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Topic: HR people . . . I need your help!
| Author | Message |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/6/2008 5:15:48 PM | show profile | email poster Here is my goal checklist: 1) Get a Bachelor's in Journalism- Check 2) Get internship experience in journalism-Check 3) Get a job in journalism - I'm stuck at this step! Here is mission impossible: Can anyone on this board help me achieve step 3? How do I get a job in journalism? I have all the qualifications (BA, internship experience, clips, references, editing and software skills) and no job. If there is any HR people in this field, please tell me some ways of applying for journalism jobs (online postings, by snail mail, calling managing editors and begging for interviews). How do I write a successful resume/ cover letter for journalism jobs? What is the correct path to take to arrive at journalism jobville? |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/6/2008 5:27:42 PM | show profile First of all, where are you looking, what types of companies are you applying to, how are you currently looking for positions, and what are you doing to network? THese answers will provide a good jumping off point for those who can help you. |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/7/2008 9:40:15 AM | show profile | email poster I'm applying online to job postings via mediabistro.com, monster.com, etc. I want to be in print media. I cannot network because I do not know anyone in the journalism field. So networking is out of the question. Even when I was in college, none of the professor offered us "J" students internships or advice to get one. We were all on our own. So I called local newspapers for internships. And I found out at the end of these internships, they had no interest in hiring interns, they just gave us college credit and clips! Can I cold call employers to set up an interview or something. I don't know what I should do, but I'm eager for a job soon! |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/7/2008 9:43:52 AM | show profile | email poster Oh! , almost forgot. . . If any of you journalism professionals are looking for employees, please e-mail me and I will be happy to send you my resume, references, cover letter, etc. I'm qualified to work in print media for editing copy, photos, illustrations, and writing articles, catchy headlines, captions, taglines, etc. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/7/2008 11:06:59 AM | show profile Oh, sweetie....you need some serious advice. Networking is FOR meeting people! Never under any circumstances is networking "out of the question." You have to get yourself out there. You put yourself in situations to meet people. You attend professional society events- does your city have a press club? Mediabistro events? Go to them. Chit chat. Meet people. Don't ask for jobs, but learn about them, get to know them. Call your school's alumni department or look in your alum database and look for people who work in industries/at companies you want to wotk for. E-mail or call them and ask for an informational interview. The purpose of this would not to ask for a job, but to learn how to break in somewhere, what their jobs are like, etc. But if you impress them, they might keep you in mind for future jobs or refer you. And ar eyou just looking in NYC? It's a tough place for even seasoned pros to get a job. Look in small markets- they are often hungry for entry-level folks. And don't be above taking another internship. THere are paid ones out there that will help you get a foot in the door. And for god's sake, don't just apply to online postings. Most jobs are NOT advertised. I am sure Foodlit will have some more great advice for you. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/7/2008 11:10:07 AM | show profile And by the way, it's not a professor's job to advertise or offer internships. You have to be your own advocate- if you wanted advice on how to get one, you ask. If you want an internship, you ask for suggestions on where to look, research area companies, ask your j-school alumni office, etc. If you want to work in print media, reporters are expected to be resourceful people who nose out stories. It's the same with your job search - if you can't approach it with gusto and investigative skills, you're in the wrong intended profession. Not trying to be mean, but it sounds like you need a reality check. Good luck to you in your search. |
| Decorama | Posted – 3/7/2008 11:56:28 AM | show profile Huh. After reading a number of "can't find a job posts" and noting where the postettes are finding job ads (mediabistro, monster for this one), I am wondering whether they are indeed digging deep enough with their journalistic skills to find likely targets for their job search. As I noted in the case of Shelby, if you are applying for jobs simply through mediabistro and monster, you're missing out on a lot of possibilities. I, for one, am a HUGE believer in writing blind personalized letters to possible employers that are NOT advertising specific jobs. Just got offered a decent position in that very fashion (admittedly, it's not my dream job, but then I'm not one of Ed's little girlfriends). I also recently heard from one of my favorite mags I contacted in the same manner. A few years ago, I emailed the editor and never heard back. Determined to make a splash, I wrote again last week, and I received a very upbeat call from a thrilled editor. I will speak to her again, and hopefully there will be a position there for me. Yes, it's not easy, and there is no correct path. Ever onward! |
