Thread by @kixes

While thinking further about @the_ayeminthant's piece, as well as looking at responses to my own piece on @splicenewsroom (thank you everyone!) I'm reminded of this experience that I had years ago... (here comes the 🧵)

https://twitter.com/the_ayeminthant/status/1381802507253469186

1/ This was back in the day when I still thought that freelancing might only be a temporary arrangement for me. A well-established and respected Western, English language media company was hiring a Southeast Asia Correspondent, so I thought that I'd apply.

2/ The job ad (obviously) stated that fluency in English was necessary. But it also said that proficiency in a Southeast Asian language would be a strong advantage.

3/ Me, taking it super seriously, spent ages wondering if Mandarin really qualified in this "Southeast Asian language" category. I mean, there are certainly enough SEAsians who speak it for it to be counted, right? But then I also felt like that was probably not what they meant.

4/ Then I wondered if I, armed with my English+Mandarin and about 3–4 years (at that point) of experience blogging/reporting on mainly Singapore, with some contacts scattered around Southeast Asia, would really be good enough to be a Southeast Asian correspondent.

5/ If they'd asked me to be a Singapore correspondent I'd be confident in my ability, no problem. But to cover Southeast Asia, all of it? 10 ASEAN countries + Timor-Leste, in all their diversity, history, politics, complexity?

Which superhuman can be an expert in all of it?

6/ I thought about this for days before I decided to apply.

I didn't even get a call for an interview. Which is fine; no one is under any obligation to entertain my application or interview me if there are better candidates! There were perfectly legit reasons to not choose me.

7/ In the end the job went to someone who was already working for the company in another part of the world, who was moved to Southeast Asia.

Turned out I was overthinking the whole thing about proficiency in a SEAsian language and my experience/knowledge of the region. 🤷🏻‍♀️

8/ Another experience: I once interviewed for a position that would be largely online-based (so not physical parachuting), but the coverage area was "Asia-Pacific".

Like, from New Zealand all the way up to Mongolia?

9/ One of the interview questions I was supposed to prep was "are there any parts of the coverage area you would say you are less familiar with"

I just started laughing hysterically inside

Here's the piece I wrote for @splicenewsroom that I referenced right up top:

https://twitter.com/splicenewsroom/status/1382318091896455173?s=20