The "Seinfeld Syndrome" is alive and well when it comes to resume tapes

If you were a fan of the comedy "Seinfeld" you know that Jerry always found some little fault with any woman he was dating. Man hands, low talker, bad lighting girl, you name it. The running joke was that he could never find the perfect woman.

When it comes to hiring someone, a lot of managers channel Seinfeld as they look at tapes. At various times I've taken tapes I liked to upper management, and gotten these comments:

"She's kinda top heavy."

"He's losing his hair."

"Too thin."

"Bad dye job."

"Needs a nose job."

"He looks too young / too old."

"He's already getting a double chin."

Sounds a lot like Jerry, huh? Note that all the above comments have absolutely nothing to do with reporting or anchoring skills. Everything is superficial.

And the thing to keep in mind is that when it comes to the superficial part of this business, everyone has different tastes.

One day in the newsroom someone started a poll as to who the best looking movie star was. The women were mostly going for Brad Pitt, the men were divided between Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Charlize Theron. Then one of the guys chimed in with "Sarah Jessica Parker" and every other guy went, "Huh?"

Like I said, different tastes.

You may be the most qualified reporter, you may have the best anchor tape in the stack, but if you don't fit the taste of management (not just the News Director) then you might not get the job.

As George Costanza would say, "It's not you... it's me."

So if you don't get the gig, it might not be you. It's them.

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A good source of unposted job leads at the end of sweeps

Okay, sweeps are just about over for the news business. (As mentioned earlier, the networks bailed a week or two ago, giving us season finales in early May before segueing to reality show garbage.)

Anyway, that means the summer job hunting season officially begins Thursday and runs till the beginning of November sweeps. So most of you will be sending out bushels of tapes and scouring the Internet for job openings.

Here's a news flash: a lot of News Directors are doing the same thing.

A few things happen after sweeps. If the ratings come in and they're not good, the ND might get canned. He might move on before the guillotine that he knows will fall begins to fall. Or he might just want to move up the ladder.

What does this mean to you? Well, most NDs who arrive in a new place often want some new people. Despite the fact that your new News Director will tell you that "nothing is going to change" trust me, some things, and probably staff members, are going to be new.

So why not greet the new guy with a tape just as he arrives and figures out who he wants to replace?

Go to tvjobs.com, then scroll down the right side of the page to "News Directors Named." You'll find announcements of new management hires. They might not even be at their jobs yet, but you already know that job postings are inevitable in their future. So send a tape to the new guy.

In part two of this, you also know what station the guy left, so a new ND will be there as well. Send a tape to the new person there.

Remember, you don't have to wait for a posting to send a tape. The resume tape police won't show up at your door and put you in handcuffs. But this is just a way to get a little jump on the rest of the crowd.

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Interview with a tape screener

Continuing our series of interviews with people in the business, today we sit down with Assistant News Director Jim Nazium, who is about to go though a pile of resume tapes.

Grape: Jim, thanks for letting us sit in on this process.

Jim: No problem. You know, I figured if you were going to be here you could at least help open envelopes and stuff.

Grape: So what are you looking for today?

Jim: Entry level reporter.

Grape: Anything in particular?

Jim: If you mean am I looking for a particular sex or demographic, you know darned well I'm not going to answer that question. You think I wanna get sued?

Grape: So sometimes the best person doesn't get the job?

Jim: You said it, I didn't. I will neither confirm nor deny that premise. You ready to roll on these things?

Grape: By the way, why isn't the News Director in on this?

Jim: I know her tastes very well, so I'll just weed out the people I know she wouldn't like.

Grape: (Opening package with tape, resume and cover letter, handing tape to Jim.) Okay, here we go. First up is Kathy  who just graduated from Iwannaworkfor U.

Jim: (Pops tape into machine. Slate fills the screen with exotic graphics and pictures of a young woman flying by for sixty seconds. Jim begins to hum the theme from Jeopardy and rolls his eyes.) Is there some work anywhere in our near future?

Grape: I know, they all think a fancy slate will get them a job.

Jim: (Tape goes black for a second, then the montage begins.) Nope. (Jim hits the eject button after ten seconds.)

Grape: Tell me why you didn't like her?

Jim: Too wooden. Arms straight at her sides like a soldier. No animation in her face. Looks bored.

