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Topic: I'm about to lose my cool!
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| HyancinthGirl | Posted – 5/22/2008 4:59:06 PM | show profile First off, Hyancinth is my maiden name. Take up the misspelling with Ellis Island. Blackberry143: I'm not a Boomer. I grew up using a computer *gasp* and designing my own websites, too. Too bad the OP does not have your drive or he wouldn't be here complaining about not having a job after 2 years. I'm don't think I'm being unrealistic. I'm asking you as newbies to spell correctly. To learn from others. To take an ok salary with the potential for a better salary once you prove to me you give a shit about your profession. Do you expect a great salary with fabulous hours that are less than 40? Start your own publication and don't come to a media board whining that no one will hire you. What you fail to realize is I want any new EA to succeed, which is why I am strict with my hiring standards. A lazy job seeker is likely an unmotivated employee. It reflects badly from the bottom to the top. It's our jobs to be professional writers, so don't convey "I'm lazy" in your cover letter. Use some of that snappy "new" technology us old folks don't know nothing about. I'm also hard on newbies because, by your own admissions, college is not preparing you for the workforce. You want to be a writer or an editor, who do you expect to learn the basics from? I welcome the fresh ideas and new ways to do things, but if college is failing you all soooooooo miserably, then you're going to learn how to report and compose correctly. Creating a personal blog or a MySpace page is not the same thing as real publishing/reporting work. "Definately" is still incorrect no matter how many times you type in on your blog. Your first year you should be hungry for knowledge. You learn from us, we learn from you. You need a foundation. Finally, I will say it again: I want you to succeed. It makes me as a manager look good, and generally that job of mine that you're taking is because I vacated it after my promotion. |
| PluckyPane | Posted – 5/22/2008 5:42:19 PM | show profile lol and bravo, hyancinth. didn't we all think our bosses were stupid and slow, and that we knew how to do it 100 times better? |
| irishloop | Posted – 5/22/2008 6:00:59 PM | show profile I think it's pretty crass to insist on salary requirements and then make a joke out of the cover letters that mention ranges you think are too high. And I find it interesting that so many hiring managers complaining here have a poor grasp of grammar. |
| irishloop | Posted – 5/22/2008 6:01:13 PM | show profile I think it's pretty crass to insist on salary requirements and then make a joke out of the cover letters that mention ranges you think are too high. And I find it interesting that so many hiring managers complaining here have a poor grasp of grammar. |
| PluckyPane | Posted – 5/22/2008 6:22:33 PM | show profile there's a world of difference between writing on a media board versus writing a cover letter. |
| onmyown | Posted – 5/22/2008 6:59:20 PM | show profile No, Plucky, I did not think my managers were stupid and slow when I started out. I respected them for what they were--professionals who were eager to share their knowledge with newbies, at least those who paid attention. I listened, performed well and was rewarded by those older folks with promotions and more money. Isn't this how it's supposed to work? |
| irishloop | Posted – 5/22/2008 8:03:21 PM | show profile Fair enough, PluckyPane, but some of the messages in this thread have been so self-righteous and aggrieved that it's hard not to notice the mistakes. Keith, if you're still reading, I'd recommend that you try not to panic. Losing one's cool rarely helps, as you're probably aware, and it's good that you're reaching out for help. Some interesting suggestions have been offered in this thread, along with others that surely wouldn't suit everyone (many parents don't have $1,500 to give their grown kids, for example). Keep in mind that success at any point in your career can take constant restrategizing as well as hard work. Take a deep breath, consider all your options, and keep looking for good advice where you can find it. Things will get better. |
| Grateful Deadline | Posted – 5/22/2008 8:03:46 PM | show profile This discussion has contained so much good information, I'm tempted to print it out for my students. Thank you all so much! Sadly, in the Freelance Marketplace Forum on MB, someone has pulled up a topic from December, "Is Columbia Proofreaders Legitemate?" (sic) The topic, created by our original poster, inadvertently indicates why he's still looking for a journalism job after two years. It shows right away that his difficulty isn't caused by staying in the city, lack of money to move or any of that. The best we ever could have done was wish him luck. But I think all of the tips and insider views here will be priceless to other grads hitting the market, and you all were exceedingly generous with your time in posting them. |
