it–in San Francisco. I can’t value myself as a writer and as a person if I don’t give myself the chance to follow my instincts and settle by the Bay. If it were up to me, I’d have moved to San Francisco years ago–I even wrote my NYU admissions essay about that summer in Berkeley! Because of familial and school circumstances, this is the first time in my entire life that I can actually make the decision I’ve wanted to for years and relocate to the West coast. But San Francisco employers: I need your help to do this! I can’t afford rent on unpaid internships, I can’t pay bills on a meager freelancer’s income. So please, I implore you: look at my resume, and then look into your soul. If you’ve ever wanted something so badly that you were willing to risk almost everything, then you understand where I’m coming from here.
I am an incredibly hard worker, and I really believe that I could be a great employee to you. Once you’ve finished reading my pleas and wiping the tears from your eyes, please e-mail me.
Ed. note: The bragging required for this post made me extremely uncomfortable, but I am willing to step out of my comfort zone if it means landing a job in SF!
Logistics (timeframes, etc.) after the jump.