Maybe this’ll seem like small potatoes compared to some of the problems people post here, but I’m pretty damn worried and frankly upset at the moment, and don’t really have anywhere to get this off my chest.
I’m studying video production at the moment, and I’ve been trying to get a full-time job to just…take a break from school for a while. Maybe save some money, pay off some loans, possibly finish up online in the future. I’ve got a video job I enjoy, but it’s a campus job that pays like $9 an hour, as it’s student employment.
Anyway, I’ve been interviewing at this little “start-up” place in another state. Out of all the postings I’ve applied to, they’ve been the only ones to even give me an interview. Their posting was “$22-$30 an hour, but no benefits”. All of their employees are on a contract basis as they are still a very small company. I did a round of interviews over Zoom. They seemed happy, wanted to do a “working interview” remotely. So I take a day off work and they promise they’ll send me files. Day before the working interview, I get an email around 3 PM saying “the files are large, you might want to start downloading tonight. We’ll get them to you soon.”
The files get sent to me past midnight. I’m fast asleep when they come in. By luck, I’m up at 5 that day, so I start downloading the files. They sent me 250 GB worth of footage. I’m downloading and extracting these from 5 AM to 1 PM before I finally tell them, “Look, this remote thing isn’t working. Is it possible for me to come and do this in person?” They agree, the same day next week is set up for the interview. That’s one day’s wages gone, soon to be two.
The next week comes. I wake up early, drive four hours to make it to the company at 10 AM. They sit me down in a stuffy back room. Nobody speaks to me for the next four hours as I edit. Finally, one of the bosses sits down with me to see my workflow, get some ideas in and reshape what I’ve worked on so far. Again, they sat me down cold with probably an hour and a half of interview footage and dozens of hours of b-roll, expecting a finished product in four hours.
That night I get another email—they were “pleased” and wanted to do another Zoom interview next week.
Great. Sounds to me like they’ll make me an offer.
Cut to today. I sign on to Zoom at noon. They start off with a long-winded speech about how “great I am personality-wise, and humble, and thank you for driving down here last week.” Then they jump straight into “your editing skills aren’t up to par.” Next they tell me that the position they want to offer me would involve essentially running a new studio they’re about to move in to, running multiple social media accounts, and working as an “assistant editor”. Then another long speech about the “opportunities” and how “exciting it is to work with a start-up” and their “growth trajectory”. Then they finish off with “because your editing wasn’t what we wanted, we can only offer $15 an hour.”
I’m a little stunned. I ask for about five minutes to consider, they oblige and turn off their camera. I do the same.
The cost of living alone can’t be covered by $15, not including moving to another state, paying my own health insurance, car insurance and car payments, student loans, and all that jazz. I call back. I tell them that I really can’t make less than $25 work, to which they tell me “it’s not in their budget”, “it’s been a pleasure”, “hope our paths cross again”.
I’m just so…I guess, kind of distraught, kind of in shock. It’s a moderately high-skilled job, in the sense that you really do need experience with the tools. I’ve got five years of experience, thanks to my campus job. But they wanted to pay me less than I’d make in an unskilled job stocking shelves or working a cash register. I lost two work days and $100 worth of gas interviewing with them.
Again, this probably seems like it’s no big deal to some, but I’m dreading having to go back to job postings and watching email after email coming in telling me that they won’t pursue an interview with me.