I <3 Fridays...

I am so looking forward to a big piece of chocolate cake and a movie in bed. Forget dancing the night away, this girl needs some serious R&R…

I had another interview this morning and I think it actually went fairly well. The position is strictly editorial but it’s for a company, not a publication. It sounded interesting and the benefits are great, but I’m nervous about getting stuck in another position like I’m in now. I really just need to be in a place where the creative juices are flowing, all this business talk exhausts me.

My freelance contract assignment is going SO well and I absolutely love the project I’m working on. Time isn’t that much of an issue, I work on it mainly on weeknights and weekends, but sometimes I get a bit tired. I’ve been taking on tons of random freelance projects, but I think I should slow down because my full-time job is getting pretty busy. We get a week off for the holidays and apparently people are rushing to get everything done before then. I’ve only got an extra three or four hours of free time a day now, which probably sounds ridiculous, but I used to have a full day filled with nothing to do!

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

PS – I’m dying to do something different and fun with the B/F this weekend. Any Boston Ed’s out there ever been to the skating rink in the common? Is it any fun? Are there any cool yet inexpensive restaurants around there for dinner?

Interview From Hell...

You know that feeling when you leave an interview and you just know you’re definitely not getting the job? That’s pretty much how I felt yesterday when I left the interview for my dream job. I felt like I didn’t get to say enough, or anything really, because all they spoke about was the company and the job. I tried to put my two cents in but I thought talking about how great I was for the position was tacky after they asked if I had any questions. I wasn’t quite sure how bad it went until they stopped me to give me my portfolio before I left. It stinks because I prepared SO much for it and did tons of research, put together a great portfolio and thought about great answers to a million questions they could have asked me.

I’m trying to not to freak out too much. The best internships I’ve scored were after interviews I thought had gone pretty badly. I just really loved the job and it would be a great starting point and it’s a lot closer to my apartment than other jobs I’ve interviewed for. Boo. I guess we’ll see. Has anyone ever actually gotten a call back after a “terrible” interview experience? Perhaps it’s silly to hold on too long but I need a little hope…

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

Ed Girl's Freelance Life...

I’m not an expert freelancer and actually just started doing it about three months ago when I graduated and realized I didn’t have many good clips to put in my portfolio. The way I see it, there are two kinds of freelancing: writing for clips and writing for money. Hopefully, as I get older and more experienced, they’ll some how combine and I’ll be able to write fabulous features for fabulous magazines but for now, there’s still that division.

Sadly, I’ve been freelancing for money a lot more lately and am basically using elance.com to help accomplish that. Don’t hate, it’s almost December and the holidays are quickly approaching. I’ve got to make some extra dough somehow. The site is pretty simple to use and I’ve made quite a bit on it since I discovered it about a month ago. I’ve been basically doing a lot of web content writing, specifically for products or certain topics. For example, I just finished up writing a bunch of 300-word articles about marketing and made $400 doing it. I probably won’t use them for clips, but it’s cash.

I’ve been writing two or three clips a month for a Boston newspaper that I get paid a lot less for but can use in my portfolio. If you haven’t freelanced yet, I think you’ll find that the clips you can use are often ones that you wrote for very little or free. I got pretty lucky and have found a lot of freelancing gigs through craigslist but I’m hoping to eventually be in a place where I can pitch story ideas to my favorite mags. If you’re trying to build clips, though, I imagine you’re not in a place where you’ll be hired to write a feature for Glamour, so I’d suggest writing about what you know and love for smaller publications.

I hope this kind of helps some of the people who have been in touch with questions! Again, I’m definitely no expert and am learning all of this too so if anyone has any fabulous freelancing tips, please share them in some comments!


<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt


PS - I have an interview for my DREAM entry-level editing job in a few hours so wish me luck! EEK!

I'm going to be wearing stretchy pants for weeks...

You know you’ve eaten too much when you literally can barely fit in to your pants after a week of holiday feasting. I’ve been hitting the gym like whoa the past few days but with a fridge full of leftovers and pies from mom, it’s basically a lost cause.

