by: Jacqueline Ingles

I’ve often related landing a broadcast job to winning the lottery. You have to have the perfect combination of attributes to land the job you are applying for. Recently, I was promoted to crime and courts reporter at my station. Thus, my old bureau position (where you work weekends at the main station serving as lead live reporter) became open. I sat down with an individual in management–who shall remain nameless–and peppered them with questions as to what it took to get their attention and what sent dozens of resume in the garbage even before they were looked at. Yes, the position is filled–if you are thinking of applying. Here are some questions I asked and the answers I received.

Q) How many reporters applied?

A. There were roughly 300 applicants. (Jackie’s jaw drops) Yes, you are up against hundreds for these jobs.

Q) Do cover letters really matter?

A. A cover letter can hurt you more than it helps you. You have more opportunity to make mistakes with spelling and grammar. If you have to write one, make it short and sweet. Think less than 500 words.

Don’t use the same cover letter for each job. I had a man apply that gave me a cover letter for a communications consultant spot. Really?

Q) Are there demos you don’t even look at? If so, why?

A. Yes. If I get a letter or email that says, ‘Dear Sir or Madame,’ I toss it immediately into the garbage. Put it this way, you want to be a reporter and you cannot even find out who the hiring manager is or my name? I am immediately not interested and well, you are not worth my time. I threw out dozens of demos because of this. Didn’t even look.

Q) Can I call you?

A. If in the job listing it says DO NOT CALL or DO NOT EMAIL–do not do either. Doing this will just irritate me and show me you cannot follow instructions.
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By: Lynn Walsh

Like most print reporters, covering all things health and education in Moses Lake, Washington means more than just interviewing sources and meeting deadlines. For Steven Wyble it also means taking pictures and being responsible for knowing the latest news related to the county health district, area hospitals and schools for the Columbia Basin Herald, a newspaper published Monday through Friday.

Wyble is the Society of Professional Journalists Generation J “Feature on the Fifth” profile journalist for December and took some time to answer a few questions about his job, the news industry and social media.

Q: How did you get into the position?

I found the job listed online and applied. I had applied to dozens of other papers and had a few interviews, but no job offers. The editor of the Herald e-mailed me a few days after I submitted my resume and set up a phone interview. After the first interview the publisher set up a second interview and included the publisher. A few days later the publisher called back to offer me the job and I accepted.

Q: You recently joining SPJ. How are you hoping SPJ will help you professionally?

What I’m looking forward to exploring when I have time are the training resources at www.spj.org. While I learned a lot at my university, and am learning even more with my current job, I don’t think there’s anything more conducive to advancing one’s career than constantly pursuing new education and training opportunities.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a young person in this industry? How do you work to overcome it?

My biggest challenge was a lack of professional experience. I think most people learn best by repeatedly practicing a skill, and while I contributed to several student newspapers, I didn’t get as much journalism experience as I would have liked before I graduated.

That lack of experience hindered my job search. After I interviewed at one paper, the editor called to tell me I didn’t the job. I was his second choice, he said, and he’d chosen the other guy because he had more experience.

He suggested I contribute to small community newspapers to build my portfolio, so that’s what I did. I emailed a bunch of editors and told them I was a recent journalism school graduate and that I would like to contribute to their paper. Only one editor replied, and I only ended up contributing three stories. But it was enough to diversify my portfolio a bit and expand my list of professional references. I think that additional experience helped me land the job I have now.
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By: Tara Puckey

I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. And I’m beginning to think that’s okay.

Like most college students, time in school was spent with an end goal. Regardless of whether it’s your freshman year or the last steps across the stage for that diploma, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Your primary task, at least at that moment, is to graduate. Sure, you think about jobs and careers and resumes, but those are long-term thoughts.

For me, this whole thing was fantastic. I’m a “list-cross-er-off-er.” I put something on my list and, no matter how long it takes to complete (college, for example), I find relief, satisfaction, excitement even, in the fact that I finished it entirely. So there it was at the top of my list–graduate. Although frustratingly complicated (math) and sometimes completely unrelated to my focus (history of Van Halen), I pressed on until I enjoyed the sound of the pencil scratching through that one simple word.

But then, almost as quickly as the celebration headache had worn off, I realized that I didn’t have an immediate goal anymore. I needed a job, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll find something I love, which doesn’t really warrant being crossed off. Grad school? My own business? A completely new career path?

After changing my mind every single day for a month, I realized I don’t have to always have it all planned out. I don’t have to always know what the next step is. Nothing in a book of rules outlines the plan I have to follow.
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By Jennifer Nicole Sullivan

It’s challenging to find a job after graduation, not to mention a job in journalism. But it can be done if you become proactive and prepare. So before you begin your job search, get a jump on the competition with these tips (listed in no particular order).

1. Print business cards: Vistaprint offers nice and inexpensive cards. Include your website and Twitter handle (if appropriate).

2. Create a one-page resume: Nobody wants to read more than that! Check out “One-Page Resumes – 12 Edits to Make Everything Fit.”

