Slog it out, gentlemen.
Dearie me, finding a job is hard.
It’s an odd catch 22 with most entry-level positions in journalism or publishing – you can’t get the position simply because you don’t have entry level experience. However, you can’t get entry level experience because you can’t get an entry-level position. It’s tough, and I’ve spent a good eighteen months applying for everything I’ve seen, though I am picky enough to not apply for things I’m not interested in whatsoever simply because I don’t see the point in wasting both my time and theirs on a position I’d likely just quit out of anyway.
I think what a lot of recruiters are missing at the moment is that, quite simply, graduates want to work. We’re not all lazy drunk buffoons, we genuinely do want to work, and not because we’re twenty grade in debt. We want to work because we spent the last fifteen years building up to working, and now we’re out on the market and “here,” as it were, there’s no jobs to be had. The Guardian is depressing if you’re a writer looking for a job and have no medical journal experience, though it baffles me why you’d have a biochemistry Master’s degree and then choose to write about it as opposed to earning ten times the amount actually doing it.
I think the biggest problem is that there aren’t enough entry-level positions being created, simply because too many people are staying with jobs they planned to leave for fear of not getting another one in the current job climate. This creates an affect similar to a blocked sink. There’s more and more job-crazed people flooding in, but no-one’s moving out, and sooner or later it all spills over into unemployment.
My advice to all those concerned is simply to look for jobs constantly, do as many internships as you can, and for gawd’s sake, if there are benefits you can get from the government financially whilst unemployed, please apply for them. Think about it; you’ll be paying for other people’s benefits with a certain percentage of your income at some point anyway, so why not actually use the money? Honestly, if I had a choice between the money going to millions of would-be employees, or the military, I’m going to go with the group that don’t have guns. Though, at this rate I’m beginning to wonder which group that’ll be by the end of the next financial year.
Is the recession affecting any of you, students, journalists etc? Honestly? I’m not really feeling it, and I’m talking about those who kept their jobs. I think teachers have the best deal out of everyone. Their salaries have gone up continuously for decades, and if anyone complains, they strike until the person sticks a cork in it. It’s ridiculous, but what can you do? They’ve got the future CEOs and Presidents by the short-and-curlies. Argh.
Job hunting really is as ruthless as its stag-head-mounting counterpart, but hopefully it’ll be over soon.
Honestly, I think the best way in is having freelanced a shitload.
Not that I’d know, having not actually been on staff anywhere since I was 16. But once your name’s about, you’ve a lot to shove on your CV. Impressive stuff too.
Your having worked for Escapist and IGN should serve you well, surely?
It does, but due to the recession you’ve now got a ton of overqualified journalists applying for entry-level positions, which shunts the skill-table of potential employees downwards. This then means that all the people who are entry level then have no chance. The gamesindustry.biz position was taken by someone with qualifications that could have gotten her a job as Editor in Chief, which is ridiculous, but there you go. I think there should be an upper limit on qualifications as well as a lower one, sometimes.