"Getting out of the business" resource thread

Thanks Ace,

I should have been more specific. My involvement with the online side of our publication has been pretty basic, but my page designs and graphics are complex and high-quality. I'm wondering what web design software folks would use to create a site with a home page and three or four galleries of different categories of work.

Learning the basics of Dreamweaver to build a site seems as though it would be overkill, even though I'll probably need to know what I would learn, later.

Would Wix or Wordpress be quicker and easier? And what sort of time investment might a basic site take?

I'm trying to get a total of 20-25 pieces of work up, split into at least three categories, so that folks can quickly see what I do after I send out a resume and cover letter.

 

Sounds like you have some good designs and graphics then. It's tricky to determine what type of web design software might be the best.

Check with some companies you might be interested in and see if there is a pattern. Might just try fiddling with Wordpress unless you see most are using the same stuff.

For us, if you have experience on the specific software we use, that's a plus. If you have the skills to do it on other software, that's probably good enough.

So it's better to have web design skills on something than say you do web design but it's pretty basic because you are limited by the publication.

Good luck.

 

Like Baron said, brighter days are ahead.

I don't think I mentioned it here before, but my entire department was outsourced to a print lab in mid-June. I started out feverishly looking for another job in journalism. But I came to realize that I was done with it. I'm tired of working nights. I'm tired of putting out a newspaper. I like my weekends.

Thing is, a journalist's skill set can transfer in any number of ways. I took a civil-service test and scored pretty high. I've gotten 15 interview availability surveys since and have had five interviews for administrative clerk positions. And it will only take one. At the worst, I'm going to go into the state's temporary clerk pool if we get close to the severance running out, and work at moving into a full-time spot that way.

Good luck, Beef.

 

I haven't had time to go back and read all the posts, but I want to say that Friday I quit my job. I was technically the sports content coach, but in the last couple of months web and print producer responsibilities have been added to my workflow. It got to where it was overwhelming and I was not only working 11 to 12-hour days, but I was getting in trouble for forgetting to do certain aspects of the producer job (even though I never really got any kind of training or actual list of what was required).

Frankly, I got tired of getting emails every morning telling me what I forgot to do and what my priorities should be. One argument too many led to me just quitting on the spot.

I don't know what direction my life will take now. I've been doing this for a long time, my entire life has been in this profession and I've never really thought about doing anything but sports writing or sports editing. I put my family in jeopardy by quitting, but I didn't like who I was becoming and had to make a change.

 

If you can juggle that many responsibilities without much, if any, direction, you will do much better when you work for a competent employer, SL.

Good luck in your job search and I think you made the right decision.

 

Sorry to hear of it. I wouldn't have just up and quit without having something else lined up. I would have just told them that I'm giving them 8 hours a day and they can prioritize what they need me to do for those 8 hours. After 8, unless I get extra pay, it's time to go home.

If they don't like it, make them fire you then, and maybe you can collect unemployment.

Hope things turn out better soon.

 

I'll admit it's probably not the smartest move I've ever made, but my pride got the best of me. I met with my boss earlier that day and the impression I got was that if I didn't fall in line and do exactly what she wanted, I'd be gone by Monday.

I like your idea, except I was salary and I was expected to work more than 8 hours. In fact, my schedule (1 to 11ish) wouldn't even allow me to leave after 8 hours. I had to be there when the last story was put on the page and the last page was sent.

These next few months are going to suck unless I can find something else fast. I'm starting to second-guess myself, only for the money. Health-wise and sanity-wise, I've never felt better than the last few days. The amount of stress that I cast out of my life when I left is pretty tremendous.

 

I made a very similar move 10 or so years ago. It took me awhile to fully recover, and I was lucky. If you avoid a nervous breakdown by walking out, good for you.

Use this time to take care of you. Psychologically and physically. Godspeed.

 

I've been struggling to get out of the business for a year-plus. I'm writing here tonight as the depression keeps beating me down, causing me to dread waking up and face another day.

I work as an editor at a small paper. The cutbacks in staff and other budget cuts and everything we've all lived through in newspapers keep coming as we knew they would. The stress of having to do more and more - which necessarily affects the quality of the paper - and the pay that leaves me in poverty by government standards with kids at home is what brings me here today to vent and to ask for help and support.

I've watched as so many people in our small office have left the industry - ad reps and reporters getting out because the job seems impossible - which makes even walking into our rather cavernous but empty office so much harder to stomach. And in my newsroom when it's fully staffed, its damn near impossible to hire a writer just to keep my workload manageable. My experience is that the market is dry — maybe it's this generation of college grads, but certainly part of it is why would you put up with the stress when you could make the same hourly wage we pay at Wal-Mart where you can go home at night and not give a damn about the next meeting you have to cover or whether taking a vacation day will basically shut down the paper if you don't write three stories in advance?

