Recently, a brilliant want ad
for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
has been making the rounds
on the internet.
Here’s a snippet from it…
“But if you’re the type of sicko
who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office
with reporters of questionable hygiene
to build databases from scratch
by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents
to take on powerful people and institutions
that wish you were dead,
all for the glorious reward of
having readers pick up the paper
and glance at your potential prize-winning epic
as they flip their way to the Jumble…
well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven,
then you’re our kind of sicko.”
Not only is this ad
great marketing,
but it serves the purpose
of weeding out a great number
of casual candidates.
Only serious candidates
with an appreciation for the management’s wit
and an understanding of the hard work
journalism entails
will bother applying
(I read somewhere that a very manageable
20 candidates have applied).
The best way to weed out
undesirable prospects
is to be brutally honest
as early on
in the process as possible.
This allows you to focus
on the serious candidates.