A question/looking advice about applying to journalism jobs

Hello,

I'm new to the site, it's wonderful to be here.

I have a question about applying to jobs within the industry given my situation.

I graduated college with a journalism degree in 2016. However, half way through my degree I started to coach high school football and I fell in love with it. I thought this was going to be my future so I got a job substitute teaching right after college and worked other part time jobs to save up enough money to get my teaching credentials and pursue a career in coaching.

Through the last two years I have found out teaching is not for me and as much as I love coaching the sport I don't think I can commit my life to teaching.

I do want sports to be apart of my life and I do have experience writing/editing my college news paper along with a degree.

My question is: how does applying to jobs with such a gap in relevant work experience work and if it's detrimental to my applications, how do I over come it?

 

A two-year gap isn't much. And you can pretty much explain what you have been doing pretty quickly in a cover letter and resume. Your clips are more important anyway.
Good luck. It's a bitch out there to find a job right now.

 

Good advice, Spike. Good luck, Carlos.

 

It could be a good thing that you coached high school football. For sports-writing job hopefuls, that is not a bad "gap" at all.

It'd be considered related, first-person-type experience. Don't worry about it. Just explain if/when it comes up.

 

As others have said, a two-year gap is nothing and can be explained. Showing outside experience that could be relevant is potentially a good thing.

However, the most important line of your post is the one in bold, and it leads to a critical question.

When you were in college, did you study journalism because you loved sports and wanted to be around the game? Or did you love writing, reporting (especially reporting), and working in journalism? Would you be just as excited to land a job covering education or courts, or do sports have to play a major role in your job?

If you really want to be a journalist, then go for it. But if you just want to be around sports and think writing is the best way to do that, then I'd encourage you to explore being an SID or working in sports administration.

 

Funny you say that, I actually did a college internship with my alma mater's Athletic's department and was an assistant SID. Fun job, currently studying for the GRE to get a SID fellowship as a back up plan in case this journalism thing doesn't work.

Thanks!

 

I think you have to really love writing, storytelling and, to an extent, the grind and intensity of being a reporter to make it in this business. If you're getting into it because you want to be around sports, I'd find another avenue that pays better and is less conpetitive.

 

If you’re looking to write for SB Nation, Bleacher Report or Sports Illustrated, make sure your twitter game is out of control, which includes sassily broadcasting every waking moment of your life like you’re actually more important than you are

 

Do you currently have a full time teaching gig?

 

I disagree. I grew up eating, breathing and drinking sports. When I got to college, I knew I could never be a professional player or a coach beyond the high school level. I do admit that I had a fondness for reporting, media and journalism specifically. So when it came time to find a major, it just made perfect sense. I could do something I had in interest in while following something I had a passion for. At the same time, I had absolutely ZERO interest in reporting anything on the news side and that remains true to this day. I'd quit before I'd go cover a fucking city council meeting or work the police beat.

To each his own. Who are you to tell him he shouldn't do it?

Everyone has their niche and if he believes sports journalism is his then he should go for it. Don't listen to this bullshit advice dude.

This is what I hate about newsroom bigots. News guys always think they're so much fucking smarter and better than sports guys. I can tell you this much. Almost any sport guys can do a news story like it's the back of their hand. But take a news guy and ask him to cover a sports event, and you'll get a shit sandwich story back 99 percent of the time. Fuck news.

 

If you're in journalism school and want to be the next Bob Woodward, you know what you're getting into. Cops and courts, working on stories about crime and corruption, etc. You're there because you enjoy the process of reporting and writing a story. Yeah, council meetings and school board meetings suck, but they're a means to an end. They're brief stops on the career progression.

Sports is a different story. It's much tougher to climb to the elite levels, so people peak covering preps and small colleges. I've seen far more people flame out because they couldn't handle bad high school games or crappy college programs than I have because they were bored to death by the local school board.

The guy can do whatever he wants. But he already tried one career just to be around sports and he found teaching wasn't for him. So I'm adding a word of caution - if he's in it just for sports, he may find himself in a similar situation like he is now five years down the road.