| Righter | Posted – 5/22/2008 9:10:45 PM | show profile I'm joining this thread a bit late but thought I'd try to make a point that's been brought up over and over in the MB boards, specifically that they're not friendly to recent grads and beginners. I can see both sides of that argument, since I graduated college two years ago and find that SOME, (not all) of the frustration with the young is unwarranted. True, posters like the OP, with the capital letters and the !!! make even me cringe. But I think it's also unfair to generalize that everyone from our generation is whiny, self-righteous and lazy. For every poster that posts in the beginners section, desperate and whiny, there are those recent grads out there who are working hard, starting at the entry level jobs, trying to network, getting internships and clips, etc...but we don't see their posts because they don't ask for this kind of advice. They're out there learning the answers through experience. They're taking things into their own hands. They don't blame professors or guidance counselors for not holding their hands throughout college. I know I didn't, and I know many people my age who didn't, and who have accomplished an amazing amount in a short time. Keith, if your guidance counselors didn't help, did you try to find other resources? When I was a sophomore in college I found Mediabistro because I was obsessed with figuring out how to get published, even after classes were over I wanted to know more. I looked online, sent query letters to magazines, started freelancing before I graduated, worked with the school paper, interned at three different companies and got a job within a month of graduation and never complained about the starting salary. I majored in creative writing and minored in journalism. I can tell you that in the interviews I've been to, the major doesn't matter as much as the experience you have to back it. I was actually at a writer's conference a few weeks ago and encountered a woman who was probably in her 50s and wanted to know an easy way to make money off her writing. She had no prior experience. So I think the problem is not that all gen y'ers are lazy. It's just that you'll find them in all age groups and all professions. And I refuse to be lumped into them after working my butt off for my career just because of my age. |
| HyancinthGirl | Posted – 5/22/2008 11:22:35 PM | show profile I did not stereotype the entire generation as lazy and whiny. But not proofing a cover letter, in a profession where perfection is the goal of the job, is an act of laziness. That has been my experience with many of the entry-level job seekers of late. Same goes with reading the instructions for a job ad. Salary.com at least gives a starting point for a salary req. Many good points have been made. Many posters have been rebuffed, including by the OP himself, for ridiculous things. Every method suggested has worked for someone at some time. It's up to the OP to read the posts objectively and try what he feels will work. It's pure insanity for him to do what he has been doing and expect different results, then get mad at other posters for suggesting what he doesn't want to hear. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 5/23/2008 1:30:42 AM | show profile does anyone else eat at the keyboard? I have to get a new one because certain letters I type don't go through, or go in twice. Cookie crumbs, etc. Since it's a home computer, and since it's a media board (recreational) and since I have a life, I don't generally spell check or even proof what I type here. There's no one I'm trying to impress. On a cover letter, resume, or any one of the various stories I have had published in the two dozen national magazines over a career of over 20 tears, I do proof and spell check. This is not in any way shape or form related to my career. If newbies don't want my advice, they don't have to take it. That goes for anyone on this broad. I'm leaving that to say "broad". Cause it's fucking funny. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 5/23/2008 1:47:15 AM | show profile And Grateful deadline Agree or disagree, makes no diff with me. I don't insult posters unless they insult me first. REpeatedly. I too, can disagree. And if you read my posts you can figure out pretty quickly that I am quite old. But I don't use the "When I was your age" dribble with newly graduated workforce. Because they DO have it tougher in this industry. You can disagree all you want. You can disagree the sky is blue--yours may not be, today. But facts are facts. ANd unless you've researched facts and know what college students are up against these days--say based on an article you've completed for NY Times Education Life, for example --you can't just get all grumpy and condescending about it. Do many young folks have inflated sense of entitlement? Of course! They always have--those who come from the priveledged class, that is. They were there when I was entry level and they are there today. They're a pain to work with (or for) but in THIS industry they get the jobs because they have the connections and the$$$ from Mommy and Daddy that allows them to live on these paltry (what have always been paltry) salaries and do these jobs. They can have all the 'tude they want--why do you think they can get away with it? Cause they can. Cause they have. Cause they will (I could entertain you with a story about David Samuels interviewing at a magazine I was an assistant at --he got the assignment , blew it off, came in in jeans, smoking, called the editor by his first name). Where is he now??????? That is MY experience with this industry, and it's gotten worse in the two decades I've been in it. Editors say they want hard workers but they really don't appreciate or hire those who come from the state and public schools, who don't dress to the nines, who can't compete with the nepotism and connections, who don't know or aren't from important stock. And this may be a very limited view (NYC magazine publishing: Conde Nast, Hearst, Hachette, NY Times, etc), but it is the white elephant in the room And as print is dying (I'm not making that up either), it's worse than ever. That's not to say people shouldn't try, or that they can't succeed, just that it is HARD, which I have maintained all along in every post I've submitted. I don't "respect" anyone on this board, I don't know anyone that well. I don't want or need anyone to "respect" me. It's a media board, people. It's RECREATION. IT's not work, it's not life (at least I hope not), it's not even personal OR professional. It's information. agree, disagree, read it, don't read it, I don't care one way or the other. |
