For those who've left: any regrets?

Might have to look into that if the current job goes away in our upcoming reorganization -- although, as BT said, it might be difficult in my area -- huge crush of people here, and such openings are swamped with applicants. Political patronage also is a factor in this area for jobs on the county and municipal level. Worth exploring, though. The town I moved to last year is opening a big, new library in six months and a friend suggested I apply there if there's a job loss. Never seen myself working in a library ... but it could work.

 

I should add a couple things:
1) ask yourself if you've realistically accomplished all you're ever going to accomplish in journalism. If you're still dying to cover college football and have never covered it before, maybe it's worth hanging around a few more years, just to avoid having regrets later in life. MAYBE.
2) Also, I would not just quit and expect to get a new job a few months down the line. Way too risky. I know people who were laid off in 2015 who still don't have a legit full time job. And freelancing absolutely will NOT pay the bills, in my experience. And that can actually require a stupid amount of work for the money.

 

I applied for every job under the sun at a major university in the year or so before I moved on from sportswriting. Never even got an email back. I must have applied for like 70 postings.

 

They're mighty quiet on this board.

 

It isn't like the industry moved on and up - rebounded, started paying living wages with great benefits and respecting the work of employees. I imagine it's easier for people who have less than 10 years experience, it's been going down for a while and they've never known the "good times." When you show up for a story and people notice. When people come in off the street because they think "somebody at the newspaper" can right some wrong. When people actually responded with respect when you told them what you did for a living and where you worked. When you realize you can and do promote some positive change in some way. I hope there is still some of that in the industry, goodness knows there isn't much other reason to stay in.

 

I took a recent test and scored 100 and was ranked 20th. I felt pretty good until I looked online and found out roughly 500 people around the state got the same score.

They divide the state into something like a dozen regions, and I live on the border of two of them, so I get canvass letters from both regions. Still, that means I may be competing with 40-something people for an opening in each region. Yeesh.

 

Things I don't miss from four years in sports and six in news:

1. Having no life because you worked five nights a week.
2. Going home only to be called back out at 1 a.m. for a house fire.
3. Dipshit initiatives from corporate ("TAKE VIDEO! VIDEO WILL SAVE THE INDUSTRY!!")
4. Management via vendetta.
5. Low morale co-starring miserable employees.
6. Editors too arrogant to realize how ignorant they were. Had one take my head off one night because I bothered them at home during a show they were watching.
7. the God-awful, embarrassing pay.
8. The penny-pinching. MediaNews has a sliding scale for mileage when gas prices spiked. If it cost X, you received Y cents per mile. Because God forbid anyone other than Billy Dean or Dick Scudder walk away with an extra dollar.
9. Working with sources who were indifferent at best, miserable and difficult at worst.
10. Feeling completely trapped in this industry because of the skill set and economic climate.

Things I do miss:

1. Sitting back with a feel of satisfaction after sending off a story I knew I busted my ass on.
2. Getting compliments on my work.

I'm shitty at math, but two isn't greater than 10. I'm lucky that I've joined up with a publication that allows me to spread these wings again, and it's enabled me to pick up more work as a result. You couldn't talk me into going into newspapers again.

 

Definitely, always, take the tests if they are required for a job in which you're interested. The tests are the first step -- only the first step -- but if you don't take them, and succeed on them, you absolutely will not hear back, no matter who you are.

When I was out of work -- aside from freelancing, temp and short-term part-jobs that were something productive and gave me a little money but were not nearly enough to live on -- for a three-year period from late 2007 to late 2010, I only applied for a couple state jobs, so I don't have much experience with those. But I did apply, test and interview for what seemed like hundreds of city and county jobs. (I highly recommend this to people out of work. The jobs are generally good, clean, decent-paying and have good benefits (usually unionized), and many are office/clerical-related, and not too difficult physically).

Anyway, every single job required taking a test, and usually, scoring in the 95th percentile (but preferably, above) on it. But that isn't hard for journalists to do, especially once they've taken the tests a couple of times and gotten used to doing so, figured out some of the questions, and realized the best ways to tackle the times, and timing of them. I got called back for, again, what seemed like hundreds of interviews as a result of the tests -- because the hiring process is refreshingly straightforward, unpolitical and standardized, so that, if you qualify, you at least get interviewed, at least once, and often, if you do well, twice and three times.

I actually got a few of the jobs that were either part-time or full-time but long-term temporary, and got offers for full-time jobs in the county recorder's office and one of the medium-sized county libraries, and a good part-time position in the county human resources department at different times. Often, you won't get things, but other times, you could get offered multiple jobs right around the same time, and have to try to decide between them.

I gravitated toward social-services, library and clerical jobs but also even got a couple interviews for hospital office-type and kitchen work, and I succeeded in terms of job searching to at least enough of an extent to have legitimate chances to get close to getting the jobs. But it all starts with the tests.

That three-year period was the most taxing of my life by far. But now, I wish I had gotten out of newspapers 10 or 12 years before I did. I might be the store manager of a Walmart Super Center, or of a Sam's Club distribution center.

One thing: Nowadays, I don't have the time to do all the test-taking and interviewing I did while I was out of work. I did that much of it. It takes time, is the point, and you might start to feel like you almost need to be unemployed in order to do it seriously and accommodate the test/interview appointment time slots. But good opportunities, for work in many, many fields, and types of offices, are there for the taking among city and county jobs, from entry-level jobs of various types (office, support, clerical, maintenance, etc.) to higher-level management and a few hospital research positions.

What I always loved most about journalism was the people -- the journalists -- and that's still the only thing I ever miss.

 

Yep, the competition is incredible. People who are working in regular jobs and haven't job-hunted in a while have no idea how hard it is, oftentimes, to actually get a job -- a good one, anyway. The process can be good -- fair and straightforward -- so anyone has a chance, and there are many opportunities. But it also can be lengthy, and after you go through it enough, you get tired of it, and well, you start making decisions.

That's how I ended up staying with Walmart, once I realized I was liking it and could do well with it, and that there are plenty of opportunities where I'm at, too. I could probably still get what most would consider a better, higher-paying job, and occasionally I still give that a thought. But, to be frank, I just don't feel like job hunting anymore if I don't have to.

 

I got there, too, especially after coming within a month of my severance running out. I knew I didn't want to be working without a safety net again, so I feel really fortunate that I think I'm going to be here to retirement.

I actually didn't mind the interview process itself. But the stress of uncertainty does build on you (and your SO).

 

I was a reporter/editor/designer for 2 1/2 years in my first job out of J-school, but in my next stop I became a full-time copy editor/designer for the rest of my career. I wrote a few news stories in that time, and later I started a website where I wrote stories on my own. My reporting and writing were infinitely better 10 years after that first job than they were then.

About seven years ago, I responded to and got the job of writing a story about a local film festival for a statewide magazine. I reported the shit out of that, talking to folks who run SXSW, documentary film producers and directors, local artists -- all just cold calling them and picking their brains about the festival. On the basis of that, I got more work for that magazine, including several long cover features (5,000-plus words), shorter stories (1,000-2,000) and quick pullouts (250-300). That job gave me clips to use when I applied for the university job.

After I got back into writing, I look back at my early career on several stories I could have done way, way better. One especially that nags at me is a story about a local boxer getting his one shot on ESPN against an up-and-comer. He missed weight at the first weigh-in, and I followed him to the locker room where he hacked and spit, took a leak, picked at his nails -- all in an effort to shave off precious ounces to make weight. The handlers and promoters of the other guy wore gold rings on every finger, necklaces, had rolls of cash, looking for all the world like low-level wiseguys.

I didn't write any of that. But I could write it today. I could write it today.