Editor’s Note: Valley Independent Sentinel Reporter Jodie Mozdzer is at the 2009 national Society of Professional Journalists convention in Indianapolis, representing the Connecticut Pro Chapter during national business meetings.
This article was written for the CT SPJ blog.
Turmoil in the journalism industry has created a strange dynamic among job seekers in the field.
Recent journalism school graduates are pitted against the droves of laid off and bought out journalists looking for jobs. And some candidates are being told by some recruiters that they have too much experience and by others that they have too little experience.
“Sometimes it does come down to luck,” said Virgil Smith, the vice president for talent management at Gannett Company, Inc., who spoke to several dozen journalists at the national Society of Professional Journalists conference Friday.
Smith was one of three panelists at the lecture “A Bulletproof Career,” aimed toward journalists looking for advice on getting or keeping their jobs. He was joined by Dan Bradley, the vice president of news for Media General and Ernest Sotomayor, the assistant dean of career services for Columbia’s graduate school of journalism.
Although, as Smith conceded to questioners Friday, the answers are not always so cut and dry, the panel did offer some advice for journalists looking to get – or keep – their jobs in this difficult market.
The advice also applies to anyone looking for jobs during this tough economy.
Here’s a sampling:
- Seek a review on more than a yearly basis. Be engaged in the process. Bradley said when managers are looking to reduce their rolls, they often look at review files reaching back three years. A once-a-year review doesn’t let employees fix problems continuously, Bradley said.
“If you’re only doing it once a year, you’re shortchanging yourself,” Bradley said. “It’s your career. It’s your life. Be in control.”
- Job seekers: Reach out beyond your typical freelance and intern opportunities. Make sure you have your own Web site to highlight you clips and portfolio work. Freelance at an alternative weekly. Volunteer.
- Be flexible with salary requests, said Smith. Smaller salaries are becoming more common in the field, the panel said. Many companies, especially in the broadcast market, are renegotiating high salaries down when it comes time to sign new contracts, Bradley said.
“Sometimes you have to take a pay cut to get in a job,” Smith said.
- Be persistent. Sotomayor said job applicants should send follow-up resumes to companies that didn’t have positions when they first applied. That way, when a new job opens up, the management doesn’t have to dig through its piles of old resumes to find you.
“The reality is, you’re going to have to keep applying in the same place,” Sotomayor said.
- Look beyond the internet to network. Sotomayor said the key to networking is to get to know people better and not always do it simply for jobs. Asking for advice, gaining a mentor, may be just as beneficial, he said.
“Network. And I don’t mean just going online and asking someone to be your friend on Linked-In,” Sotomayor said. “Networking means going to seminars, workshops. Continuing to meet people.”
- Mail resumes as PDF files. Microsoft Word documents work, too. But almost everyone can open PDFs – and the files keep particular formatting in tact when different people open the file. Plus, you can add in working links to lead recruiters to your Web site, the panel said.
