Tomorrow's News, Tomorrow's Journalists

TNTJ May: Being upbeat yet realistic

Earlier this week, the postgraduates and final year undergraduates at my journalism department at the University of Sheffield had a ‘careers’ talk. Our tutors, those who have guided us throughout the year so far, each stood up and gave their consistently upbeat, but realistic, assessment of the industry.

So I’ll start by sharing some of my fellow students worries and questions that were expressed in the Q&A session at the end of the talk. Some were familiar: what sort of starting salary could we expect – apparently anywhere between £10-20 thousand. Is it better to send emails or letters when looking for experience – either was the answer, although letters have worked better for me. I think it gives a more personal touch, and we all know how easy emails can be to ignore.

One question in particular stuck with me. A fellow postgraduate asked what we should do, given the option between getting a non-journalism job of any sort to pay the rent, or persist with trying to break into journalism? One of the tutors gave an unexpectedly hesitant answer, in that their reaction was not the same as that of my friend next to me – ‘how is that an option? You’ve got to pay the rent!’

But it’s the wrong answer to the wrong question. As Dave Lee as mentioned on his blog, being employed in any other environment doesn’t mean leaving journalism. You can still freelance, still blog for yourself or other sites, still engage with the profession in numerous ways.

Even given this, however, I’m not without queries for the wider journalistic community. Does anyone have experience then, of taking on a non-journalistic job while retaining a place in the industry – do they still have the time, is it actually feasible? Would employers look down on it?

I now have work experience sorted for the summer, but how much should I expect to do before being seriously considered for jobs in such a competitive industry at such a difficult time? I know there’s no secret formula to a job in the media, but advice is always welcome.

Lastly, what online tools, beyond say Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, should soon-to-be graduate journalists be using to showcase their work, gain greater competency online and network?

My advice, much as it’s worth? There’s still a lot of journalism students with a minimal online presence, so maximise yours. But don’t forget that whatever tools you can use, web pages you can re-design or exam marks you can achieve, content is still king – keep writing.

In addition, continue to make as many contacts as you can: it’s one of the reasons I’m going along to the Media 140 conference on May 20.

Ill-qualified as I am to give advice to others graduating this year, the more we talk to each other, the better chance we have of navigating this scarce job market.

The department is laying on another talk for us this coming week. This time, actual employers – well that might be a bit presumptuous, so let’s call them media figures – will be giving us advice. Perhaps I’ll put some of the above questions to them as well.

Right now though, I’ve got NCTJ Public Admin exams to revise for, hence my constant devotion to James Morrison’s new book. So…any advice on them, or is it best not to remind you?