Grape: You got all that in ten seconds?

Jim: Well, if her best work is up front, it aint gonna get any better. Next tape please.

Grape: (Struggling with package that has been wrapped with an amazing amount of duct tape.) You got a pair of scissors?

Jim: I know. Do they want me to look at the tape or have it defused? Just move on to the next one and I'll get to that one later.

Grape: Okay, next we have Bill from New Mexico.

Jim: (Pops tape into machine) Hmmmm. Not bad. Looks like he's about eighteen though. (Ejects tape.) Next.

Grape: (Opening package and finding bag of microwave popcorn along with tape & resume.) Ellen from New Jersey sent a gift.

Jim: Cool. Free lunch. (Pops tape into machine. Woman with wicked accent makes us both reach for the mute button, but we continue watching because she's so comfortable on camera.) Dear Lord, she sounds like that woman who played The Nanny. What's that word you always say?

Grape: Fuhgeddaboudit.

Jim: Yep.

Grape: So do you ever send any of these people a note telling them to fix stuff like this? I mean, she was pretty good if you could fix the voice.

Jim: I'd love to, but no time. We've got three hundred tapes here.

Grape: Gail from Mississippi is next.

Jim: Well, at least we know she won't have a New Jersey accent. (Pops tape into machine. Screen fills with a fairly attractive young woman with good voice.) Hmmmm.

Grape: So what are you thinking?

Jim: I like her. Nice energy, mature voice for her age. Not a beauty queen... comes off as credible. (Jim lets the tape play through the first package.) Okay, she's a keeper. (He tosses the tape into a box.) What's her cover letter like?

Grape: (Reading letter) Well written. Clever.

Jim: The ND will like her, and we need people who can actually write well. Next.

Grape: Gina from Oregon.

Jim: (Tape reveals a montage in which the woman has blonde hair in one standup, brunette in another, and red in a third.) Nope. High maintenance.

Grape: She had potential.

Jim: Too much jewelry, too flashy. Trashy outfits. With all her hair colors she should work for an NBC affiliate. She could be the human peacock.

Grape: Bob from Michigan is next.

Jim: (Tape shows nice looking young man in cheap suit. But the work is solid.) Well, obviously a starving student, but underneath the wrinkled clothes he's got a lot of talent. We could trade him out some decent suits. He's a keeper.

Grape: (Opening package with tape and modeling portfolio, featuring bikini shots.) Jillian from Miami. She apparently doesn't need any clothes.

Jim: (Grabs tape and throws it away without even looking at it.) Really high maintenance.

Grape: So what happens here after you've gone through all these?

Jim: I take the good box to the ND and we watch the tapes together. Then she takes the best ones to the GM, then we start the interview process.

Grape: So what do you say to those people who have talent but didn't make the cut?

Jim: Well, the stars have to align, and this time they didn't. Maybe next time they will. Every ND has his or her own preferences, everyone's looking for something specific. A special talent, a specific demo, you never know. That's why you keep sending tapes. Even if you're not qualified with the right experience, sometimes your potential is enough to get the job.

Grape: Anything else you'd like to add?

Jim: Please don't call. Do you really think I can remember every tape I looked at in this fashion?

Grape: Unless the girl with The Nanny voice calls.

Jim: Her, I'd remember.

Job hunting in a recession part deux: sometimes life gets in the way of your career

Got this very valid question after the last post:

News Directors don't think bad of you if it's been a few months since graduation and you haven't fond a job in the industry yet, what if it's been a few years? A few years and you've been working in a totally different field? How does one overcome that on their resume?

To answer this, let me go back to a job fair I attended as a manager several years ago.

We were looking for some entry level people, specifically assistant producers, and had a booth set up at the job fair. Lots of people with journalism degrees dropped off resumes but none had impressed me. At one point this young lady in her mid-20's came up and started talking to me. I could tell right away she was very smart, well read and ambitious. She had zero television experience and had been working in a totally unrelated field. She'd gotten married in her teens, had a kid, etc. so everything got put on hold in her life.

Anyway, long story short, we hired her and she turned out to be one of our best people.

So the answer is that life can often get in the way of your career.

