If you’ve been a desker more than 10 years you’re apt to have your “what happened when I applied at the New York Times” story.
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For the longest time the Times’ recruiting director was Merrill Perlman, whom I joined for dinner Wednesday night. Merrill’s positive, toughminded and funny (and a scuba diver, I learned the other night) and she’d give the impression you really had a shot at the big time.
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The Times’ hiring process, last I heard, goes like this: they send you a take-home editing test, and if you score well on it, they’ll call you in for a weeklong tryout. I know of one guy who did the tryout just to get a free week in New York City.
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Last night a few of us were sharing out “what happened with my take-home test” stories, after we shared our Merrill stories, and I heard a tale that’s one for the annals. Copy Editor X said he had received his stories to edit, and noted that one of them involved a town he was planning to travel through. C.E.X.’s story, as I recall it: “The story was in terrible shape, so I did more reporting.” He corrected a number of errors and other reporterly tasks, and turned in his test. “I was told that sort of thing just isn’t done at the Times.”
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Consensus was C.E.X. shoulda known better, but damn, we admired his moxie.
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My Times story: It was six or seven years ago (previous job). I sent Merrill an e-mail pointing to a Web site I was doing at the time, and she wrote back saying “hmm, we’re interested.” So she sent me that test, which I agonized over for a couple days and realized: As much as I imagined myself Times material, I didn’t want to be a Timesman badly enough to finish that damn test. So I bowed out, sent Merrill a nice e-mail explaining why all the sudden it didn’t seem all that essential that I come to the Times.
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And after I heard a couple people’s “how the Times rejected me” stories, I felt kinda proud that I had done it to the Times before they had the chance to do it to me.
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Wow, iBook battery almost spent; will report back later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’ve been a desker more than 10 years you’re apt to have your “what happened when I applied at the New York Times” story. For the longest time the Times’ recruiting director was Merrill Perlman, whom I joined for…<\/p>\n