Back in the spring of 2015, I was a freshman at BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College). I had finally turned 18, which meant I didn’t need my parents’ legal approval for me to get a job. It’s not that my parents weren’t supportive, but New York City mandates anyone under 18 to go through this annoying process to work a job as a minor.

Once I turned 18, I sought to get an internship in anything that could boost up my resume. I looked at accounting, finance, marketing, and social media internships. The site I used to search for opportunities was a site called internships.com.

I had applied to so many internships but only received one callback. It was from a now-defunct startup called Wrevel. The internship that I applied for was an unpaid marketing internship.

Unpaid? Yup! I wanted experience and I was going to do anything to get it.

When I got the message that I had been selected for an interview, I was excited as can be. It was going to be my first ever job interview! I started doing research on Wrevel and looking up practice interview questions. During this time, I had no mentors and nobody I could go to for advice or interview practice. I was doing research blindly with no real guidance.

One thing I didn’t do before accepting the invitation to interview was research where Wrevel’s office was. I can’t remember where it was exactly, but it was in a part of Brooklyn that felt like the middle of nowhere.

I was living in the Bronx at the time, so Brooklyn was a FAR commute. Not only that, but the closest train station to Wrevel’s office was nearly a mile away! It was also going to require me to take 3 different trains to get there. Nonetheless, I went to the interview because I was still in this ignorant mindset of getting experience. Mind you, I was an accounting major and this was a marketing internship….

The day of the interview came and it took me 2 hours to get to Wrevel’s office from my apartment.

As I got to the address, I noticed it wasn’t a normal office building. From what I remember, it was a large brick building with no more than five or six floors. My memory’s a bit off since this was 7 years ago (sheesh I feel old). Anyways, Wrevel’s office was in a shared office building, which meant Wrevel wasn’t the only company there.

I took the elevator to Wrevel’s floor and as I got off, I was thrown off by what I saw. I saw glass rooms with different companies occupying each room there was. This was definitely different than what I had envisioned in my head for what a corporate office should look like.

All I could think was, how the hell am I going to find Wrevel? I walked around the floor and felt like I was talking through a maze. Eventually, I saw a sign that pointed me towards Wrevel. I followed the signs and got to Wrevel’s door.

I saw the entire Wrevel team of about a dozen employees hunched into one room. I knocked and they all turned to look at me.

One of their employees opened the door and asked, “Hi, can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m here to interview for the marketing internship,” I told him.

It looked like I had reminded him of the interview since he just said, “Oh, right! You can sit down in the common area and I’ll come get you.”

I walked to the common area and nervously sat there. The man came into the room and asked me who contacted me for an interview. I explained that I was contacted through internships.com, and he seemed confused. He left and the CEO of Wrevel eventually came.

I don’t remember his name, so I’ll call him Aang (I’m a big ATLA fan).

Aang walked me into a smaller glass room and we sat down to speak. I remember he seemed very quiet and didn’t show a hint of a smile. This threw me off a bit, and my nervousness wasn’t helping me feel better about the interview.

While I don’t remember the full interview, I do remember two questions that I royally fucked up. Aang had first asked me, “What are your three strengths?”

All I could think was THREE STRENGTHS?! Motherfucker, I don’t even got two and your ass wants me to list three?

I bullshitted my answer by telling him that writing, public speaking, and leadership were my three strengths. At the time, only one of those three was truthful. I was trash at both public speaking and leadership when I was a freshman. Til this day, I’ve never been asked to list more than one strength when asked this kind of question. Aang was a weirdo for asking me to list three.

Aang did not seem too pleased with my answer and then asked me, “Are you someone that we can rely on to follow through with projects?”

I replied that I was the type to do so. Aang further pressed me by telling me that he had previous interns come up with ideas, but that they never seemed to follow through with the ideas. Aang said, “We definitely want an intern that doesn’t need to be told what to do all the time.”

And you know what my dumbass said right after he said that? I said, “I agree. I’m personally someone that doesn’t like to be told what to do.”

Aang immediately had a confused look on his face and said, “Well, you will be told what to do.”

I tried to save myself by agreeing with him and trying to explain myself, but I already knew I fucked up my chances.

Once the interview wrapped up, I left Wrevel’s office defeated. I took my ass back home knowing that I wasn’t going to get the offer.

I never did receive an application update, but it’s safe to say you didn’t get a job when you don’t ever hear back from a company.

Looking back at my experience, I’ll provide the following advice:

1. Find someone to practice your upcoming interview with. It’s always good to practice questions and answer them with someone in real-time. Practicing on your own helps, but it won’t be as effective as practicing with a friend or family member. Just make sure that it’s someone that will provide you with honest feedback!
2. Don’t apply to work somewhere too far from where you live. I was desperate for experience that I was interviewing with a startup that was a 2-hour commute from my apartment and it was unpaid! Apply to work somewhere either remote or with a reasonable commute.
3. Be patient with opportunities. My dumbass was applying to marketing internships as an accounting major just because of desperation. Sometimes you just got to wait until you find the right opportunity. The right opportunity for me came later that year in 2015.

All views are my own – I do not represent any organizations mentioned in this post.