As some of you are aware, since graduating I have been applying solely to papers in Florida. The Sunshine State provides both an excellent climate and market for a budding journalist and has great opporutunities for my girlfriend's career as well -- music education.
It also, however, has a very competitive job marketplace. I just got off the phone with the state's "#1 ranked weekly," the High Springs Herald. Unfortunately, this is about the 20th job in the past two months that I have not been hired for.
Mr. Ronald Dupont, Jr., who has previously worked with the New York Times and other large papers, had some very interesting things to say. I bought all of them and I would like to share them with you.
The first thing I asked after hearing they had gone with somebody else is, of course, "why?" And he replied to me with wisdom beyond what I have heard from all others.
"Well, Matt, one of the things that stuck out to me was that you provided some color clips, which was rare for the applicants," he said, referring to the 70 applications he received from all over the country.
But what he didn't like was how I presented those clips and how many I sent. In his long job description posted to JournalismJobs.com, he insisted that applicants send at least 10 clips, but that he preferred 20. This is highly unusual, and is certainly the first time I have heard of an editor requesting so many. What he told me, though, was that all editors want that many, but they just don't know it.
Who knows where the idea of sending only five or 10 clips came from, but that idea is wrong. I know this now, after talking with Mr. Dupont. And, even though some of you may have received jobs or internships with that many, I would still argue that a different approach will result in more bites. Especially when you are competing with 70 applicants that have as much as 30 years experience.
He said, "now, Matt I noticed you have just sort of paper-clipped these together, and that certainly did not stick out."
Why, on earth, would someone paper-clip a cover letter, resume and 10 clips together? Do they really think this is what an editor wants to do is fumble through 13 pages of clips for each of the 70 applications they receive? No!
If it's not in a three ring binder, it nearly gets thrown away from the start. And with the use of a three ring binder, you can use sections that divide all of your clips into features, news, columns, etc. The editor can just kick back in his chair, put his feet up and read YOU Magazine. Only interested in features? Well just tab over my friend. You don't have to read every headline to find one, you just read one tab.
And now back to the five clip rule. Job description says only send five clips? Send 20! Or 50! Or as many good examples of your work that you can find. There is absolutely no reason to listen to an editor that says only send five clips. This is not failing to meet an expectation, this is exceeding it.
Why would an editor be displeased with 20 well-organized and presented clips? It's not like they will have to hunt for what they want. If they want an example of a community feature, they just tab over and read a couple of features. No matter what type of clip they want, they can get it instantaneously. TRY doing that with five clips paper-clipped together!
With 30 clips all the work you have done is represented. The editor will not be overwhelmed, they will be pleased. They will think they made a mistake in only requesting five clips. You will have changed their mind.
So, from now on, I am sending a spiral bound book with a table of contents, tabs, a few color clips, and at least 20 clips that represent all the flavors of writing I have done. I am going to send it to the editors that only request five clips, and they are going to set mine aside to read after they have been through all the "others" who just send a simple envelope with loose sheets of paper inside.
Sure, I'll spend $5 to $10 more per application, but that's not as bad as the more than $100 I have already wasted.
Mr. Dupont shared multiple stories with me of times when he walked into offices where 50 applications had been stacked and his was on top. He also told me of a presentation given by a Miami Herald editor who gave everyone in the presentation an applicant's envelope. He told them to tear them open, and then toss aside any with less than a half-page cover letter or 10 clips. At the end there was only one left.
Talk about separating yourself from the rest of the pack.
I'll keep you posted on the results of this new tactic.
Labels: applications, applying, career_advise, clips, editors, job hunt, job postings, job search, job_posting, newspapers, portfolio, resumes
For photographers and page designers, there are quite a few Web sites on the Internet where you can build your own online portfolio.
Doing this will help your internship hunt tremendously. It's a low-cost way to organize and present your work. When you get an editor's attention, they can quickly see your work online instead of waiting for the mail, and losing focus of you in the meantime.
