Stalled job market for J-grads

Took me five months after grad school to find work (and it was in marketing, not even journalism). Everyone in my life - parents, boyfriend, his parents - was freaking out and couldn't understand when I explained that's how the industry goes. It's really stressful.

But I love it when the baby boomers in management force new grads to accept shitty paychecks, then complain about their own boomerang children. How do they think it happens?

 

When what they should have been doing is trying to catch on with smaller papers, where, if they were smart, they'd have started working in college.

I think at least part of the problem is that college kids are getting the idea that they're going to come straight out of school and go to work for the AJC or the New York Times or, yes, the Plain Dealer. They're less willing than even five or 10 years ago to go work for a 20,000-circulation paper in the sticks or even, God forbid, a weekly.

Of course, the fact that their parents let 'em move back home until they find a job doesn't help either.

 

I wouldn't say this is exactly groundbreaking, nor would I say it's reserved to recent grads. The job market has been stalled since I graduated in 2001. I've been lucky to land good jobs, but I know I've been fortunate and I won't bank on lighting striking for the fourth time.

 

Stress hasn't gotten to me yet, but it's true that those outside the industry don't understand. My parents assumed most of senior year that I could start applying for jobs and that those jobs would be waiting for me when I graduated. I have a friend who is a business major who signed with a major accounting firm before his senior year and even got a signing bonus for doing it. With business you can anticipate openings and promotions after X amount of years. As one of my college profs used to say "most of the jobs your will apply for, or the one you end up getting, isn't being offered right now."

 

If I were King of the World I'd shut down all journalism schools for 10 years. Lets make it a seller's market for a change. There are too damn many of us out here.

 

It seems to me that the thinking is a lot like the parking at a Wal-Mart. There are spaces, sure, but they are in the middle of nowhere. Now, if you drive around the parking lot long enough, you are bound to find a nice space, but the driving may make you run out of gas. However, if you just take that damn space in the sticks and work your way to the front, you will not run out gas as fast and you may see the chance to get a great space by just keeping an eye on things.
Worked for me, I got a job at a tiny paper about a month out of college, and I have been moving up with some success ever since.
Just my opinion though.

 

I feel sorry for those people who think they will start at NYT or AJC. I know most of the people I graduated didn't think that way. There was one person who landed a major beat after graduation, but they interned with the company the previous summer.
Most of the people that I graduated with realized that we were lucky to cover a D-1 beat for the school paper. We realized that might improve our chances of getting a job, but that we'd still have to start out at a small paper and pay our dues. At least that's my thinking as I apply for jobs.

 

There's no such thing as job offers for recent grads in this business. Only recent grads offering their services.

 

Couldn't have said it better.
Mirrors my career, kinda.
Add in the fact I busted my a$$ to work in the journalism field during college and the fact I worked two, sometimes three, jobs at once just to keep up the networking and hone skills - I had a job a month after college graduation.