After college, I went into the NBC Page Program. It's one of those great programs that allows kids to get their feet wet in every area of the business.
I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn't matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.
I started at 'The Post' as an intern in 2000 right after I got out of college.
I entered the work force cleaning breast pumps at a pharmacy! It was a part-time gig while I was at school... no interview required.
When I graduated college I had a series of just humiliating jobs that I couldn't believe I was at.
My first job out of college was as an editorial assistant in a New York publishing house. Being an editorial assistant is the purgatory would-be editors must endure before they can ascend the ladder and begin acquiring books on their own. I spent a year filing paperwork, writing copy, and typing rejection letters.
The first job I ever had was right here in San Francisco with Southern Pacific.
'The Office' was such a great first job.
When I finished grad school, I sort of fell into journalism. Someone mentioned that there was an entry-level job at the Reuters News Agency. I applied, and, to my amazement, I got the job.
My first job was at a Burger King.
I had almost nothing published until I had something published in 'Sports Illustrated.' I started there as a fact-checker two weeks after I got out of college and was there for almost 20 years.
My first job in advertising was actually in the mailroom of Grey Advertising in Sydney.
All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.
I had a job right out of college writing for a small newspaper called 'The Unterrified Democrat.' Ghastly, ghastly job.
I interned at NBC News and had a great experience there in both New York City and Washington. After graduating, I got an entry-level production job at PBS in Boston. There, I developed the bug for programming and production.
My first job out of college was at PBS as an administrative assistant. I thought I would be on the production side of things.
I got an offer at 'Vogue.' And I desperately wanted to work in magazines. My interest wasn't in fashion, but when you get an offer right out of college for a magazine that big - I decided that it was probably better to start at a big name magazine, even if I wasn't necessarily fascinated with the subject.
While I was in college, I became a page at ABC. Suddenly I was working for Good Morning America, local news, national news. The page is the lowest rung of the ladder, and it's the also the place where you can ask any question and not feel dumb.
I was really just the tea boy to begin with, or the equivalent thereof, but I quickly announced, innocently but very ambitiously, that I wanted to be, I was going to be, a foreign correspondent.
Finally, I told them I'd drop out of the management program if they'd give me an entry-level job in the newsroom for union wages, about fifty dollars a week.
When you talk to unemployed young people you hear one thing above all others - if you haven't got experience how can you get a job? But if you don't have a job, how can you get experience?
I caught a break and took an entry-level job with the Houston Texans when I was 28.