It's also an easy way to show off your work to family and friends who don't get to regularly see the print versions.
The most popular page design site is
News Page Designer, this is where all the professional designers have their portfolios.
One very nice up-and-comer is College Front Page. There both photographers and designers can build their own
CFP Personals Page, which shows off your work in a very nice revolving slideshow, complete with detailed captions you can type explaining your thoughts for each piece.
CFP Personals also is a bit more fun, it's sort of like the Facebook of journalism portfolio sites.
Photobucket is one of the more popular free sites for amateur photographers.
Regardless of where you build an online portfolio, you'll need to make your pages into much smaller jpg or pdf images. News Page Designer has a
tip sheet on how to do this.
Labels: applications, applying, career_advise, clips, college_media, editors, flash, internships, job hunt, media, multimedia, newspapers, online, portfolio, resumes, skills, snd
For most student journalists, the dreamy goal that drew us into this major was writing or broadcasting for some big, extravagant city newspaper or television station. But at the end of 2006, those were the media outlets going through more financial pains than any other in the U.S.
And so it makes a late January piece by the Poynter Institute, titled "
Tighter Budgets Slashing Internships," all the more logical. Big metro papers especially are reporting cuts to their internship programs for 2007, unlike any in recent memory. Metro tv news stations aren't making the same slashes, primarily because broadcast journalism students have been willing to work unpaid internships for much longer than print students have (click the title link above to read the complete story, in all its grueling, interesting detail).
We could debate why it's foolish for these papers to cut intern slots -- they're basically failing to train us youngsters properly, and we're the people who may feasibly bring new ideas that could save their sorry butts. But let's focus on what we can control: Pursuing the internships that are available, and learning how to separate ourselves from the pack, in an ever-growing crowd of competition.
Since the mid-1990's, the number of students who've majored in journalism nationwide has increased every single year, through today in 2006-07. That's odd don't ya think? It directly contrasts the dwindling job openings, as this profession goes through a big transition. Most of these students come in dreaming of being the next Anderson Cooper, but will later embrace a public relations opening, or non-profit work (both growing job sectors). But right now, a majority are in the same competitive internship race that you may be in.
So how do you stand out? By starting earlier in college, and realizing the big prize won't be handed to you. Those small community dailies and weeklies are a great place for a freshman or sophomore to work at during the summer. Develop a strategy where you target the papers around your home, or in the cities where relatives live (those you could stand to crash with for the summer, anyways). The days of a sophomore or junior being accepted at a big metro paper after one, or zero previous internships will be gone soon. You will be at a great disadvantage if you wait until junior year to get serious about internships.
Also, print students who do start early should realize a lot of these small papers may not be able to pay much, if at all. That's ok, work there anyways. Broadcast students have been working unpaid for more than a decade. Nobody likes this, even some editors in the Poynter article say hell will freeze over before they don't pay an intern. But it's the reality of working your way up in life.
The Poynter article also says that online and multimedia skills are considered gold by the editors when they choose an intern. That's not really a news flash. Our generation is supposed to be the pioneers of these "new media" efforts. If your journalism program isn't aggressively trying to train you in online, multimedia and convergence efforts, then they are stealing your money. Stand up and demand this training, and go work at the student newspaper and try to figure it out yourself in the meantime while the professors get their acts together.
This week, the beginning of February, is the hottest time for internship application deadlines. If you read this article and feel like you need to get your act together, there's still time. Go to a veteran editor at the student newspaper, or a professor you trust, for advice on how to develop an internship hunting strategy immediately.
Or feel free to e-mail me at bobmoser333@yahoo.com. I'm eager to stay up late into the night to help you polish a resume, craft a killer cover letter, and blow your competition out of the water.
-- Bob Moser
Business Reporter, The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, La.)
Bowling Green State University journalism grad, May 2006
Labels: college_media, internships, job hunt, resumes, skills, young journalists