Let's say you graduated two years ago and couldn't find that first job. You had bills to pay, so you grabbed a job as an insurance salesman. Or a waitress. Or cutting lawns. You did what you had to do to survive.

And a News Director knows that. At least, a good one will. A good one will see that you didn't sit at home forever waiting for something to pop. A good one will see that your dream is still alive.

But here's the caveat: you have to keep your head in the game. You can't go into an interview after a few years out of the business and not know who's running for President, why the Secret Service is under scrutiny and the latest on the John Edwards trial. You must be up on current events. You have to let the ND know that even though you've been working in dad's deli (I'm looking in the mirror here) you're still going home and reading lots of newspapers and watching plenty of newscasts.

Life gets in the way more often than not. You may expect to be in a certain market by a certain age, but factors you can't even comprehend can change your plan. You can graduate during a recession, fall in love, have to take time to deal with a sick parent, any number of things. The point is to stay focused on your ultimate goal and keep your head in the game, even if your body has had to be somewhere else.

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Too many journalism grads and not enough jobs: the new grad's guide to surviving the recession

You've all seen the stories on the network. Those depressing packages that offer statistics which send fear through the hearts of those about to put on a cap and gown. High unemployment among recent college grads. Low salaries that won't make a dent in a student loan. The stories almost seem to say, "Welcome to the real world, kid. Here's a key to your mother's basement."

But recessions are nothing new, and neither is supply outpacing demand. In our 24/7 news society, it just seems like the end of the world.

It also seemed that way in 1976 when I graduated.

We had 36 guys on the 4th floor of our dorm, and by April we were getting worried. Only one guy had a job lined up. One other had a possible. Few of us even had any interviews. The job placement service was a joke. There were no jobs. Didn't matter what your chosen field was, the economy was awful. The one big difference between now and then was that no one had a student loan. My four years cost a total of $5,200. Yes, you read that right. Fifty-two hundred bucks. That included tuition, room, board, books, etc. It was easy to work summers and pay your way through school.

So what did I do? I managed to stick my nose in the business and kept it there.

I heard about a part time newspaper job, took my clips from the college newspaper, and was hired. Two days a week for 65 bucks. Obviously not enough to live on, so I swallowed my pride and went back to Dad's deli and made sandwiches when I wasn't hitting a typewriter.

One day one of our regular customers came in and asked if I'd graduated. I told her I had, and she asked if I had any job prospects. Little did I know she owned a radio station. She invited me to stop by. The News Director was a kind veteran (incredibly, he had been Dick Clark's co-anchor when Clark worked in news) who unfortunately had no openings, but offered me the chance to hang around and learn. The staff was filled with veterans who taught me a lot and I even made a few bucks selling stories to the radio network.

So now I had three jobs: one paying nothing, one paying a little, and one surrounded by cold cuts. But the point was, two of my jobs were "in the business."

The radio experience lead to a full time radio gig (goodbye, deli) and that eventually led to television.

Yes, I know, that was a long time ago when gas was 29 cents a gallon and I didn't owe the government six figures for an education.

Still, nothing has really changed. Your philosophy today needs to be the same if you want a career in this business. And since you've just spent four years targeting that, you can't simply give up because the economy's stars aren't aligning for you.

-Send your tapes everywhere, and I do mean everywhere.

-While you're looking for a job, see if you can pick up some work in a media related field. Doesn't matter if you're a part-time receptionist at an advertising agency. You'll at least be rubbing elbows with people in a creative field.

-Don't worry if your job search takes time, and don't worry that a News Director will think poorly of you if you haven't found a job several months after graduation. All managers know how tough things are out there.

-If your search bears no results after several months and no nibbles, might be time to put together a new tape. Hire a local photog and update things. It's bound to look better than what you did in college.

-Don't dismiss journalism jobs that aren't in television. Plenty of people have started in radio and newspapers. And these days, you might find a gig writing for the Internet.

-Don't be afraid to wait tables or do whatever to pay the bills until the real job comes along. Lots of people have done the same.

-Consider working in a political campaign. It is an election year, and campaigns are loaded with media types. (FYI... you might find you like the politics game... and there's some serious money to be made getting people elected.)

Bottom line, start somewhere. Even if you find something part time in media, you'll know there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it will keep you from getting depressed.

More important, it will keep you from giving up.

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