Why I Refuse to Ever Take Another Edit Test
Job recruitment used to be about finding superior talent. Now it’s just ticking boxes.
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It’s taken nearly 15 years, but I now realize just how good I had it during the first half of my career. I graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville in May of 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in Magazine Journalism, and by August of the same year, I was an intern at People magazine, nine months away from becoming the youngest person on staff.
Several days after graduation, I packed up my white 1980 Toyota Tercel and drove to Charlotte, North Carolina, to begin my summer internship at the Charlotte Observer. Part of what got me through that long, hot summer working for a satellite Observer paper in Monroe, a town so small at the time it didn’t have a local bar, was the impending realization of my New York City dream. One evening while having drinks with a visiting college friend in downtown Charlotte, I was telling him about my upcoming People gig when a lady sitting beside us interrupted me.
“What? You’re going to be working at People magazine? At your age? That’s the kind of place people spend their entire career trying to get to.”
Her enthusiasm flattered and inspired me. It immediately made me feel better about working for a publication I’d always considered to be my mom’s magazine, terribly uncool. From that moment on, it became more than just an opportunity to move to New York City and be in the center of everything. I started to see it as proof that my potential had been noticed. Surely it would be smooth sailing from there on out.
After turning down an offer to extend my time at the Observer to fulfill my commitment to People, I was on my way. But it wasn’t as smooth a ride as I expected.
Once I was inside the door at People, I had a lot of proving myself to do, especially as a young Black journalist in an industry dominated by White editors. Others may have climbed the ladder faster than I did, but when I left New York City to move to Buenos Aires 15 years after my arrival, I knew I had made it, and as the old saying goes, if you can make it in the Big Apple, you can make it anywhere.
