I apologize to everyone who gets paid to read resumes.

How I imagine what goes down during the job application process.

The second session I attended was titled "How To Get A Job." I'd argue it was the most interesting one because all of the panelists were having a very civil disagreement without ever saying that they disagreed.

This is because, as someone I met at the dinner pointed out to me, because everyone has a different way to get employed and as long as they are employed, they feel they can say that their way is right. But I'll talk about him later. (Like, another post kind of later.)

They talked a big game about resume clean-up and gave interview pointers. I felt that this much was worth sharing. So what did Katherine learn today?

• You have to get your foot in the door first. Seems a bit obvious to you too, right? Upon first hearing that, I kind of slumped my shoulders back and thought, that's kind of the point isn't it? But getting your foot in the door, especially in an industry where the average income is getting lower every time some writes a blog post (Ironic, I know), is actually kind of a big deal. It's a big deal because I've never really interned anywhere. At least not for an extended period of time. So I have zero experience.
• Nobody likes reading your resume. You're a name on a piece of paper in a stack of papers. And nobody cares that you'll be broke after they see your first typo and throw out your resume. Make them as easy to read as possible. Big type. And proofread, do not just spell check. Do you know how many essays I've edited in my academic career from my peers? How many other people read the same essays looking for the same errors and found new and different ones each time? Typos are easy to miss. I'm sure I missed a few in this post.  Make resume reading less of a chore.
• Nobody cares about you. Which I guess I kind of said before. You have to make them care. All resumes look exactly the same. They sound the same. The wording is always matter of fact, straight to the point. Everyone is familiar with what a cashier does. Everyone is familiar with what a copy editor does. How did you do it differently? How did you change it? Ask yourself how did you make it special because that is an extension of how special you are. And you have to do all that, while making it short, concise, and easy to read. Easy, right? Ha.
• Cover letter or a resume? Two of the panelists were having a civil disagreement over which one is more important. One said the cover letter was more important because all resumes look the same and you could tell a story in your cover letter. The other one said the resume was more important because the cover letter is often only looked at if the resume was liked enough to not get crumpled and thrown in the trash. So to be safe, I'm going to treat both of them with equal importance and be panicky and anxious about both of them being perfect.
• A wide net or a narrow focus? Two panelists said to apply everywhere and be crazy persistent. The third gave very specific instructions: figure out where the cheapest place to live is, draw a one hundred mile radius around it on a map, and look for jobs around there while networking to get a feel for the neighborhood. His advice is sound and safe and logical. It's just not very ambitious. Go big or go home back to your red circle radius.
• New York City is not the only place in the world you can be a journalist. It's just the only place in the world everyone dreams of being a journalist in. But an East Coast perspective is more valuable on the West Coast where no one has it. There are more opportunities in more places. I guess it seems like generic advice to some people, but as someone who has lived in NYC my entire life it never occurred to me that I could work somewhere else. Just don't know if I would really want to.
• "You have five minutes to get your next five minutes. And then those five minutes to get the next five minutes." Which is exactly word for word what Peter McGowan (WCBS-TV) said. Nobody likes reading your resume. I can't imagine how they feel about interviews. You have to be a conversationalist in an interview. You are selling yourself to them as tool to use in their business. Which is even more crucial as a writer, because your voice and your perspective being specific and unique to you is what sets you apart from everyone else. I know the word perspective sounds wrong there. We're journalists; we're not supposed to be biased. But in this case, it's not the separation of facts and sensationalism that I'm referring to when I talk about perspective. It's about the observations that you make, the little things you notice and the details you chase down that no one else is. The stories you chase after that only you seem to be writing. That whole last bit about perspective didn't come from the panelists though. That was entirely my interjection. Do not discredit them for my opinion.
• Stand out. Again, seems obvious. The question is not what you put on your resume. The question is how will someone feel after they read your resume. Think about impact.

So, does the FOIA think we're as inept to handle the truth as Jack Nicholson thinks we are?

So I did something really cool today. Something decidedly less depressing than some of the other stuff I've been posting lately. I attended the Society of Professional Journalists Conference at Hofstra University today. I'm actually still here.

I'm in this musty old room right behind the library labeled "Group Study Room." Despite the name, it is inhabitant of any other soul but me. And no one in here is studying.

I am trying to just sit down and absorb all the information that I obtained today. The first session I attended was about FOIL. I've never heard anyone talk about the Freedom of Information Law as an acronym before today, but I definitely see the significance now and why journalists feel the need to mush it all into one syllable. Us writers. We all think we're so clever.

There were the least students in this particular session today and more professionals in it than any other session I was in. It was definitely the most specific one because it all came down to trying to get around someone telling you you can't have the information you have the right to have. I get it. It's not a law most students run into that often because they're students. We report mostly on the schools we're in.

But the professionals (mostly women today, I might add, which I did not expect) seemed to be having a very profound struggle with being told no, being told it was a matter of national security, or being told they couldn't have it because the matter was "under investigation."

The panel was very encouraging, and discussed the importance of persistence, courtesy, rudeness when it is necessary, and making sure everything you get is on the record all the time. The only journalist on the panel recommended that you shouldn't rely on that single FOI for you story. His answer to the question seemed obvious--source up, buck up, eyes and ears peeled for where else to go for information, and dig around with the officer you're requesting information from. Singular question with a singular answer I guess. Definitely not a singular or exclusive issue though, obviously.

It has piqued my curiosity, however. I'm going to file for one of these on Monday to see what the process is really like.

AIM used to be cool, you know.

Remember AIM? That instant messaging system with the little yellow man with a black outline? I think it's deader than MySpace, but it used to be a really huge deal. Especially with those kids kicking around the screens of their Sidekicks. It was this huge deal that we could IM from our phones.

I didn't have a sidekick in the eighth grade. But I thought I had a lot of free time. I knew my homework would take me all of five minutes.

I had all the time in the world to rush home, put Star Trek: Voyager on, and message this cute, very skinny, handball-playing, bass-wielding, boy with a skater boy haircut. I could literally message him from four o'clock to eleven at night about music and the news of the world and the last book I read.

Wrong. I thought I was too smart to be distracted by some dalliance with a boy when we both knew we were way too young to date. I thought I everything had so far under control, I didn't even have to think twice about what high school I would be attending.

Actually, I didn't think about it all, despite the fact that everyone around me was studying for the SHSAT like they were going to take it and its firstborn child, including this boy. I almost failed the eighth grade.

I did little to no work in my Earth science class, even though I'm pretty sure a total of five assignments were given the entire year. I cried in front of all my teachers. I nodded my head, I promised I would do better because I was better than what I was doing.

I learned then I was exceptionally prone to distractions, especially ones that made me giggle with just the quiver of a brow.

Have you ever made a mistake, and knew it was a mistake, thought about how dumb it was while you were doing it, and did it anyway? As if you never learned a thing? As if every time you did something, it was like you were doing it for the first time again?

As if every time you pushed your hair out of your eyes and made eye contact with milk chocolate brown ones, you saw all the things you were going to regret in his pupils, and then proceeded to do everything you knew you would regret.