| pholiday | Posted – 3/7/2008 12:40:03 PM | show profile If you want to work as a journalist, leave New York. Go anywhere with that degree of yours. Being a real journalist rarely starts in NY, it happens at small papers. |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/7/2008 1:03:49 PM | show profile | email poster Okay, thanks. And I did use my journalistic skills to find internships. Mag Girl, I asked professors for the hows and wheres to find internships. You know what they said: "It's not my job to tell you how to get your foot in the door; no one ever gave me a chance. I had to find out on my own!" They never even talked about networking in any way, shape, or form. And of course I go out there and sleuth for jobs, advice, etc. But what can I do if people are not willing to spill the beans or their secrets to success? Also, I live in New York, I don't have the funds to move in order to get a job. And Decorama, what are exactly blind personal letters to employers? I figure they are like cover letters, that just illustrates a person's skills and acheivements and asks the question if there are any jobs in the company that fit. If not, then Decorama, then what exactly are they? |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/7/2008 2:13:23 PM | show profile MLA_Chick, let me put it to you this way- what's more expensive? One month's rent in NYC or the funds to move to a small market? You CAN move somewhere on limited funds. Rent a UHaul and drive. Get a loan from your parents or the bank if you have to - it's better than not getting a job, isn't it? If you are dead-set on staying in NYC, you're going to face a steep, steep uphill battle, especially if you think networking is "out of the question." |
| foodlit | Posted – 3/7/2008 4:36:18 PM | show profile | email poster MLA, send me an email and I'll send you my word doc on interviewing/resumes/networking. It might help. Pam (in HR) |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/7/2008 5:52:37 PM | show profile Could I just bust the myth that everyone in journalism starts in small towns. Not true at all. Many, many people start in big cities including NYC. If the OP is lucky enough to be living (perhaps with family) at the centre of the media world, why on earth would you tell her to go to a small twon? What she needs is a basic course in job hunting not a move to Podunk, wherever. And those J-school profs sound like a fricking nightmare. While it's not their jobs to set up internships most J-schools offer career related workshops, counselling, etc. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/7/2008 5:57:51 PM | show profile Insomniac- true, some people so start in NYC, but I'd say it's increasingly tougher to do so. And if she wants a journalism job sooner rather than later, what's the harm in applying elsewhere? I didn't necessarily mean smaller market as in Podunk, USA, but really anywhere outside of a top-5 city. It does make it easier to find a job when you broaden your search to other, smaller areas. |
| inblue | Posted – 3/8/2008 3:11:19 AM | show profile It is not the responsiblity of your professors to teach you how to network nor is it their job to find you an internship. Mentors are wonderful but you must seek them yourself. I am not trying to be harsh. I am also a recent graduate and I am finding the recent posts by fellow recent graduates to be terribly alarming and frustrating. They basically fill every cliche about our generation! |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 3/8/2008 4:30:23 AM | show profile The path is nothing more than dogged persistentness. Find meetings of journalism organizations and attend. Introduce yourself to strangers. Go to local newspapers and ask to freelance and cover boring meetings. Write up an article that you are looking for a journalism job, go downtown, and hand them out to people on the street. There is no one path. There is no one secret. There is just life, and hustling, and trying different things and eventually one will work. And the one that works for you might be different than the one that works for the next 10 people, which is why you try everything. |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/8/2008 8:24:31 AM | show profile Mag girl, Big cities = more jobs, more competition Smaller cities = fewer jobs, less competition The traditional reason for recommending people start in smaller locales was because they'd get a chance to do a bit of everything and obtain a more all-around experience. And on J-school internships, many J-schools assign a staff or facutlty member to be internship coordinator . While ensuring students get internships may not be every professor's individual responsibility, all the good J-schools certainly help to place their students in internships. |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/10/2008 11:19:44 AM | show profile | email poster Thanks InsomniacNOT! Thanks for saying that InsomniacNot! I do agree that smaller locals are solely to gain more experience, but come on, NYC has to have jobs in Journalism, and it would be foolish of me to move to look for a job, especially when I don't have the funds for it! And also, professors are not supposed to help me obtain an internship, that I know, but they could at least point me in the right direction. Us "J" majors had to take an internship class to be eligible for graduating. Sadly, on the first day of class, more than half the class did not have internships, so the professor "found" them internships. He is the internship coordinator. He had a list of all internships in NYC. He will not give them to any students who doesn't participate in the school newspapers or magazines, or who would fail the class on the basis of not having on. This class you could only take during your last semester before graduation, not before it! This man even had them on a flash drive that he wore around his neck. Whenever a student would ask for an internship who was not on the newspaper or magazine, he would tell them they were on their own. Now do you guys understand my plith? I went out there on my own and got myself 2 great internships, plus jobs during college while maintaining a major GPA of 3.8 and a GPA of 3.1. I just need help on what methods I should use to getting a job. I liked decorama's idea of writing letters to companies. Does anyone else have any tried and true methods to obtain a Journalism position? |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 3/10/2008 12:03:42 PM | show profile You've had a lot of good suggestions in this thread including an offer from the ever helpful Foodlit. Sounds like you can get started. |
