I was laid off Friday, now what do I do?

And if possible go get a video tape and a critique of you interviewing. I find interviews more painful than a trip to the dentist. When I videotaped I found I has a habit of crossing my right leg onto my left leg. And then jiggling my right foot. It was distracting to watch on tape.

 

Try What's Your Plan B group on FB. Lots of good advice and journo-ly complaining, so comfortable for our type.

 

One thing that really stuck out was your referring to the jobs you went after as "boring garbage." Obvious advice is obvious: Don't go for those jobs.

This. So much this. Being laid off hurts and it's hard to not take it personally.

So, about graduate school... Be sure it's something that grabs you by the balls and frontal lobe. Thesis committee meetings and dissertation defense can be about as much fun as a colonoscopy, even if it's a subject you really love. Be prepared to be around people who will geek out at the minutiae of your field and if you're not feeling it, they will cut you.

I know someone who had to fight the urge to push a fellow student out of a moving car because they'd never heard of Victor Turner and we spent a week going over Turner's taxonomy of ritual gesture for the new shits who had no business in that program at that level. Or so I've heard.

THIS! THIS! THIS!

And good luck.

 

What to do? You put on your big-boy pants or big-girl pants and move forward. Do something. Anything. (Unless you have a trust fund and can coast financially.) And while you're at it, don't crap on the people who install home security systems or other manual labor jobs. They might teach you things about life that you didn't know. Also, those job might even pay more than journalism. Get some money in the bank. You don't have to sign a contract for life.

Look, I've faced rejection hundreds of times as a reporter, lost at least 8 jobs, got hiring-freezed out many times since I graduated from college. No one tells you why. Ever. It's like dating. The best answer you'll get is: "It's not you, it's us."

Anyway, you don't have time for a pity party. Don't wallow. Get tough. Get moving.

 

A lot of great advice on here already.

I echo the advice to divorce yourself from the image of being "the sportswriter" and add this advice for your next career choice: don't try to chase a "passion." Don't try to get a job you love; get a job you tolerate. Work 40 hours a week, leave work to those 40 hours, and enjoy the rest of your time.

 

This is good advice. Everyone needs some time to wallow around in pity and whining. It's human nature. But don't prolong it. Start getting your shit together and get a job doing something, earn some money and get going.

 

As my dad used to say, "A job is something you do so you can do what you really want the rest of the time." And I could be wrong, but I disagree.

You're going to face stress and unpleasant tasks no matter what you do. If you're working in something which strikes a passion in you, it feels more like a minor annoyance in the middle of a good thing. If you're working at a job you just tolerate, the stresses will drive you under your desk.

 

Well, maybe this isn’t the best advice, but if you got decent severance pay, take time off. Take a vacation.

This has happened to me before, multiple times. You can do anything, but decide what’s important to you. Not in a career, but in life. If you’ve ever wanted to climb a mountain, do it. Want to try surfing? Go for it.

Those who’ve said to stop defining yourself as a “sportswriter” are 100 pct correct. This job is no different than any other. Life is more important.

 

I have enjoyed reading a lot of great advice on this thread. I am trying to prepare for a career change while I'm still in a sports reporter job that is supposed to be the first stepping stone. I know I do great work here, but it clearly is not gonna go anywhere and I'm tired of living in a town I have no purpose of being in other than for this job.

I am working on applying for grad school but without much direction on what I really want from it, then not sure I wanna pay those loans.

One thing that I think the original poster might be looking for, and that I have struggled to find even when reading posts like these, is "Where do you ACTUALLY look for different jobs?" I have tried Indeed, Zip Recruiter, etc., all those garbage job boards that have the same listings everyone looks at. I have only managed to get inquiries from those predatory pyramid scheme things.

If I want to get a college asst. SID job or pro media relations job, where do I look (other than TeamWorkOnline, which I have applied to many many jobs on and never heard back)? Do those jobs not exist anymore either? What about corporate comms, PR, media relations, tech writing? Are they all on the same job boards that everyone in the world already looks at? It is getting tough to figure out what I am doing wrong in trying to find a different place to work or move, which makes me and probably many others think we don't have any marketable skills.

I am 25 and don't have many connections. The ones I do have are not (yet) those super strong bonds that develop over long periods of time. I moved far away after college and don't have really any established connections outside of this fucked industry I am in.