I’m on to my next week in NYC and have already experienced an earthquake and a hurricane; I’m pretty sure I can handle anything!  It makes me sad to go on Facebook and see all of the fun events happening at Scripps, and right about now I’m definitely missing the delicious Scripps cookies.  In fact, I’m missing all of the incredible amenities of Scripps that I pretty much took for granted: amazing dining service, reasonably-priced laundry machines, and free events and parties.  In New York City, nothing is free…and I mean nothing!  I haven’t figured out yet if the coffee here is more expensive than the Motley, or if I’m just requiring much more caffeine in this hectic environment.  To accommodate my necessary spending sprees, I’ve starting searching and interviewing for a part-time job.  You’d think it would be easy to find a well-paying job for a young and eager young woman here in Manhattan…but to find one that is flexible enough for a dancer’s crazy, ever-changing schedule of classes, auditions, and the occasional gig.

I applied to quite a few jobs in my area and had two interviews last week (for my first choice jobs, too!).  The first interview was for a retail position at an internationally-acclaimed dance apparel store popular with people in “the biz:” the Radio City Rockettes, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Ann Reinking, you name it!  While I felt like I was the perfect candidate for the job, my interviewer was worried that I did not have previous retail experience, despite my tactful attempts to apply the skills from my non-retail jobs and internships to the position at hand.  I was not discouraged, however, until the woman interviewing me asked me if I had seen the movie, “The Devil Wears Prada.”  Not only had I memorized the lines in the film, I’d also read the book way back when.  But my love of the movie did not perpetuate excitement for this job…I was terrified.  I would be the “Anne Hathaway “ character, the over-worked young hopeful who (would hopefully not be) abused by her boss, forced to run around the city for countless errands, work extra hours, and complete unimaginable tasks without question.  I have yet to hear back from them, but I don’t have my hopes up.

My second interview, however, went much better, and included a free drink at Starbucks compliments of my interviewer.  The job is a front-desk position at a Pilates studio.  Maybe I’m over-confident, but again, I thought I was the perfect candidate for the job, an organized, friendly dancer aspiring to get her Pilates certification.  The interview questions were the typical: Why do you want to work here?  What are your strengths and weaknesses?  What would you do in a particular situation where…?  And so forth.  Despite all the interviews I’ve been on, I still have trouble with the strengths and weaknesses question…It’s a question that you want to rehearse, but you also want it to seem unrehearsed (genuine).  Still waiting to hear back from those jobs, so stay tuned!