Scouting for talent

Some of the posts on the jobs board got me wondering, where do the SE's at the big-time metros look for potential employees.

Obviously, if you are running the section at the Washington Post or the L.A. Times it's not hard to find guys working in Kansas City or Salt Lake. But are these guys keeping an eye on the young prep writer in Myrtle Beach? Would you regularly read the 30,000 circ. across the state that keeps winning awards? How about the 10,000 daily on the outskirts of your metro area?

For that matter, how much time do these guys spend reading other papers for the purpose of knowing who is out there?

 

Problem is, an outside hire is like a comet.

 

You go to APSE, do some judging, gamble and drink, wake up in a liquor-soaked fog, remember a few of the stories you judged the previous day, ask around to see how old/talented that person is, then set up a Google News alert with their name. Each time they write a story, it's emailed to you. You track the people you like. If they fail in a miserable manner, you delete their Google News alert. When you have an opening, you give the ones you like a call if you think they'll come.

If you think I'm kidding about any of this one bit, you're wrong.

 

Depends the beat. Depends on the job.
Google News Alert is a valuable tool. But, if you don't have openings or aren't given outside hires, it's an exercise in futility.

 

While it's the job of the SE to know who's out there, it's also the job of the writer to market himself so people know who he is. It works both ways.

 

I know of one big-city SE who scouts Newspagedesigner.com for designers. I was once very fortunate to receive an e-mail from him.

I have a friend who works as a news designer, and she's received three separate inquires from larger papers than the one she currently works for. All three saw her stuff on Newspagedesigner.com.

 

So if you're a young, unknown writer, how do you market yourself? I see people on here talk about networking and such, but I'm in Podunk, where other than the guy from the weekly in town, I'm not brushing elbows with other media types on a regular basis. If have a few papers I'd like to work for someday, but there aren't openings now, should I be floating the SE's e-mails/clips just to get on their radar?

 

I think most SEs just peruse the jobs board here and send PMs to the people who express the most interest in the job. The PMs usually say something to the effect of "You're hired!" </blue>

 

Seriously, though, I'm intrigued by Double Down's post. I guess it makes perfect sense, but I never thought of someone going to that much trouble. I wonder if I have any Google News alerts out on me. 8)

 

Yes.