Job hunt questions for upcoming grads

Names, please.

 

It seems like most of the non-sports editor jobs on the jobs board and journalismjobs.com are entry-level, though nowadays you're probably competing with people with many years in the business who've been laid off.

 

Do us noob-grads have any advantage over the people who have just been laid off?

 

And naive.

 

And are likely to have fewer demands or scoff at the insane stuff they want you to do. Cover an event at 8 a.m. when I put the paper to bed at midnight? Sure! Drive four hours to cover Podunk High, but you'll only get 13 cents a mile? Road trip!

 

When building a resume of clips... you want to be diverse.
Features, Enterprise, Game coverage...etc...

I never heard of enterprise stories before I joined the SJ forums. What is the difference between a feature and an enterprise?

 

My understanding:

A feature is a profile on a person, place or thing. It's something that digs past the "what" of a story and gets to the "why" and "how."

An enterprise story is more project-based, something you spend some time looking into (like college graduation rates, or a historical look at stadium building in your state). It doesn't have to be digging up dirt, like investigative reporting, but it has to be a fresh angle on a beat story or a trend. It often involves other elements, such as business or civics or medicine.

 

You've never heard of an enterprise story and you're about to graduate? Where did you go to school?

 

I wanted to throw this out there ... one of the best pieces of advice for an aspiring journalist (and even current journalists) is to read good stuff. A good place to find good stuff is in the daily NewsGems blog, which highlights work from across the country:

http://spj.org/blog/blogs/newsgems/

 

Hey everybody,
I'm jumping the gun pretty quick, but I am very anxious to get started in sports journalism.

I'm going to be a junior at my University in August. My school doesn't even have a Journalism degree program, but a certificate program, so I'm getting my bachelor's in Communications along with the certificate.

I started writing for my school newspaper sophomore year and found myself with this passion for sports writing. I am now going to be the Sports Editor for the next two years. It's a D1 school, so I've been able to get a lot of good game stories (especially this year, where I will be traveling with the football team for away games).

This summer I am interning at a 100k paper, and I've developed some solid clips, mostly features. I am hoping for a paid internship next summer (keeping my fingers crossed on SI).

Anyways, ideally I want to start at a paper that will still have me involved with D1 athletics, but I am totally fine with preps. When I get out of school I'll just be happy to get my feet wet in the field.

My question is will the fact that I'm not graduating with a Journalism degree hurt me? I know I'll be competing with kids coming from Missouri, Maryland and other schools that have renowned J-Schools.

I'm going to post an article or two of mine in the writer's workshop, I am hoping some of you guys can give me some pointers. Thanks!

 

No problem. Most greeters at Wal-mart don't have journalism degrees.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Good luck.

 

As a recent grad who's already been laid off, let me offer my advice to recent/upcoming grads: GET OUT NOW!!!!!