Breaking into the Business. What to do?

A similar tale. I graduated in August of 2008 and JUST got my first job as a part-time (8-15 hrs/wk) sports reporter at a paper at the next town over from where I am living. I also had a smash resume with newspaper, radio and TV experience AND web design and web management skills (I was in college for a while).

And it took me a year to get a job covering preps. I applied all over. TV stations, radio stations, newspapers. Northeast, Midwest, Down South. Big City to small potato.

I got every kind of "No thanks" imaginable. But looking back, I had it all wrong.

What I would recommend is getting a job. Any job. Something to pay for your upcoming loans (mine are around 300/month) and THEN try and find freelance work or a part-time gig at a paper nearby. Don't wait for a position to open up, just send in a resume and say "I heard you may need some help covering local games." Offer to cover a high school basketball game every week for 100/month or even 50/month if you live close. Let them know you plan on also sending your work to the opposing teams paper (sell it for another 25 bucks a story). Work that route for a while. Who knows, after a month or two they might also be asking you to help out with copy for a night or two each month. Maybe another month goes by and they give you a camera and ask you to shoot a local event for another 20 bucks.

The idea is you can nickel and dime your way to some extra income on top of a regular dum-dum job. You can afford to work for 13/hr at the grocery store because you are also pulling in another 50 bucks a week from freelancing. Ya, it's not the high life, but you can survive. And right now, that's better than a lot of people.

Right now, I work a dum-dum day job for 13/hr and at night and on the weekends I bust my tail to write some good clean copy, creative features and look for quality enterprise pieces. It's not perfect, but I am eating, clothed and comfortable.

I am going to try to parlay this gig into a regular gig at a small paper somewhere. Somewhere that will pay, say 15/hr or 30,000. Then to somewhere that pays 35,000. And so on.

Just something to chew on....

 

I was like you not long ago.. I graduated from college in May, thought I would get a job right out of college.. boy was I wrong.. The first three months of life out of college, I got no calls, no e-mails, nothing.. Then I decided to stop waiting for the jobs to come to me (via checking this board and other classified type places) and instead to go to them.. I sent an e-mail with my resume to every sports editor at newspapers I thought were halfway decent and offered to work for free or even part time just for an opportunity to showcase what I could do.. This ended up working. While 95% of the sports editor said "I liked your resume but we just cant add anybody with our budget" or "You could always work as a stringer," I was able to get four or five interviews out of it.. From there I met with a managing editor of a weekly in an interview and he literally told me that I was too good for his paper and recommended me to another editor who was looking for a sports guy for a daily and I ended up getting a job there..

So my advice to you is to not get down on yourself, opportunities will arise.. Don't give up. Be persistent and stay involved. I did work as a stringer while I was in college when I wasn't working as Sports Editor on my college newspaper and met a lot of people who knew a thing or two in the business along the way, those guys ended up being some of my best references.. Anyways I don't know if this helps but hopefully it did.. good luck

 

Piggybacking on NQLBLQ, I'm working at a grocery store while writing for a website right now that's not paying much. At the same time, I'm gaining some clips and experience while I'm at it (which is VERY important).

I get those letters and e-mails of rejection as well. We just have to keep on pushing and doing what we love. Keep sending resumes and doing freelance assignments. You never know what will happen.

While I'm really not looking at doing another job at the moment (maybe that's just me being stubborn), the main thing my father advised me last night (twice) is to do something else for now until something breaks. Coming out of college, it is rough out here right now. I'm just praying for a break at the moment to come my way.

I'm looking for a sports writing job as well. So we'll have to just keep hanging in there and plugging along until something happens.

 

I'd get out of the business if I could, but I can't find a job in any semi-related fields, either.

 

Boyz:

I hope you're still following this thread because there's a lot of great advice on here. I wish I had some of this advice when I was stepping out of college.

The fact is, there are thousands and thousands of kids graduating college every year with journalism degrees and hopes of entering this business. And there are far less job openings than there are graduates because for every one person who retires or quits the business there are 1,000 trying to step into it. But this is the way it's been for years and somehow it all just works itself out eventually.

But the key word there is "eventually." It takes time. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time. But if you have good clips and you continue to be aggressive, eventually something will happen for you.

Just be prepared to move out of NYC and into small-town USA because that's where 99.9% of us got our start.

 

I'd kill for a shot to be a car salesman right now.

 

Normally, I'd post a snarky response. However, take this with the seriousness I'm intending for it.

Run, run far away from this profession. The way things are going right now, you DON'T want to be in journalism.

However, if you really want to get in, do like others have suggested. Apply for every opening you can conceiveably apply for. Try to line up freelance gigs.

I also have another suggestion that I've followed in my times between journalism gigs. Practice writing stories. Treat them as if you would a story that's going to be published. Just do it to get the practice in.

 

Boyz:

Don't listen to the people telling you to run far away and work at car dealerships. Fuck that. Are you going to spend your life running away like a pussy every time the going gets tough? If you do, you'll never get anywhere except working at some lame-ass Dilbert job that you have no passion for. Now a "tide-me-over" job is a different story. Find something to do part time to get a little cash flow and spend the rest of your time doing journalism stuff.

But don't just give up and pursue another career just because this is a tough one. Keep on keepin on.

 

I hear the espresso machine business is booming.

If that fails, just pretend you're a journalist and show off your insecurity by posting on a sports message board.

 

I think at this stage one of the most important things is being able to relocate. NYC may be the media capital of the world, but the majority of sports writers don't start out in NYC. Check out the job board and see how many job openings are in major cities. You're lucky if you can land somewhere within an hour's drive of a big city.

That said, a lot of the smaller papers are looking for recent college grads who will work hard for little pay. It won't be ideal, but it'll get you clips and experience. That's important.

A lot of folks on this board either started out in Podunk, or are still there now trying to scrape by in a profession they still (for some reason) love. There's no shame in that. Take a chance on one if they're willing to actually give you a job. Hell, you might fall in love with the town. But in today's environment, you're almost certainly going to have to get out of your element and test the waters around the country. I've moved 3 times. You gotta do what you gotta do.

 

This will test your hunger and determination, that's for sure. If you don't give up, you could still make it.

My advice: don't stick to sports. Do news, do entertainment, make yourself versatile.

Also, hit up websites big-time. They'll never say they don't have room for a good story. Plus, recent grads from your school are probably running the places.

Lastly, a footnote: I graduated years and years ago with an expensive degree and was willing to work in TV, print, whatever, and got just about every door slammed in my face. They all said variations on the same theme - no openings, hiring freezes, budget cuts... OK, national unemployment wasn't creeping up to 10%, but the excuses were identical. And the net result was the same. (Yer on yer ass.) Since then, it's been a long arduous, zig-zag, (sometimes circular) slog, but it's been a hell of a ride.

I would never tell anyone to be a used-car salesman.

 

I wouldn't discourage anyone from being open to relocating. I am, myself, and most people who badly need/want a job are at least as willing as you are to do it.

That said, I hate to say this but, you should be aware that, unfortunately, being willing and/or able to relocate is not the magic solution, or a guarantee that you will find/get something nowadays, either.

Because, these days, the trend is to hire from within a paper's area or within a not-too-expansive region, because employers either can't, or don't want to, pay for relocation expenses, or even for bringing people in for interviews.

It used to be that being willing/able to relocate and move around was how you got ahead. Now? You're liable to be lucky to get/go anywhere, unless you can afford and are willing to pay for everything on your own.

The problems have to do with the sheer numbers -- most of them bad -- rather than people's willingness or motivation to do this, or that, for the sake of work.