Nkechi Nneji ‘07

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How does one find a job? Often, the story is not about an online application and a rigorous interview process, but a random, fortuitous meeting – a story like this one. Unlike the other posts, there are no short teachings to be teased from this serendipitous anecdote. The moral of the story is, sometimes the world moves in mysterious ways.

“Well, I graduated from Smith in May of 2007. Like most Smithies of the time, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just get a job – I’m a Smithie!’ I was gravely humbled – gravely, gravely humbled.

So I was with my mother outside of CVS. We bumped into one of her friends from church, Dan Lane. We started talking and for some reason politics came up. I love politics, mother’s milk to me; I can natter on and on and on. He goes, ‘wow, you know a lot about politics. Where did you go to school?’ I said I went to Smith, and he goes ‘oh wow, Smith! That’s a really good school.’

He asked for my resume. About a month later, I got an email asking if I would like to come to CNN to interview. I went in for an interview, sat in Gene Bloch’s office and basically reiterated that I can learn very quickly, I don’t have a lot of experience, but I learn quickly and I have leadership skills… and I learn very quickly. They offered me a free-lance position at $15 an hour and with no benefits. I said, ‘I’ll take it!’

I found out about a month later that Dan Lane’s sister, Nancy Lane was the Senior Vice President of the Newsgathering at CNN. So my resume went straight to the top and then got funneled down.”