The Job Search/Part 2

By Frank Absher

Ah, yes. The job interview.

I’ve been on both sides.

As a relative youngster, I had the foresight to see the interview as a two-way audition. Yes, I needed a job, but it couldn’t be just any job anywhere. So I asked questions and looked for loopholes in the answers.

One station sounded pretty good on the air and the market was a good one for upward mobility. Its studios were in a house with offices on the first floor and air studios in a back room on the second floor. On-air staff was required to wear shirt and tie at all times. Equipment was marginal, and there was no air conditioning in the studio, which made things miserable in the summer. My take, whether it was correct or not, was that air staff was at the bottom of the priority heap. I passed on the offer.

The Air Force sent me to a god-forsaken assignment in New Mexico, so I applied for a part time job at both commercial stations in the market. The letter I got back from one of the GMs was remarkable. He told me the station was a Billboard reporter and had won numerous state news reporting awards. It was all lies. The other station, a daytimer, was in a room at the local Holiday Inn. (Small market radio can be rough.)

The hardest job to turn down was during an extended period of unemployment. I’d usually go into the market the day before the interview and spend the time driving around looking at houses, checking out the folks shopping and in restaurants. It was my way of checking out my potential audience. There were no “upscale” restaurants. People were not dressed well. The town had lots of used car lots and the new car dealerships were small.

The station’s GM was nice enough and the station was pretty well-run, but it didn’t surprise me when he told me he paid minimum wage.

Interviews usually ran the gamut too. Most of the time, they were hurried. If I talked to the GM, he was busy and could only devote a few moments to the conversation. If I talked with the PD it was usually better, but some stations didn’t even have a PD.

I specifically remember one interview in a large market. The PD came across as a burned out druggie, but we got through the conversation fairly well. He took me to meet the station owner who said he had one very important question. The answer, he said, would tell him whether I had what it took to work at his rock station.

“You’re on the air at night,” he said. “”Do you turn on the lights in the studio or do you turn them down?” I don’t think he even knew that I was applying for the job of news director.

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