| Cyrus | Posted – 3/10/2008 2:45:26 PM | show profile MLA, For better or worse, there aren't really any "tried and true" methods to do anything connected with the economy and jobs anymore. If anything, the one thing you can do to keep yourself in good shape is to be flexible and change with the times. That's not all bad, actually, as it's much less of an "ink stain" on a person's record if they change jobs more frequently. And obviously there are opportunities in new media that are still evolving all the time. As far as moving, I know it's hard to consider -- and there was a time following the 9/11 attacks that I probably should have considered it myself even with at that time more than a decade of experience under my belt. But moving from NYC does have a lot of advantages to new grads. It goes far beyond just money, actually; you can really gain a lot of valuable experience in smaller markets because you'll get to do things that you'd have to have more experience for in a major market. Those kinds of experiences will pay dividends quickly. For example, the AP requires 2 years of daily experience for consideration for many full-time jobs. Getting that would be hard in the NYC metro area, but pretty easy if you move to a smaller market. And my experience is that you'll get to do a lot of things that are more fun too. I met great people and covered some wild stuff in small town America. You'll also find you're MUCH more immune to layoffs in small town America and that alone is worth something. As far as resumes and cover letters, making things specific on resumes is the best thing you can do. For example, in a description of a job in a past life, I didn't just say that I managed a news-oriented Web site for tech professionals; I pointed out that I was instrumental in growing traffic six fold during my tenure. I realize that may be hard for you to do at this point, but any way you can highlight specifics regarding accomplishments, the better. In terms of cover letters, DON'T GO GENERIC. This is the number one mistake so many people do. Show that you've read the ad, or if just sending in hopes of a job, specifically describe the skills that are relevant to the job where you're applying. It's pretty easy for people to tell when an applicant just puts a new address on the top of a cover letter and sends it without any specific regard for the opportunity they're filling, and hiring managers hate that. You should use multiple strategies to ferret out jobs; send some letters to places you'd like to work, send some in response to ads, etc. You may have been joking when you mentioned it, but never beg and/or sound desperate in letters or in interviews. You always want to make yourself come across as a valuable commodity that has skills not easily found in those you're competing against for a job. It's harder to do when you're new to the work force, but over time, always think of ways you can accentuate your skills so that you make the company you're interviewing with want you as much or more so than the other way around. ------ Cyrus Afzali Astoria Communications www.astoriacomm.com |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 3/10/2008 9:19:43 PM | show profile Your first mistake ... ... is asking HR people for help. You should be seeking out managing editors, news directors, and producers. THOSE are the people who hire. HR people just push the paperwork through. |
| Canadiana | Posted – 3/11/2008 5:15:29 AM | show profile I disagree that professors shouldn't be giving out advice on job-hunting or networking. A good teacher will share practical and theoretical advice on how to get a great job once graduating from university. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 3/11/2008 9:44:05 AM | show profile Canadiana, I don't think anyone's saying professors shouldn't give out advice on job hunting- but it's not their *responsibility* to do so or up to them to help find internships. The student has to show initiative and actually ask, and not in a way that makes them appear entitled. Now if a professor outright refuses to help a polite student who did well in class, that's another story, but there are always other professors. And remember that a lot of professors have been out of the "real-world" job game for a long time. The school's career services or alumni affairs department might be of more help. |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/11/2008 11:21:29 AM | show profile | email poster ManhattanMatt, ManhattanMatt, I have a relative who is a managing editor at a prestigious newspaper. They refuse to help me because they do not want to see anyone steal their spotlight (think of vanessa williams in soul food, or a reese witherspoone type in election). They are a know it all that outright refuses to help others with their knowledge, and if they do offer you help (such as a resume review), it's not what is exactly needed and they will remind you of the help they gave you at every waking moment. This is where some of my networking fears come in to play. I have a big networking opportunity (in the family), and they won't even accept my resume (which the career center at my college said was written incoherently by that particular family member!), or give me advice at all. How do you suggest I get in direct contact with other managing editors, etc. and smooze them into interviewing me (should I call them, writing letters of interest about their companies?) Anyone else with some ideas to this question specifically, feel free to answer. |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 3/11/2008 3:22:20 PM | show profile MLA Chick ... Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're looking for an entry-level job, no? How could any entry-level applicant be "stealing the spotlight" of any managing editor? |
| MLA_Chick85 | Posted – 3/11/2008 3:50:19 PM | show profile | email poster THAT'S MY WHOLE POINT! THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT! She does disgusting things like this. She offered to lend her old wedding dress to another relative of mine who is getting married soon. And told her that she should feel "honored" that she offered her wedding dress (like she is royalty or something). Imagine if she helped me get an entry level job, and in five years I earn a higher income than her, she couldn't live with the fact that she helped someone acheive a better living than she has. I'm sorry for going off-topic, but it makes me so furstrated and angry because I have no income, and family will not help me, even to get my foot in the door. It's not like I'm asking for handouts or anything. If you would like proof of this, I can send you the disgusting e-mail she wrote to me, when I asked her for "J" advice back when I was a junior in college. It really hurt me that family can treat you this way! |