So, I really want to get out. I know people in real life and on here who believe PR is a sellout. To me, PR/Communications Specialist or whatever looks like the obvious move to a livable wage ($45K or $50K doesn't seem like a lot to ask for someone with 10 years in newspapers responsible for writing, editing, production, all social media, managing budgets etc. etc.) and I want that. I'm open to other careers that might be good fits for my newspaper skills. I want to leave my work at the office at 5 p.m., have my nights and weekends back so I can enjoy my kids, and not worry about trying to make sure a murder or a car accident gets reported (by me because I'm pretty much it when it comes to covering spot news) on one of my "off" days.

I have tried to make my resume more PR friendly. And I've tried to network in the past. Maybe some of my contacts through the paper are good resources, but many are not, as places that would seem obvious like local governments are not options as they have been the subject of watchdog reporting by our paper. And there's the issue of not wanting to out myself to my employer by mentioning that I'm job hunting to someone who knows my boss.

So where I'm at now is trying to get out a few resumes a week when I have a free second for jobs I see on indeed.com and LinkedIn and I've gotten exactly one phone interview for a PR job that didn't work out. To be fair, I'm not spitballing with applications -- I'm applying for jobs that I believe I'm qualified for and that I think I would like to do.

Today has been particularly depressing for lots of reasons. There doesn't seem to be an end to this in sight. The future at the paper isn't bright — every year more and more gets cut to the point that you think they can't cut anything else. Yet, I can't seem to figure out how to move on - to get out - to conduct a proper and productive job search that will land me in something even just a little bit better while keeping the paper afloat in the meantime.

I would appreciate support, help etc. Maybe my resume isn't good enough. I've asked a few friends who have gotten out to critique it and I "think" it's OK. But I just don't know any more.

 

Do you have former co-workers in non-journalism jobs who can recommend you or alert you to openings? Although I'm not a believer in "It's not what you know, it's who you know," I wouldn't have been hired into my last three jobs (most likely) if I hadn't known someone.

If the above doesn't apply, don't hesitate to contact someone with a company you'd like to work for and request to go for a cup of coffee/lunch/beer with him or her. As a former direct report said, A lot of people don't like to eat lunch alone. At that meeting, listen a lot (most people like to hear themselves talk) and sound interested in his/her job -- not in making a "Hire me" pitch.

Try to freelance like a son of a bitch. Virtually any business in your community that has a web presence needs fresh content (whether the business knows it or not). The freelancing can lead to more freelancing or even a full-time job. You could suggest to a major real estate brokers office in your area that you create all of the written content for their fliers and advertisements. I can't imagine Realtors enjoy that aspect of their job. Be a tutor in English/writing/SAT preparation.

Be enterprising ... are there industries in your area that aren't prominent enough in local media (where I live, for example, there is an outdoors industry that should unite and hire a media specialist to advocate for its interests)? Propose to industry leaders that you carry their banner.

Don't limit yourself to "content creation" jobs. If you've been in charge of hiring people, if you've orchestrated all-county/all-district/all-state pages, if you've overseen the scheduling of colleagues, if you've planned, edited and produced special sections, you're qualified for all sorts of jobs. But you need to frame your skills and experience in a way that resonates with whoever is doing the hiring. Don't limit yourself ... if you've handled from A to Z a fall sports tab, you are a project manager.

All of this takes time. Don't let your current employer extract more time than you're paid for. Seriously. Three years ago, I was conducting a serious job search. It took about 20 hours a week -- while I was working well more than 40 hours a week.

 

At some point, if you're having so many cutbacks, you cannot continue to do the same quantity of work. You need to prioritize. If you're spending the previous night covering a murder, skip the next board meeting unless something major is going on there. Instead of writing a full-blown story with a photo on a fender-bender, write a brief. If you're covering a feature event, use lots of photos to fill the page.

In other words, instead of devoting untold non-paid hours trying to put your fingers in the dikes when your company isn't willing to help you, let the water go through the holes and go build yourself a boat.

 

PR is not selling out. You have to understand that there is zero future in newspapers. If you're in middle age at you're at a small newspaper, you're not moving up. Those jobs are gone. You have to do what's best for you and your family. Dogs8Cats is dead on about your skill set. Sell how what you do in newspapers currently can translate to another job.