MLB.com seeking 30 interns

he's right. he just beat me to it.

 

Then people wonder why kids stay in school... I graduated in August and made twice that working in student media. I mean I had 6 jobs and worked 60 hours a week while going to school full time - but I had money.

 

I had this gig for about 3 years, and it is definitely a priceless internship. PM me with questions.

 

i'd have loved this to be around when i went to college. some former interns stay on with mlb.com fulltime, others have moved on elsewhere like newspapers, teams and sports information.

 

Don't get your hopes up on landing a full-time position -- no matter how well you perform.

The jobs simply aren't there. One beat reporter and one eager associate per team is plenty. Most of MLB's full-timers are young and getting paid well, so not too many are leaving, or even thinking about leaving, in the near future.

With that said, when an opening does come up, MLB has set a precedent of looking exclusively at its previous class of interns to fill it and they will look to do the same if an opening pops up before the 2009 season.

Also, at last check, six of the 20 or so interns of 2008 who had already graduated from college have landed full-time gigs.

 

They have plucked some newspaper reporters along the way, Robert Falkoff, Jim Molony, T.R. Sullivan. I'm sure there's others.

 

That's changed, to an extent. It still happens in a few cases, but the number of previous interns asked to return really got reduced a year ago after Bill took over. They want to open up their intern pool (and by extension, potential hiring pool) as much as they can, which means very few returning associates, since those are known quantities. So it might actually be close to 30.

I completed one of these internships before, and it definitely helps. However, be wary that a lot of SEs are a little skeptical since you're writing for a professional team's Web site. You have a lot more license than you might think, but the stigma is what it is. I agree that these are best used as a complement to an internship with a major metro. You can use the major metro for the "name" recognition, and this gives you the edge of professional clubhouse experience.

Of course, all of that is just from a resume/hiring perspective. In terms of improving you as a writer and a beat guy, MLB.com is as good as it gets. Tremendous opportunity. If anyone has questions, feel free to PM.

 

If I recall correctly, MLB hired a few of these interns in the past, but lately they seem to be hiring only big-time, proven writers. How many interns have a snowball's chance in hell of beating out a Lyle Spencer or a T.R Sullivan?

 

Outside of Hal Bodley? Not lately. At all.

 

And Bodley and T.R. Sullivan may have been hired to please their "stockholders," rather than out of need for people with that much experience.

 

If you've got friends in high places, you'll land there. Marty Noble got his well-deserved gig at mets.com b/c Fred Wilpon "suggested" it. There will always be room for contributors like Bodley and Jack O'Connell who get squeezed out of the rat race. But the meat and potatoes? Forget it if you're older than 23.

 

I only have about 3 published articles. I do have about 4 columns though. Should I send the columns anyway?