The weird gray area in between

Last week, I applied for a job fact-checking a big magazine's special Winter issue. Within an hour I got an enthusiastic reply, and the interview was set for Monday.

Monday came and went, and the interview was the most fun I'd had in a pressure situation. We browsed through racks of dresses, talked about boys, and found each other strikingly familiar...

And then the email came. The usual. "You're fantastic!" and "It was so great to meet you!" and then of course, "we hired someone else."

But then, again, "Do you want to freelance and do some reporting for us?"

It's obvious that I'm doing something right--otherwise they wouldn't try to keep my around. But what on earth am I doing wrong that I'm not getting part-time fact-checking jobs?

I think back to my boyfriend's med school hunt, and remember how he got rejected from schools because he was too good for them. Maybe my experience is beyond fact-checking to certain recruiters? Or am I just finding ways to make myself feel better? I don't know. But I'm fairly sure that the reason I haven't heard back from Sur La Table isn't because I'm not qualified to sell kitchen goods.

The conundrum is this: if you're "too good" to work the lower end part-time/retail jobs, and just a few hairs away from being able to score the entry-level jobs, where do you fall? And what do you do to propel yourself forward if you're stuck in the gray in-between?