Dalton Main | Sept. 18, 2011
Related
|
Friday’s panel discussion, “Making a Career Transition,” featured a panel of alumni sharing their experiences about navigating between jobs.
Moderated by journalism alumni board member Tammy Lytle, BA’83, the panel included included Ben French, BAJ’98, Sherri Monteith, BA’79, and Liz Joss, BA’83. The group gave a little background on themselves and their fields before answering questions and providing advice on how to successfully survive a job search, whether you’re currently employed or not.
Tammy Lytle has a background in political journalism, spending much of her professional career in Washington, D.C. Ben French wrote for the Web before getting his M.B.A. from New York University. He now works in business and product development. Sherri Monteith worked as a journalist before eschewing a newsroom schedule for a more family-friendly freelance schedule. Joss began in public and media relations, moving through several other fields working for nonprofits and freelancing before becoming a professor for IUPUI’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Lytle, before posing questions to the panelists, introduced the field of journalism as the business of information, saying, “we’re not in the newspaper business, the radio or TV business, we’re in the information business.” A business, the panel agreed, that thrives on good writing abilities and people skills.
"Everyone who thinks they can write because they got an A on a fifth grade essay has that blow up in their faces before they realize they need you,” Monteith said of the training and writing skills journalists learn in school.
Joss has had many media experiences, and at the core of her success with any of them has been her ability to write. She suggested students and professionals build portfolios, to “keep every scrap of paper, every written piece, just keep a portfolio ready at any moment.”
As far as getting your portfolio or your resume into the right places, that’s all about people you connect with. Lytle said the volume of resumes that companies get is so high that you should “clear the way before you send a resume” instead of seeing yours simply added to a stack.
French stressed the assets of Linked In, a social networking website that lists professional information to help people make connections in their fields. He said the service enables journalists to see who has a job they may want, and that person may not be as much a stranger as you think.
Panelists said the freedom that comes with a transferrable skill set such as the one learned in journalism school is a transitioning journalist’s prime asset.
Questions? Comments? Email the Web editor.