I interviewed late last week for the freelance editing position and heard back this morning that I got it! I start next week and, aside from two or three in-house meetings, all the work can be done remotely. I’m excited but nervous that I’ll get overwhelmed. I’ve taken on a ton of freelance projects and will still be working full-time so it will be quite a busy couple of months.

I’ve also got a couple of interviews lined up at the end of this week for some editing positions. One’s at a magazine and the other for a website. I’ve never done web editing and haven’t really done a ton of web writing, but it will be good interview experience anyway. I think my boss is getting suspicious that I keep having these “doctors appointments” and I feel bad missing more work, especially since I’ve been sick forever and missed so much already! As much as I really want a job in publishing, I will feel bad leaving here…

Hope everyone had a fabulous holiday! I’ve been getting a lot of emails and requests for freelancing tips (even though I’m really no expert), so tomorrow perhaps I’ll post a little something about how I got in to it…

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

The Gods Are Against Me...

Forgive me for the past two weeks and lack of entries, I was super lucky and got a bad pneumonia, meaning no work, no fun, no entries and, worst of all, no job hunting. This past weekend I was finally able to muster up the strength to get up and check out the job boards and was so disappointed to see a few great openings I would have loved to jump on immediately. I still sent out my resume and clips ASAP and I’m hoping that most people are waiting until after turkey day to hire.

The only good news/real news I have to offer is that I did get an interview through the temp agency I applied for a few weeks ago. It’s for a contract, freelance position at a company in they city and I’d be responsible for putting together their first ever company magazine, which I’m assuming is essentially a newsletter. I’m pretty excited because it is a lot more editorial work than writing and I’d be responsible for managing the design team and freelance writers involved in the project.

Again, I’m so sorry for the lack of posts and I promise it will be much more interesting in the weeks to come. Now that I’m back on my feet I’m ready for the holiday season and the openings that will hopefully follow soon after!

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

Shorter Days & Cold Weather…

…make me miserable and sick! It’s weird getting out of work when it’s dark and I can’t seem to shake this horrible cold. I finally had to turn up the heat this weekend, which means super high gas bills are sure to follow.

I heard back from the magazine I’ve had a couple interviews with and I didn’t get the position. They said that while they thought my experience was great, they went with someone who was an expert on the mags subject matter. Apparently the person isn’t really a writer but has been involved in the industry the magazine targets for years.

Yesterday I interviewed with the temp agency I wrote about but I don’t know if I should really expect anything to come from it. Apparently they don’t often get the type of jobs I’m looking for. It’s a creative agency and they’re mainly looking for people who do graphic arts or marketing. They do get a few freelance writing assignments so I’m hoping to at least get my hands on some of those. They said that they haven’t ever had one of the magazines in the area come to them looking for people, so that doesn’t make me too hopeful. Has anyone had any luck with temp agencies? I've heard some success stories, but not too many.

I keep seeing short freelance editing assignments on job boards, but I can’t leave my job to take work for only a short period of time. Especially around the holidays, it’s just not possible. I’m kind of expecting that I’ll be around here until January when people actually start hiring again. In the meantime, more resumes, more clips and lots more freelancing!

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

I can't stop checking my email...

It’s become an obsession! I’ve always got my gmail open in a window on my desktop and I literally check every two minutes to see if anyone is responding to a pitch or resume. If I don’t get at least three emails an hour, I freak out and get all upset. I seriously need to relax a little.

I had a second interview for the Assistant Editor position this morning. Once again, I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I think it went really well. I did some research on the mags topic before hand and tried to throw a few facts out there. I made it clear that I was no expert but instead focused on the fact that I can adapt well to various topics. Hopefully they’ll see that! Lets keep our fingers crossed.

I just found out that, through a family member, I have a pretty strong connection at a regional mag here in the city. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this until now, everyone in my family has known about my plot to take the magazine industry by storm. It came up in a casual conversation and I’m not really sure how to use the information. I let my family member know I was really interested in working at the mag (it would be a DREAM) and she said she’d see what she could do. I’ve never had a connection like this before, am I going about it the right way?

<3 Ed’s Girl On The Hunt

PS - If any of you want to get in touch with me, feel free to shoot me an email at edgirlonthehunt@gmail.com! XOXO