A position for an Editor at MEDIAmerica opened up in mid-January 2011. It looked like a perfect fit for my background and experience, so I shot off a cover letter right away. As I was very excited about this position, I followed up with an enthusiastic e-mail a week later, which got me the interview. I was a bit wary that this company didn't send along a writing/editing test in advance and just had me come down to their offices at my expense (typical in this economy, but perhaps not well-thought out on their part). The first hour was spent with the associate publisher and the creative director and seemed to go swimmingly. Since I was in from out of town, I then met with an editor from another publication. This seemed normal and the questions I was asked (coming up with story ideas on the fly, what my strengths/weaknesses were, whether I had managed freelancers before, what freelancers would say about my editing/managerial style, etc.) were definitely not out of the ordinary. The approach, however, can best be described as "good cop" (the first hour), bad cop" (the last half hour with this editor). This editor didn't like anything I had to say and shot everything down. I left feeling like I'd been kicked in the stomach. After the interview, I did my homework to see what had gone so wrong. I found out (the world is small!) that people earning living wages are being fired and that they're looking to hire new editors "part-time" while really clocking in 50 hour weeks (and yep, no bennies). Or, they hire "interns" who act as real editors and earn less than $400 a month. I also found out my predecessor had been abruptly canned. Knowing all this, I wrote a thanks but no thanks follow-up. In this economy, if you are a serious publishing house, TEST YOUR JOB CANDIDATES WITH EDITING/WRITING TESTS IN ADVANCE. If you don't -- you will be getting what you pay for! I'm glad I dodged this bullet. It looked like a dream job, but in reality -- nightmare!!!