Here’s one way to get a job: edge out your future employer for a prestigious national journalism prize. That’s how it happened for Marshall Allen on paper, only, but the timing of it all is still good for a Fifth Estate chuckle.

Yesterday, March 7th, the one-time Pasadena Star-News staffer (pictured, right) was officially confirmed as a winner of Harvard’s 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism, for his work on last year’s excellent Las Vegas Sun look at area hospitals. Allen, co-author Alex Richards, and team beat out the LA Times, NPR, the San Jose Mercury News, the Washington Post, and ProPublica.

Maybe next year, he will have helped boost ProPublica’s Goldsmith fortunes. That’s because tomorrow, March 9th, Allen starts in the New York newsroom of ProPublica as their newest employee.

Carpe runner-up diem! The Golsmith Prize comes with a $25,000 cash award.