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BY LIZ BARRETT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

It's not enough anymore to be good at what you do. It's not even enough to be gifted at it. No, you have to be passionate about whatever the company does just to get an interview.

I started this morning as I do every morning, checking out the latest employment ads for writers and editors. There were ten. One was for a translator, another was for someone to take notes in a courtroom and e-mail them to the "real' writer, a third wanted someone to manage a social networking site for video games, the fourth was looking for bloggers who will pump out content for free just to be published on the Internet, two more were for technical writers to develop user manuals, three were for marketing blurbers, and the last one – the only ad actually seeking a journalist like me – was for a yoga magazine web editor.

Yoga Journal, the world's most widely read yoga magazine, is looking for a creative, hardworking, tech-savvy online editor, who is passionate and knowledgeable about yoga.

In addition to education and experience, they were seeking the usual: an editor who is "skilled, tech-savvy, flexible, creative and resourceful." And just for good measure, they repeated the need to be passionate.

"Passionate and knowledgeable about yoga. Yes, we said it above, but we're saying it again. Our magazine and web site live and breathe asana, meditation, and yoga philosophy. If you don't, you won't be a good match."

You can't just know a lot about it, as I do. You can't just be a practitioner, as I am. You must be passionate about it. Every employer seems to require that now. Video games, car repair, fashion, vitamins, high school badminton. "Must be passionate about."

Interested? No good. Willing to learn? Forget it. Must. Be. Passionate.

But why? Does being passionate about something make one better able to write about it? I think not, especially after reading the definition of the word in Webster's Dictionary:

1. a: easily aroused to anger b: filled with anger, angry;
2. a: capable of, affected by, or expressing intense feeling b: enthusiastic, ardent;
3. swayed by or affected with sexual desire.

While some of these characteristics might be useful to a novelist, none would appear to be a particular asset for a journalist. We are trained to research, investigate, interview and finally write about any and every possible subject. No intense or ardent feelings are necessary.

It galls me to have to be passionate about something or be counted out before an employer even sees my resume.

It reminds me of a story my mother used to tell about looking for a job during World War II. She filled out an application to do light aircraft maintenance, as did many young women at that time. She stood in line for hours just to get an application, filled it out, then stood in another long line to turn it in. When she finally got up to the window, the personnel lady asked, "Why do you want to work for the government?"

The question seemed ridiculous to my mother. She needed the job to pay the rent and put food on the table. Why else would she be looking for work? So she responded:

Same reason you wanted your job. I need to eat.

My mother was passionate about survival. The personnel lady was visibly displeased, but eventually she succumbed to my mother's ultimatum: either give her a job or send her to the appeals line. After all that waiting in line and arguing, my mother went home with a job. She was a riveter.

I, on the other hand, am a writer. It's not something I dreamed of being when I grew up.

It's not even something I do. It's something I am. I scribbled books before I knew the alphabet. My mother used to make blank books for me by cutting page-sized pieces from newspaper and stitch-binding them on her sewing machine. I would scribble on the pages and hand it to her. She would "read" it back to me as a story. I was a writer before I could write.

I was editor of every school newspaper from elementary school to college. I was a paid "teen correspondent" for my local newspaper all through high school. Aside from the occasional odd job, I have always earned my living as a journalist.

My college roommate used to say all she wanted was a peon job where no ambition was required. Reading the writer-wanted ads on Craigslist, I see her point.

Liz Barrett writes a blog, The Daily Bleep.