Lessons from losing and finding jobs: Melanie Coulson, Kim Fox (and me + others)

Two years ago I left the newsroom. Here are Four Lessons from Losing a Journalism Job https://t.co/eQwW6S2CbJ #cdnmedia

— melanie coulson (@mel_coulson) February 11, 2016

I wish journalists weren’t learning so many important lessons from losing their jobs. But, as long as so many journalists are losing their jobs, I’m glad some of them are sharing the lessons they’re learning.

I blogged recently about the turmoil in Canadian media, which resembles what U.S. media have also faced, including various companies I’ve worked for.

I’ve shared lessons here before (links below) from my job losses and job searches, but in this post, I want to call attention to posts by two Canadian friends who have blogged their own lessons.

Melanie Coulson, whom I met in a visit to the Ottawa Citizen in 2010, lost her job there a couple years ago. This week more Citizen journalists have lost their jobs*, and Mel blogged about four lessons she learned since losing hers. I recommend reading her entire post, but here’s a passage that stood out to me:

Stop thinking of yourself as a journalist with specialized skills that won’t transfer to other jobs. I’m telling you — they are so, so in demand.

Words are your super power — but to others they are kryptonite.

You have other amazing superhero skills: You ask the right questions, ones that others are afraid to ask.

This is something you’ve done that your whole career.

Update: And now Mel has a new gig:

Leap Day! And I'm thrilled to be jumping into a new role @Canada2020 as its Director of Content & Engagement!

— melanie coulson (@mel_coulson) February 29, 2016

Advice for the recently laid off from someone who’s been there, by @kimfox https://t.co/9TcayTT5q2 pic.twitter.com/nyLdRzAFcZ

— HuffPost Canada (@HuffPostCanada) February 6, 2016

Earlier this month, Kim Fox shared nine lessons from her own job-loss experience, including this one:

Say yes to every meeting  –  even when you’re feeling low, or aren’t sure about fit. IMHO any interview is good practice; it’s just as important to learn what you DON’T want.

*Update: Drew Gragg notes in the comments that the most recent departures at the Citizen were voluntary buyouts. I don’t know the particulars of the Ottawa situation, but I do know that every round of buyouts in the news business includes some pressure to accept a buyout before some people may want to end their careers. Sometimes the pressure is an attractive package, sometimes the pressure is an explicit or implicit recognition that the company may cut jobs (with a less attractive severance package) if it doesn’t succeed in reducing the newsroom enough with buyouts. And some people are fed up and ready for retirement or another career and jump at the package. I know some happy journalists who have moved on with not problems after a buyout. I know others who have dealt with and still deal with many of the issues discussed in Kim’s and Mel’s posts, though the dynamic is definitely different if you had a choice in the matter, even a choice under pressure.

My links on losing jobs and looking for the next one

I should note here that you don’t always start looking for a job because you just lost one. I’ve lost two jobs in my 45-year journalism career. Other times, I moved on because a great opportunity arose while I was enjoying a job. Sometimes I started looking for work because I could see the current job situation deteriorating for reasons varying from personal relationships to economic turmoil to changing strategy. Along the way, I learned a lot.

Here are previous posts I’ve written about dealing with the impact of a job loss and looking for the next one (the first one includes excellent advice from colleagues):

Job-hunting tips: Spread the word, network, be patient and persistent

Prepare for your next job hunt while you’re still working

What is your advice for job-hunting journalists?

Tips on landing your next job in digital journalism

Job-hunting advice for journalists selling skills in the digital market

Use digital tools to showcase your career and your work

Confessions (strategies) of a branded journalist (or a journalist with a reputation, if you prefer)

Your digital profile tells people a lot

Enduring lessons from being fired 20 years ago

Bitterness is like wreaking revenge on yourself

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

What is your advice for job-hunting journalists?

I led a webinar Wednesday for the Society of Professional Journalists on job-hunting for journalists (but non-journos are welcome, too):

FREE SPJ webinar: Job hunting for journalists, 7/29, with @stevebuttry. Register: https://t.co/5P0MKlrIF3 | @journojobs @jjobs_tweets

— Society of Pro Journ (@spj_tweets) July 25, 2015

I just hit some highlights from my many blog posts on job-seeking, but those links are below. I’ve updated the top of this post to add my slides and to turn the post from future to past tense. From here on, it’s Monday’s post, which was seeking advice from other journalists. Thanks to all who send advice. That advice (from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email) is shared in the slides above.

 

Here’s what I posted Monday, seeking that advice:

To stimulate your thinking, I’ll share a few tips here from previous posts on the topic, with links (I’ll suggest this post as further reading for webinar participants) and questions (in bold, to facilitate skimming here) to stimulate your thinking:

Prep for the job hunt

If you have a great job and you’re lucky (and want to) stay in it, I hope you stay where you are for many years to come. But the sad fact of journalism is (and always was) that you could lose your job abruptly, with little warning. I lost a job with no warning once (told on Friday to clean out my office that evening) and last year I got three months’ notice. Other times you feel like you’re ready for a move up that’s not likely to come in your own newsroom. Or you can’t stand your boss or your company or you want more money or a different beat. The reasons for starting a job hunt are plentiful. But your path to the next job starts while you’re happy and secure (or at least still welcome to come in every day, if no one feels secure any more) in your current job.

