Write your own ticket
to a full-time job

Special to chipsquinn.org

Once you’re doing well as a newsroom intern, how can you increase your chances of getting a job offer?

Brenda Rotherham, news recruiting and training manager at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, offers some advice:

Take full advantage of the internship

You can do this in two ways: by doing the best work you are capable of and by building a network. “Build good relationships with your mentors and editors so that at the end of the time, they will give you good references,” Rotherham advised. You also want your editors to connect you with other parts of the newsroom and with hiring managers and people at other newspapers. These connections will serve you well now and in the future.

Follow the links

“Don’t ever let those connections die,” Rotherham said.  Keep in touch with editors and mentors from internships. Ask editors at your internship newspaper for connections to other newspapers within their company. Think of your internship as a link. “So every connection – every relationship you build – leads to another,” she said.

Be willing to go anyplace

“I always tell students: You can’t control the job market in a lot of ways. … But there is one thing you can control, and that is how many doors might be open and how many doors might be shut.”

As an example, she said, if a journalist insists on staying in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., there are about a dozen potential employers. If you are willing to consider all of Minnesota, there are dozens of potential employers. If you consider all of the Midwest, there are hundreds of possibilities. “Be open on geography. Be flexible about that,” she said.

Rotherham noted that editors and newsroom recruiters talk with one another about candidates and offer each other leads on applicants. That can help you, she said. “That’s a way for you to meet one person and get the benefit of a network.”

But realize that journalism is a small industry and everyone knows everyone, she said. “Be on your best behavior” when meeting with a recruiter because negative – as well as positive – information is shared. “If the stories that you don’t want told get around, that will hurt your chances later.”

Inform yourself about the job market

“This is an important part of knowing your own worth and how you fit into the picture,” Rotherham said

 “It’s important for you to understand what the job market looks like and how you are valued. … The less you know about the job market and the less you know about your own place in it, the more likely you are to make an unwise decision.”

Do your homework. It’s currently a tight job market for journalists, she said. “Get on Web sites, talk to people in the business, go to job fairs and find out where the exceptions are in this very difficult market.”