Friday, December 07, 2007

How to Succeed at Getting Things from Interviewers, Without Really Trying

I saw Wicked last night at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. It was fantastic! In addition to feeling as though I was sitting in a packed theater back in Times Square in NYC (here I am missing New York... never thought that would happen), the show was truly magical. Great songs, story, actors, stage--everything was over the top and fantastic to watch.

But that is not the point of this post. You might be reading this thinking, "Oh how nice, Annie got to see a Broadway show in LA. That girl loves musical theater, as well as shows on the SciFi channel, which is a little weird, wait, why am I friends with her again? NO, WAIT! The real question is, how could someone who is currently unemployed and would rather spend any actual large sums of money on clothes or a bar tab afford to see a show with a ticket price well over $100???"

Well friends, here's how: In a recent networking interview I was given two tickets to see Wicked. Free of charge. It all happened quite suddenly in a causal conversation during which I was asked if I had ever seen the show and replied, no but I loved the book and love the soundtrack. Bam, tickets in hand. This, I will say, was unexpected, very exciting, and got me to thinking. Here in Hollywood when you are interviewing or meeting with people who work in publicity there are always perks. There are always extra products lying around and people here are constantly on the job and want to be schlepping their stuff.

In an interview yesterday I am casually chatting with my interviewers after a response to their question, "What are you currently reading?" led to an interesting conversation about pop culture, 80s nostalgia, and sports teams. Being as I am a Red Sox fan, this of course becomes the next subject matter, especially when I discover that one of my interviewers was just in Boston for the world series. This gets me all excited, and we chat some more about New England sports until moving onto the next question. When it came time to finish the interview, just before I leave I am handed the DVD of the 2007 Rockies-Red Sox world series, which this company released (special features include a narrative by Matt Damon, a Dropkick Murphy's music video and hopefully Papelbon's riverdance routine). Sure this is less exciting than tickets to Wicked, and it wasn't the most thrilling of World Series so I might try to pawn the DVD off on a friend for Christmas, but that was the second interview where I walked away with something.

Which leads to my next question... instead of show tickets or a DVD, how about a job?

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