I wrote a blog post last year on preparing for your next job while you’re still working. One of my tips from that post: “you should always be learning new digital skills.”

What are some things you’ve done, before you started a job hunt, that helped once you started trying to find your next job (whether voluntary or by necessity)? 

Network

One of my tips in the blog post on preparing for the next job hunt (and most, if not all, of my posts relating to this topic) is to build your professional network. In a 2010 post about job-hunting tips, I noted that Jeff Sonderman and Mandy Jenkins contacted me as soon as I got hired at TBD, before I had posted any job openings. They both eventually got jobs on my community engagement team.

What are your tips on building a network and using that network to help land your next job?

Digital profile

I blogged in 2009 about building and tending your digital profile and in 2012 about using digital tools to showcase your career and your work. Perhaps my most important advice from those posts: Google yourself so you will see yourself as prospective bosses see you (in a 2013 post, I advised editors to check job candidates’ digital profiles).

If you think you’ve showcased your career and your work effectively, please send me a link. I may use your profile page as an example in the webinar.

Resumé

We will cover resumés briefly in the webinar. My key pieces of advice: Keep it to one page, but hyperlink to a page that gives more detail about your career and to actual examples of any works you cite in the resumé. (I included more resumé tips in that 2010 post).

Do you have any resumé tips? Or a resumé you’re proud of that I could share in the webinar and on the blog?

The Pitch

We will discuss how to pitch for a job. This will include the cover letter, of course, but also other ways of connecting with a prospective boss and making your pitch. As noted in that 2010 post, I made my initial (successful) pitch for a job with a direct message on Twitter.

Do you have a great cover letter you’d like to share (I could omit your name, if you prefer, but if it’s not your cover letter, I want permission from the sender to use, with or without name)? Or tell me how you pitched effectively other than through a cover letter.

Prep

Prep is helpful in two phases of the job hunt: researching the person, job and organization before you even make your pitch and doing even more research before your interview. Another point in that 2010 post was that candidates scored points in my interviews for TBD jobs with their knowledge about our people and strategy and what we had written about our plans.

The interview

Of course, you have to nail the interview. In a 2011 post, I shared a tip from Justin Karp: “Don’t be afraid to be bold when you meet someone.”

How have you nailed an interview (or screwed one up)? How have people that you interviewed excelled or stumbled? If you’ve been the boss doing the interviews, what are some important questions you ask?

Follow-up

Unless you get offered the job during the interview (that has happened to me, but it’s rare), your work is not done when the interview finishes. In a post from last year, I noted that I helped land my job with the American Press Institute by spending my flight home writing up my strategy for pursuing the job I’d just interviewed for. I emailed my prospective boss the strategy when I got home and within a week, I got an excellent offer that I accepted.

How have you followed up an interview effectively to help you land a job?

Don’t feel limited by my questions. I welcome your advice, whether in response to my questions or just from your own experience. Share a tip or tell a story about what worked for you or what didn’t.

Read Full Post »

Slides and links for LSU job-hunting workshop

I’m leading a workshop for LSU students tonight on job-hunting and preparing yourself for a job hunt. The workshop will share tips from these blog posts:

Tips on landing your next job in digital journalism

Use digital tools to showcase your career and your work

Your digital profile tells people a lot

Randi Shaffer shows a reason to use Twitter: It can help land your first job

Elevate your journalism career

Job-hunting advice for journalists selling skills in the digital market

Prepare for your next job hunt while you’re still working

Job-hunting tips: Spread the word, network, be patient and persistent

Why journalists should use Twitter: When you’re fired, it helps with encouragement and actual job prospects

I’ll showcase some examples of journalists’ websites showcasing their experience and their skills, including Sean McMinn, Lexy Cruz, Dylan S. Goldman, Dustin Blanchard, Nicholas Slayton, Eileen Joyce, Megan Bauerle and Ivan Lajara. I’ll also show Tyler Fisher’s advice for using GitHub to build your own portfolio site.

Here are my slides for the workshop:

Read Full Post »

Prepare for your next job hunt while you’re still working

You can’t wait until you need a job to position yourself for the job hunt.

Yesterday I posted some advice on looking for a job in journalism when you lose your job. Today I’m making the point that your next job hunt starts in what you do while you’re employed and feeling secure and happy with your job (as I was for nearly all my time at Digital First Media). While working, you need to build the brand, accomplishments and connections that will become essential in your job hunt.

Your job hunt might start with losing your job in a corporate staff reduction, as happened to my Thunderdome colleagues and me in April. Or you may be frustrated with your current job and decide to move along. Or you may want to pursue your dream job. Someone may come courting you when you’re pleased with your current job (that happened to me in 1998 and I left the Omaha World-Herald to join the Des Moines Register and it happened in 2012 and I came very close to leaving Digital First Media). In any of those situations, it’s important to position yourself for future opportunities in the job you’re doing now.

