Did you take your first job offer?

I took my first job offer. It also was for a hell of a lot more than $21,000. If you have any student loans or other forms of debt, that salary is going to bankrupt you.

 

I'd take the job.

And I'd walk in with the expectation that I'd replace the clown editor within a year.

 

If I'm on a job interview, then the editor(s) need to impress me as much I need to impress them. It works both ways. So if I were treated the way you were, I would really have to think twice about taking a job there. The most important thing starting out is the guidance you're going to get from above. You need good editors, people who will help you grow as a writer and reporter and have your back.

 

Consider this the best advice you'll ever be given about a career decision: <b>Never take a job unless you can envision the next job it will lead to!</b>

It's been my guiding light through the years, though that "next job" never has been exactly what I envisioned. All were even better, which is something I count my blessings for, but also something I know wouldn't have happened if I simply took the first job offer because it was, simply, the first job offer.

Bottom line is that we can never predestine where life will lead us, but we damn well better chart a course for the right direction.

 

It sounds like it was worth the risk to take the job.

I turned down the first full-time job I was offered. I was working part time at a larger paper and taking the full-time gig would have added a half hour to my commute each day. The offer was so low that it wasn't that much of an improvement on the part-time job. Turned out to be an excellent decision on my part. That part-time job turned into a full-time one within a year.

 

corbin, 13 words of advice: do not listen to any advice that mark gives. he's full of shit.

 

I've gotta correct you, tomas.


That's nine words of advice and a four-word statement of fact.

 

I did, and it was a big mistake. It was a terrible fit, but I talked myself into believing that it would be a "challenge" that would help me "grow as a journalist" to take a job I was barely experienced for with a boss who I knew would disagree with me on almost everything journalistic.

We ended up locked in a nearly year-long impasse where he didn't want to have to fire me, I didn't want to quit, but neither of us wanted me working there.

 

Corbin, how come you didn't take the PR/sports management route in college? What is the percentage of SIDs with full-time newspaper experience? Most listings on CoSIDA specifically ask for experience as an SID, either full-time or as a grad assistant. It's hard to be past HR gatekeepers without meeting the minimum listed qualifications. If you want to work with MLS, I assume you need that PR experience

 

1. Did you accept or decline your first job offer?

>>>> Yes, it was my only full-time offer. Have to start someplace.

2. Did I make the right decision based on the pay and job duties?

>>>> Yes. It got me started in the business and I learned editing, layout, page production, etc.

3. How hard is it to make the jump from daily preps writer to SID or media relations?

>>>> Not hard. It's what I did when I bailed from newspapers.

 

1. I took it. It was $24,000 a year (in 1999; infer from that what you will), and I knew there were people who graduated with the same degree I had who were taking gigs that paid less than $20K.

2. I think I made the right decision, and I think you made the right decision. I'm getting the idea from your description of the place that you will either be given a fairly free hand, or your boss is such a space cadet that you'll be doing their work. Either way, you'll have more than a chance to prove yourself, and that's probably the big value of the job. Like someone else said, the big thing is how this job prepares you for your next job.

3. Don't know.

4. No.

Vaya con dios, kid.

 

thank you for the correction, ace.