For Gator and LookingForAnswers,
I can speak to the idea of government jobs and if you can get one, I'd say take it. They can be hard to get, just because interest in them is usually high and competition is fierce. But they are usually quality jobs for decent pay even at the lowest levels.
Which is where you may have to start, but you'll find that they might still pay more than you'd make as a journalist at some places.
I've had some government jobs -- on both temporary and regular part-time bases. One was doing clerical work in the Community Relations Office of my county library system. That was a long-term temp position (about seven months) with a good boss and with some people with whom I enjoyed working. It was a great, full-time stop-gap for that period.
Another was a regular part-time position, in one of the libraries in my county's system that I gave up once I was hired full-time in my current retail job.
Yet another government job I had was brief, temporary, intermittant stints as a copy editor and proofreader of ballots with my county's clerk and recorder's office during two primaries and the ensuing elections. I also got another long-term temp position with my county's human resources department. That was a great job and opened up a lot of doors, or would have had I chosen to stay on in county work.
I also interviewed for and was eventually offered what would have been a regular full-time position with my County Assessor's Office. But I declined that job -- perhaps stupidly, because it was definitely a good job, and they definitely were interested in me -- because, honestly, at the time, I was more interested in the regular part-time library job I'd also been offered right that same week and I thought/was afraid that I was probably a better fit for that. And also, the library was based closer to my home than the Assessor's office job. I enjoyed my library job, but nowadays, if I was trying to make that same choice again, I might make a different decision, though.
I also know that I would have been offered another full-time (but temporary) job as an administrative assistant in my county's social services division if I hadn't expressed a strong desire for a regular full-time job when what was available was a long-term temporary position. (I was actually told that that was the decider, that the interviewing panel had really liked and wanted me, but they felt that I had discouraged them from hiring me if the job couldn't be a regular, full-time thing (which was true; I had done that, consciously). I knew when I left that I'd done well, was situated perfectly and probably would have been hired, but would end up not getting the job because of that, and I was OK with that).
Anyway, the point is, it is possible to get government entry-level jobs without military service or a master's degree (I had neither).
I would advise lots of patience and persistence, though. I can't even count the number of tests I took and all the interviews I went to for a variety of different county jobs in the library system, in the human and social services divisions, with the sheriff's department's communications office, with the clerk and recorder's office, the county hospital for both administrative and food-services jobs, and the county planning and HR departments.
You should know that you will have to take tests in order to even possibly get invited for any interviews. You will, usually, have to score in the 90th percentile or better among the (sometimes) a couple hundred people at a time who routinely get invited to take the tests (based on their application information) in order to even have a chance at an interview.
So the process isn't easy. But we're smart people, and many of us are good test-takers, which you need to be, or need to learn to be. As you take as many tests as I was doing for a couple of years in my determination then to get a government job, you'll find that you really do get better at them, and you start getting better at either knowing, or deducing, the answers.
My advice would be to look on your county's jobs website, apply for everything that interests you that you think you might have any chance of getting, and fill out the "job-interest card" information for any such positions, as well, so that you will automaticallly be notified by either phone or email of when the county is seeking people for positions so you won't necessarily have to be checking the jobs web site all the time (although doing so once a week is a good idea).
I also would advice that you read the job descriptions and requirements carefully and make sure to use the key words, or similar key words in whatever resume and/or online application you send. (The county system is one of those that specifically seeks certain words/terms in its first run-through of applicant possibilitiles).
Also, when it asked you to fill out the space for the salary range you'd accept, you should actually look up the breakdown given on the application, and, if you're applying for a certain level job, make sure to type in nothing higher than the range that fits that level because, again, the computer will automatically eliminate you if you don't fit the required profile.
They will not call you up and say, "We really like your resume and you seem like somebody we might like to test, but would you still be interested if we can/will only offer XXX dollars as a salary?"
Then, if you get called in to take a test, do your level best to score among the top five percent of test-takers, because your status among the group they are considering is key to being asked to an initial interview.
Usually, the breakdown of interviewees is done by top five percent (everyone who scores 95 percent or better) or the top 10 percent (everyone who scores 90 percent or better) on the tests, and everyone who meets the decided-upon standard MUST be interviewed in accordance with county hiring-process rules.
They do not choose among those who qualify at that point, so if you're in, you're in, for that first interview, anyway.
Now, say nobody scores 95, or even 90 percent on the test? Then, they will usuallly go to the next group, with scores of 85-89 percent, and will do the same process there, interviewing everyone in that group, (or giving those candidates a chance to decline the interview). And that goes whether there are three or 20 test-takers among that group.
This is why the interview process can be lengthy.
It is after the first interview -- in which you will also be scored/rated/judged -- that the panel (yes, the first and second interviews are usually in front of multi-people panels) that there begins to be more separation among candidates based on their responses to what is usually a standard list of situational and/or experience-related questions that is posed to every interviewee. Again it is kind of cut-and-dried and there is little chance to deviate from the questions at hand or offer much in the way of personal or potentially separating answers until the panelist usually offer you one last chance with the question of whether there is anything else you'd like to ask or add...
But the key to everything is getting yourself to the first interview. If you do that, you've got as good a chance as anyone to get the job at that point, because they are required to interview everyone who has tested and is still interested who meets the test standard -- 100-95th percentile, (90-94th percentil, 89-85th percentile, or whatever -- and if all qualified test-takers at the top level decline to interview, for whatever reasons, the county will move to the next level down and go through the process again.
That's why the process can sometimes be lengthy and take a while to complete and hear back about. It's very cut-and-dried and straightforward, but in some ways the system also makes it very fair.
And there are some great, good-paying jobs, which can lead to even better jobs. Usually, they're pretty secure, they have good benefits and there are plenty of inter-departmental transfer opportunities if you want them because once you have a government job, it is easier to get another one (you get the aforementioned "points" for working in such jobs before), even though, yes, you still have to go through and succeed in the testing process.
But if you do that, your chances of changing jobs/moving on/up are good after that.
I hope this is of some help.