| mkelly | Posted – 5/23/2008 9:46:37 AM | show profile >>And as print is dying (I'm not making that up either), it's worse than ever. See, this is the part I don't get-- so what that print is dying? First off, it isn't dying; it's merely transforming, the same way it did 70 years ago as radio and then TV came along and challenged it. I don't presume to know what it will look like, but I'll bet anyone a barrel of oil that we'll still have daily newspapers in every major city in the US in 2040. I'll be too blind to read it by then, and it may well look like those Metro giveaways rather than the Chicago Tribune. But we'll still have them. Second-- what's the big deal? As print has lagged, online media has thrived. The Internet has opened up whole new realms of ways to get money from writing. I know, because I first tried freelancing in the 1990s just before the Internet really hit, and then again in 2002 when it was everywhere. The second time around, I could research possible outlet for my work far more efficiently and effectively than I'd ever imagined just six years earlier. And there were many more outlets I could try to reach. All this 'print is DYING, folks, DYING'-- that's getting pretty stale. I'm sure lots of newspaper reporters said the exact same thing in 1948-- without thinking that maybe they could go to that newfangled TV station across the street and start working for them. If you've pinned your career hopes to newspapers, that's just dumb. You should be thinking of yourself as a reporter-- someone who gathers information other people need. Then it's just a matter of figuring out how to convey it to them, regardless of the means. In the 1960s, that means might have been a daily newspaper supported by advertising and staffed by full-time reporters. In 2025, it may well be a blog that collates and analyzes corporate filings, or tracks embarrassing celebrity photos posted on other websites, or publishes really snappy writing about dating life in New York. And maybe you do it freelance. Living in the middle of nowhere and running the whole thing over broadband. My point is, for the love of God, shut up about the industry dying. This is the business we've chosen. Everyone should have known it was in transformation and strain from the start. |
| PluckyPane | Posted – 5/23/2008 10:16:29 AM | show profile here's what i don't get. there's a lot of talk about working less hours and having lots of free time, but the news today is 24/7. if everyone wants to work 9-3 every day with 2 hour lunches and myspace time, who's left to write and upload the news 'round the clock? |
| seeattleme | Posted – 5/23/2008 9:00:14 PM | show profile whatever , mkelly. Talk to the 200 or so who've bought out of Ny Times, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated (who've gone to Yahoo, specifically). Talk to the recent who were laid off at Hachette. "Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand cause the times they are a changing..." |
| mkelly | Posted – 5/24/2008 4:40:17 PM | show profile Why, Seeattleme? What are they going to tell me that I don't already know, since I've been laid off and taken buyouts myself? Why don't you try talking to Laurel Touby (oh God, I'm actually cheering Touby on-- it's come to that...), who exploited some clever use of the Internet and sold this damned site for eight figures. You have brains, folks. Gotta use 'em, and posting on here doesn't count. |
| Write On | Posted – 5/24/2008 7:04:17 PM | show profile | email poster Getting a Job Okay Keith, so you have lost your cool and you say you are done with this board. I hope after a few deep breaths you decided to read this again. Here's my advice. I decided in my early thirties to do a career change and went back to school for journalism. During my last semester, I did a internship at one of the few glossies in Southern Maine, where I live. After graduation, I called any local publication to see if they were hiring freelancers. I worked very hard to market myself and got a slow trickle of freelance gigs. They ususally only paid $40 a pop, but I was able to get a portfolio together and about a year after graduation, I got a job. Journalism can be a difficult profession to get into, but it is not impossible. Stay focused and don't give up. |