3. Create an online portfolio: Include your best clips, multimedia samples, resume (sans address) and bio. Have an online presence. Check out “Portfolio Websites for Journalists: Where to Begin.”

4. Get active on LinkedIn: Keep up with contacts, peers and news sources. Make new connections. It’s your online Rolodex. You might even get a job through LinkedIn (I did!).

5. Get several internships: One is not enough. Shoot for the national media outlets. Publish as much as you can in these positions.

6. Publish work in professional publications: Either through an internship or as a freelancer. Look into Patch.com in your area or other local publications.

7. Regularly save your clips: Always save pdfs and hard copies as you go. It’ll keep you from scrambling around when you need them.

8. Join Society of Professional Journalists: (Hopefully you have already!) It’s great for networking, attending superb conferences and getting valuable advice from committees such as Gen J. Plus, you receive SPJ’s Quill magazine!

9. Attend seminars, conferences and networking sessions: You’ll make important contacts and learn about social media trends, writing tips and industry news.

10. Network (yes, really!): It sounds like a scary word, but it doesn’t have to be. Relieve the pressure with this Woody Allen quote, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Just show up and conversations will happen naturally without the stress.

11. Make friends with other student journalists: Keep in touch after graduation. You never know how you can help each other out.

12. Learn technology: It’s not enough just to write well. Learn to shoot video, edit video, take photos, report on camera, write for online, engage in social media and use design software such as InDesign. And be familiar with HTML and content management systems.

13. Google yourself: What pops up? If it’s undesirable, fix it before future employers see it.

14. Follow the top news outlets (and read more than just the headlines!): Read a variety of magazines and newspapers that contain opposing opinions and points of view. The more you read, the better journalist you’ll be.

(Tips presented at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., in early November 2011.)

Jennifer Nicole Sullivan is a copywriter for Real Simple magazine in New York City. She’s also a fashion, arts and entertainment contributing writer for the weekly newsmagazine Newport Mercury in Newport, R.I. The Dallas native is a former features reporter at Corpus Christi Caller-
Times. She has degrees in theater and radio-TV-film from The University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in English from The University of Rhode Island. Visit JenniferNicoleSullivan.com and follow her on Twitter @trendyjenny.

By: Mike Brannen

You’re a cub reporter, months away from graduating with a journalism degree, and are ready to work in the “real world” (ironic the “real world” gets quotations as if it’s a fictional thing!). You’ve got your top cities and news outlets picked out. It’s time to convince them to hire you. At this stage, your resume lacks years of experience. Sure you’ve padded it with internships, but that’s not going to impress me, or the people who are actually going to hire you. Chances are, you have to compete against someone who has more experience than you. But you have an opportunity to outshine them, by delivering a knock-them-out-of-their-seat cover letter.

A resume tells me what you’ve done. A cover letter tells me who you are. A resume shows me what you’ve accomplished before; your cover letter shows me what you are going to do next. If I’m the person hiring you, I need to get an idea that your personality, and what you believe in, will benefit my newsroom.
I believe that I got my first job, in Seattle, and right out of school, because I had a strong cover letter. My current Executive Producer seemed to like it enough to call me with a job opening after I sent it to him.

There are two ways to frame your cover letter: tell a story, or tell your creed.

Your Story
A true journalist naturally embellishes a bit. We do it out of necessity to grab the attention of viewers and readers. It’s time to put those skills to work in your cover letter.

Take some time to think about a day where you kicked butt on the job, or nailed a big story. Describe what you did and why each step was important.

You must weave into your story a way to “brag” about your skills. By “brag,” describe a challenging experience, but not blatantly mention how difficult it was. Let the accomplishment speak for itself.
Sell your reader on why you have a cool job and why it beats anything else.

I would avoid the cliché “I remember the day I knew I wanted to be a reporter” story. Everybody writes that one. As an employer, I don’t care what got you into the business; I want to know what’s keeping you in it.

Your Creed
I wrote mine in this fashion. I detailed what I think are the three main elements of delivering TV news (Live, Local, Now). This formula reveals your values, your news judgment, and your decision-making process.

Your creed is your take on what’s wrong or right with journalism; things you want to see improved, or eliminated. You don’t need an explanation for the things you believe in, at least not in the letter. You probably will once you get to the interview part.

I think the creed is more of what employers want to read about. They can distinguish if the applicant is worthwhile, or meant for the garbage pile.

The creed letter is a bit riskier because what you believe in might not fit the newsroom personality. But, if you’ve done your research, and your letter is tailored to the station’s mission, then you are in a good position for a future interview.

Overall, the type of letter you write should be dictated by the job you want. A story tells me about you. A creed tells me your beliefs.
For either one, make the first line the strongest one in the entire letter. Write it so you know the reader wants to know what comes next. It should be a sentence that no one in history has ever written before, or will ever write again.

Be bold. Be creative. Be original.

Mike Brannen is a morning newscast producer for KIRO7, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. He recently received a Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and completed his thesis, Motivational Use of Twitter. He previously worked multiple positions at KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri during for four years. You can follow him on Twitter: @MikeBrannen