Understatement Of The Year: Do Your Homework When Pitching
Cautionary tale from Joe Grimm‘s Ask The Recruiter column: an editor wrote in saying that he’d received a freelance pitch from a local recent graduate.
“He’s pursued me strongly, using the fact that he lives in the community my newspaper covers as part of his appeal,” wrote the editor. “Then, when I asked him to come in and chat with me, he confessed that he’s never seen the newspaper and wonders if it can even be found in print…He explained that he works several jobs so he doesn’t get out much.”
The newspaper in question has been around for more than a century.
Needless to say, that graduate’s freelancing career may be over—at least at that paper.
Grimm agreed, and suggested things freelancers should do before pitching themselves, like reading back issues of the paper or magazine, learning about its beats, and reading the paper’s masthead. All good things.
But “do your homework” could be extended to almost any job or pitch. If you’re applying for a marketing job, learn about the agency–who are its clients? Who owns it? Who might you be reporting to? In the age of Google, it’s not tough to find this information.
And PR people, do your homework when sending pitches, too–like has the paper already covered this issue? Does the reporter even cover your beat or are you only pitching because Cision said to?
It’s amazing how few people do this, and how many people make easily avoidable blunders like the poor recent grad mentioned up top. And how easily you can make yourself stand out by just doing a little homework.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online 
MediaJobsDaily Twitter feed loading...
