Daniel Celvi, Photographer
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Schaumburg | IL | United States | Posted: 1:35 PM on 12.30.09 |
->> So I just figured, as this thread hit a small revival, to throw in my experiences now post-PJ school. And the general feeling is: it's rough.
A bit of background of me: I went to school, did fairly well, managed to piss some people off while keeping at least a few happy, worked for far too many publications (I think I topped out at 5—no internships, just working as a journalist) and graduated in May. My teachers never lied to us about the state of the industry, they were in fact infamous for giving speeches at the beginning of classes to discourage students. Welcome to long-term unemployment. Made especially hard as I worked for so long. And when you get that call that you didn't get the job here are the two common breakup lines (if in different wording) you'll hear: "it's not you, it's me" and "keep in touch."
So now I make a few statements to people about to be in my position: you probably won't get a job. Prepare for that. Save some money. Who gets a job seems almost completely random. That is no exaggeration. At least try to land an internship—honestly, the only thing that has kept me sane thus far is having something to do with my days. My sister is in grad school now (nothing to do with unemployment)—in one class, they were talking about job statistics. One of the statistics: now people on average send about 1000 resumés to get 6 in-person interviews. That's 3 a day for a year. You probably won't find that many jobs to apply to everyday.
And the most important lesson I've learned: polish that resumé. Honestly. Your portfolio should already be polished, if it isn't then wow you're way behind the curve. But for months, I barely heard a word from jobs I applied to, until one day I had off from said internship and decided to update my resumé, which became a complete overhaul, turned into a 10 hour excursion of designing, writing and re-writing. Since then, I've had a very large increase in responses. I feel like that is a great secret I shouldn't share to anyone, lest I hurt my chances even more.
As for while I was in PJ school, I knew the likely outcome of my choices. I did it anyways. Why? I'm not completely sure myself most of the time. Not much more to say about that I suppose, other than I just keep hoping someone will finally figure out how to make enough money to hire a staff at an internet news source. Maybe listen to ideas that people like myself have on how to do it.
My membership expires in about 28 days now. I don't have the money to spend on renewing it. So, one of my last few posts? I guess I'll still get most of the services from this website, and maybe someday I'll have the money to renew it. One more incentive to get a job I suppose. |
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