Do good work

Quality work often isn’t enough, but job-hunting success always starts there. You can do good work and still not succeed in a job hunt because you didn’t do the things I discussed yesterday (or just because job-hunting is hard). But no amount of digital sophistication, networking or other techniques discussed here is likely to help if you don’t do quality work. I apologize for what will amount to boasting here, but the point is important to make.

My new job as Lamar Family Visiting Scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University stems from a string of good work I’ve done over the years. In 2009, when I was finishing some work on a grant for some ethics seminars for the American Press Institute, Jerry Ceppos was dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. We might have met before at a conference, but we didn’t know each other well. Jerry brought me in for the seminar, which examined the ethical issues of digital journalism. If I hadn’t delivered a good seminar, that would have been the last time I had worked for Jerry. But I did a good job and he remembered me.

Read Full Post »

Job-hunting tips: Spread the word, network, be patient and persistent

My own job-hunting experience, along with occasional hiring experience, continues to give me firsthand perspective on hunting for jobs in today’s journalism marketplace. Updating posts from 2010 and 2011, I offer tips for job-hunting.

I apologize (just a little) for any boasting in this post. Seeking a job in the competitive market requires honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve tried to carry through in that here. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had throughout my career. I know that luck has played a role, but I also know that my own efforts have played a role, too, and I’ll try to share lessons from both.

I’ll also share advice from former Thunderdome colleagues Mandy Jenkins, Tom Meagher and Ross Maghielse and from Kevin Sablan, who recently left the Orange County Register.

I’ll do a separate post tomorrow on things to do while you’re employed that will help when you start looking for work, whether you lose your job or are seeking your next opportunity. But for today, here is advice for your job hunt:

Spread the word

Losing your job is a blow to the ego, even if you have a lot of company. We all like to believe we’re indispensable. So your first instinct might not be to tell the world you’re available. But tell the world.

Read Full Post »

Matt Thompson advises job-seekers how to land a journalism gig

Matt Thompson

Some of my most popular posts here have offered advice on how to find and land a job in journalism. So I thought I should point out that Matt Thompson has offered great advice on this topic.

Matt’s tips overlap with some of mine, but he says them better, so I encourage you to check out his advice if you’ve found mine helpful. Here’s my favorite of Matt’s 10 points:

The very best interviews feel like great conversations. This may be one of my quirks as an interviewer, but I’ve found this to be true both as an interviewer and as an interviewee. Interviews often start out as interrogations — a back-and-forth series of questions and answers. But great interviews don’t tend to end that way. With the interview, I’m not merely trying to unlock the bits of knowledge in your head, and I’m certainly not trying to see how well you anticipate the answers locked in my head. I am trying to assess how you think, what you’re passionate about, how we gel as colleagues.

Read Full Post »

Enduring lessons from being fired 20 years ago

I loved my job as editor of the Minot Daily News. I reported to work 20 years ago today thinking I was at the pinnacle of my career and would stay there for many years to come.

North Dakota seemed like the right place for me, even with sub-zero wind chills much of the winter and huge mosquitoes through the summer.

Mimi was a popular columnist and had a thriving freelance writing business. Our sons were doing well in school. We had a nice home on a hill with a lovely view of the city in the valley below. We had fallen in love with Teddy Roosevelt National Park, just a couple hours’ drive away.

My staff was performing good journalism. We were doing watchdog reporting for our community. We were providing a strong editorial voice. We were learning and improving together as journalists.

Other newspapers in North Dakota were noticing the rise of the smallest of the state’s “big four” newspapers (yes, “big” is relative; in most states all of those papers would be mid-sized or small). I had been elected president of the North Dakota Associated Press Managing Editors my first year in the state. My staff won more awards at the North Dakota Newspaper Association’s summer conference than anyone could remember us winning.

After tumultuous experiences when afternoon newspapers had died in Des Moines and Kansas City and I questioned decisions by top leaders, I wanted to run a newsroom myself. I had ideas about executive leadership that I wanted to try and they seemed to be working. We had smoothly managed a change earlier in the year from afternoon to morning production. I was enjoying the momentum I felt my career had.

Then I got fired. Twenty years ago today.

I never got a good explanation for the firing, and probably wouldn’t have believed it if I did. In retrospect, I can see clearly that the owners were planning to sell the paper. It was jointly owned by the Buckner News Alliance and Donrey Media, and that partnership was probably never a good idea. Unloading big salaries was part of a plan to make the newspaper more attractive financially to a buyer. In less than a year, the publisher fired the editor, advertising manager, business manager and production manager, replacing us, if at all, with people who clearly made less money. Then the owners sold the paper to Ogden Newspapers, which still owns it.

Read Full Post »

Tips on landing your next job in digital journalism

I have recently gained experience from both sides in job-hunting in digital journalism.

First I spent nine months looking for my next gig, landing at TBD as Director of Community Engagement. So I studied the issue from the hunter perspective. More recently I have filled five positions on my community-engagement team (hope to fill one more position before long). I have screened more than 100 applicants and interviewed more than a dozen.

Read Full Post »