| Grateful Deadline | Posted – 5/24/2008 8:22:53 PM | show profile >>ANd unless you've researched facts and know what college students are up against these days--say based on an article you've completed for NY Times Education Life, for example --you can't just get all grumpy and condescending about it.<< Does teaching college students count? My classes top out at 20, and I get to know my students well -- much better than I would if I were a writer parachuting into student life for an article. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 5/24/2008 10:17:17 PM | show profile | email poster I have to say lazy, entitled, undirectable candidates occur in every generation. One of the most inflexible writers I ever met had hissy fits when anything was done to his material. He was a newbie in his 50s. I saw potential, but because he was unwilling to discipline himself to learn the basics, it wasn't ever going to work. Also, for the poster who said this: "I am finding, more and more, that salaries seem to be dropping." Absolutely I agree they are. To a very real extent it's because of dwindling ad revenues. I'm not saying feel sorry for publishers -- but it's worth noting they're in business to make money, and when that flow slows to a trickle, something will give. So you will have to work harder because one staff writing position was not replaced, or they started another paper without adding more staff, or the ad pie is being cut up into more pieces in the market. |
| jseconds77 | Posted – 5/24/2008 11:37:35 PM | show profile with all the attention to this post, and believe me, well thought out replies...let's start our own damn publication. I have extensive experience as a music journalist. can complete crime and court stories, too. who's game? |
| sheilamullan | Posted – 6/2/2008 11:37:05 PM | show profile Hi We get it, that you need a job; but what else you need is that fire in the belly. If you majored in journalism, you should have some type of clips already right? What is going on with those (what kind of clips, newspaper, journalism school paper or .. ?) What's up with your professors; are they nice, will they help you? Where have you formally applied (directly now, as in I applied at 20 newspapers or whatever; as others noted it's only high-level gigs or specialized gigs that use headhunters), so what/how many newspapers have you applied to? If you live in NYC with parents, you could do like some people on this board do where they do a reverse commute as in, they live in NYC, and commute to say, Stamford, CT., where they keep a useable car for a news reporting job. These are just some thoughts. I'd be glad to eyeball the resume if it would help. Good luck, Sheila |
| CoffeeNow71 | Posted – 6/3/2008 1:03:55 AM | show profile Smaller markets a good place to start Based on my own prior experience in the business (late 90s, early 00s), as well as my spouse's 15+ years of experience as the editor of a small-ish daily newspaper, I echo the sentiment stated by many previous posters: try moving out of NYC and starting at a smaller market. We live in a city of about 30,000 that is about 3 1/2 hours from the nearest big, urban area. My husband's newspaper is the perfect place for recent graduates who need to get some experience under their belts, as well as some solid clips, before applying, 2-3 years later, to a bigger paper (or for some other journalism-related job). He welcomes recent grads and doesn't mind his paper being a stepping stone for them. The situation benefits both parties: he gets an eager reporter with a college degree needing to prove himself/herself, and the reporter gets great experience covering a wide variety of stories, a ton of clips, and, likely, some contest awards as well. In a city this size, a person can get by without owning a car?though a "beater" just to get around town can be found for nearly nothing. We have trains the run to larger nearby cities if the beater isn't good enough to put on the highway. And rent for a small but decent apartment downtown with utilities included can be found for as low as $400 per month. If you're really serious about wanting a career in journalism, be willing to move to a smaller location, at least for a few years. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 6/3/2008 1:49:19 AM | show profile | email poster I agree (and have said so here) about the smaller markets around the country being a place to get a job. At the company I work at, undisciplined young writers burn out fast. Those willing to put in a hardworking year and a half or so will come out with great clips and a shot at a bigger market, or more responsibility in a smaller one. But I don't see the preponderance of newish writers wanting to put in the time to do that work. It seems like some, if not all, prefer to have their cake and eat it too, and would rather wail about unemployment than go and do something of a preparatory nature for a year or two. Oh, and on the woman who's 50 and wants to know an easy way to make money with her writing? Ditto -- I know someone who has reduced his work to throwing together ebooks, poorly written and edited, in a bid to make fast money. Sure, money is nice in writing, but it can't be your top thing. Good use of talent makes a lot more sense. ------ http://writingporch.blogspot.com/ http://jlouiselarson.blogspot.com/ http://familyrootsandwings.blogspot.com/ |
| snappiness | Posted – 6/3/2008 9:16:47 AM | show profile Righter scores! Man, this is the smartest thing anyone has said in the newbie department. Either you really want it or you don't, and no amount of advice is going to change that: -For every poster that posts in the beginners section, desperate and whiny, there are those recent grads out there who are working hard, starting at the entry level jobs, trying to network, getting internships and clips, etc...but we don't see their posts because they don't ask for this kind of advice. They're out there learning the answers through experience.- |
