In-state sports reporter, Arkansas-Democrat Gazette — Little Rock

I'm going to try to put this in a constructive way: Maybe it's time you focus on what you're bringing to an application, rather than what anyone else is.

And I don't mean making sure you have a cover letter, resume, and clips with every application. If you feel you're constantly getting passed over for jobs, take a hard look at your resume. What kinds of stories are you writing? Are you doing normal gamers and notebooks, or are you doing in-depth features and investigative work? Are you breaking news? If you're looking at a college sports beat, do have a grasp of following recruiting?

Are you winning awards? Yeah, they're mostly meaningless, but they can grab someone's attention on a resume. Are competitors on your beat winning awards or getting public recognition for their work while you're not?

What else do you bring to the table? Can you shoot/edit photos/video? Can you design pages? Can you build an audience on social media, or are you just tweeting about pro sports instead of your beat?

Sometimes when we're ready to move on to a new opportunity we stop doing the things that will actually get us that opportunity. Might be a good time to reflect.

 

Don’t know him (or you) but his name looked familiar. He has won the APSE student writing contest the past three years and was supposed to intern with The Boston Globe this summer before nearly every sports department 86ed their intern program this year. He also placed highly in a couple other contests.
So before shitting on a kid for getting a job and coming to conclusions and rationalizing that the pay might not be good, maybe try to figure out why you got beat. Evaluate your resume and clips and how you are trying to sell yourself instead of commenting on nearly every job on this board.

 

As someone who was once in your position and felt the same discouragement when getting passed over for jobs, here's a little advice that you certainly won't take because you have tunnel vision:
1.) You're not entitled to any of these jobs, no matter how much experience you have compared to other applicants.
2.) There is assuredly a job out there that is looking for whatever you're offering. Keep grinding.
3.) Life is not a ladder, so stop treating it like one. Just be internally happy and fulfilled. Treating life like a ladder just pushes the concept that you're important and successful to people who don't really care that much.
4.) You have a job, right? (I believe I read that from one of your posts). You also have a job as a college beat reporter. I never got that "far" when I was in journalism. There are a lot of people, especially in this economic recession, who are unemployed. It's all good to just relax and be alright and grateful with what you've got.
5.) Focus on improving your life outside of your job.

Or don't. You do you, my man.

 

First, let me say that I’ll comment on what I want to on this board, just like you will. Second, you probably already know that I don’t comment on nearly every job on this board and I honestly didn’t post much on here for awhile, but you had to get that take off. Third, you’re absolutely about one thing, you don’t know me.

It’s weird how I’ve seen people mention how the industry is trending toward hiring younger reporters, usually because they are willing to work for less of a salary. But I said it and I’m shitting on him. Got it.

I’m sure the kid is talented, and like I said before, I’d hope so, because if a paper hired an untalented reporter straight out of college, that would be a real problem.

I enjoy what I do, and I want to keep moving up like a lot of people I’m sure. But I said what I said. Thanks for the advice though.

 

I won’t go through every point you made, but I will say that I’ve been passed over for many a job, like I’m sure a lot of people have been on here. But I actually don’t comment much on it on here (most of what I post on here is either an actual posting or a joke here and there). You and others happened to see this one and didn’t like what I said. Which is fine, that wasn’t the purpose of me writing it.

Its also possible to grateful with the job I have and also want to improve upon it. Which I am. If you don’t agree, again, that’s fine. That’s life.

 

I come from sincerity when I say this.....nobody gives a shit.

 

Hire young; hire cheap.

 

As mentioned in plenty of ways why it's tough to get a job or what else an applicant can look to improve, I too, like surely many here, have not always had good luck getting jobs I wanted. Some of that was tunnel vision (a lack of flexibility early on really hurt me), some of it was bad timing or better applicants or whatever. There were some personal factors too such as my wife's professional training really limited opportunities for me, but that never eliminated them either. You never know what an employer is truly looking for and of course there are political things too. But one thing, right or wrong, I figured out a long the way. I was the constant. Maybe that is too negative, but at the end of an application process it was always me standing there successful or not. Every time. Looking inward and how you can improve yourself professionally and elsewhere is all you can do and pick yourself up and try again.

 

Based on his response, he didn't contemplate or reflect on a word you said. And yet he wonders what the problem is.

 

So, I think back to the late 1980s, when the late Russ Conway hired me part time at a major midsized daily because my resume (no clips because I had never written, business degree and no experience) was at the top of his pile.
30 years later (20 spent on the Patriots beat with trips to six Super Bowls) in this horrifying business, it's great to see people puzzled by the hiring practices.
By the way, I was laid off recently. So, if anyone needs help, full or part time around NE, gimme a call.

 

Hiring practices in this industry do suck though. So do layoffs -- best of luck getting something else. I am in the same boat, though I'm trying to jump ship.

 

What MiamiBoy is frustrated about is probably the fact that he feels he's done everything right, worked ridiculously hard, sacrificed some aspects of his personal and social life and achieved a full-time job in this completely fucked business. Then, when he gets to the point where he's doing his thing at a mid-level paper, there's no way forward because places are hiring people straight out of college instead of those who are literally doing this exact same job and already have years of experience.

How can you blame him for that? That's ridiculous. And it's not to take anything away from the people who do go straight from college to a job like this. Most of us mid-20s reporters were in that exact same position coming out of college, knowing we had to luck ourselves into getting the dream job straight out of school or else the clock will start ticking every year we toil at a dying small paper with no resources compared to what we had in college. Don't you think we are already self-criticizing every little thing about our professional life?

But nope, guess we just have to pull up our bootstraps...