Job Hunt

A Year After He Was Fired For Not Censoring The Indiana Daily Student, Jim Rodenbush Reflects On Life, Student Media And His New Gig

Jim Rodenbush was a student media adviser, First-Amendment advocate and champion for experiential learning in journalism at Indiana University until he was fired one year ago. In discussing the stupidity of his firing, he was open about the way in which university officials were disingenuous in their dealings with him and how his unwillingness to forsake the student journalists led to his dismissal.

He also talked a lot about how what was the start of the worst year of his life ended up reminding him of why he fought in the first place. All the people he knew over the years, and many he’d never known, popped out of the woodwork to offer help and support, something that really meant something to him.

Jim is no longer a student media adviser, but he is still actively involved in shaping student journalists in his new gig at Western Kentucky. He remains a First-Amendment advocate and champion for all the good things that great educators do for their students.

To encapsulate this crazy year is beyond my ability, but fortunately, Jim took to LinkedIn to give his friends and colleagues a recap. It’s published below with permission from Jim:

 

One year ago today, I was fired from Indiana University.

A lot can happen in one year. You would think being fired would be a defining event. Turns out, it wasn’t even close.

One week later, my dad died. Three months after that, my sister died. I moved twice. I started over in a new place, with a new job and a new community.

Along the way, I experienced pretty much every emotion you could imagine. When you feel like you’ve been kicked to the curb by your employer, it’s not a happy time. You go through it all — sadness, anger, defiance. Then, a period of really weird quiet. There were days when I considered if my career was over. Days when I wondered whether I had somehow ruined my life. Days when I wasn’t sure what would come next. When you’re unemployed for months, you have time to sit with all of those questions.

When looking back over the past year, it’s easy to first think about the person who went through everything with me.

My wife Jackie received a crash course in the First Amendment that she never asked for. She lived through every one of my emotions, every uncertainty, every move, every conversation about whether I had somehow blown up our lives. She watched me struggle with not knowing what came next while dealing with her own upheaval.

Through it all, she was strong, patient and graceful. She was willing to go through this with me, even though none of it was something she had chosen. I don’t know how you adequately thank someone for that. I’ll spend the rest of our lives figuring it out.

So many other people showed up too. Students, former colleagues, friends, journalism organizations, people I hadn’t heard from in years and people I barely knew. Then there was Bowling Green. I found a welcoming home at Western Kentucky University. The Hilltoppers have made starting over feel less like starting over. I’m grateful for that in ways I can’t fully explain just yet.

In the end, it’s weird. One of the greatest gifts of the past year may have been getting fired. Not because getting fired was good. It wasn’t. It was bad in all the possible ways. But because that moment will forever show people who I am.

When I had a choice between protecting my job and protecting what I believed student journalists deserved, I made my choice. A year later, I know that choice cost me something. I also know what it gave me, and that’s a much better understanding of who I am when things get hard.

So today isn’t really an anniversary of getting fired. It’s an anniversary of looking back at a year I never would have chosen and realizing that, somehow, there is a lot of good in life on the other side of it.

Oh, and, if there is ever such a thing as a cool souvenir from an awful moment in your life, this screen grab of an email from Mark Cuban to an IDS reporter is it. For Mark, I can be Jim Rosebush.

The Three Scales: How to determine if a job is the best fit for you

 

As my students constantly are looking toward the job market in the not-so-distant future, I found myself trying to figure out the best way to explain what to weigh in terms of job offers. The old pro/con lists seemed not to be as helpful as they once were, as it became difficult to weight ““management is nice” against “It’s too cold here.”

What I developed was the concept of three key aspects of life related to the job search that I call “The Three Scales.” The students seem to grasp it and it tends to help them feel more in control of their situation, so I’m sharing it here with the hopes it will be valuable to you and your folks:

THE THREE SCALES

When you consider a job, you consider a number of variables that seem almost like you’re juggling jello. To simplify the areas you need to consider, here are the three scales that cover most of the things that you will want to examine.

  • PROFESSIONAL VALUE: What does this job do? How does it fit into the area of work I am interested in? What kinds of opportunities are available for learning? Advancement? Etc.
  • FINANCIAL VALUE: What kind of salary do I get? What kind of benefits do I receive? What kind of buying power do I have with that money? How stable is that money?
  • PERSONAL VALUE: What do I want out of my life beyond the job? How will my job help or hinder those things?

In breaking the job down into these areas, a lot of the considerations you have are easier to sort. For example, you might consider WHERE you live a pro or a con generally, but it’s hard to quantify that.

However, if you look at the scales, it can be easier to understand: If you are interested in movie and film industry, the WHERE might be a professional issue, with it being easier to find options in LA than Winneconne. However, if you are thinking, “I need to stay close to home here in Wisconsin” or “I want to go somewhere that I don’t turn into a pale freeze monster for nine months out of the year,” then the WHERE is a personal value.

These scales often work in dynamic tension with each other, meaning that when you go hard after one of them, you likely have to trade off something else on another scale. In some cases, you get value out of all three but rarely are they equal.

Let’s look at each of the scales individually and pick at the things that help shape those aspects of each scale:

PROFESSIONAL: The professional scale covers over the job and the work itself. You have multiple factors that contribute to this that are worth considering:

  • GROWTH POTENTIAL WITHIN: If moving up the ladder in a field is important to you, the ability to grow within a company and try on many hats might appeal to you. That might mean you move from reporter to desk editor to managing editor of a small paper or it might mean you move from technician to team lead to management in a PR firm. The ability to move up and avoid writing the same press release or event story would fit here.

 

  • SKILL ACQUISITION: A lot of jobs expect you to know a lot when you get there, but the best jobs teach you more and more things as you stay there. For example, you might be hired to do social media posts for Company X and you’re doing well on certain platforms. They then say, “Hey, let’s send you to a seminar where you’ll learn this new platform so we can expand our reach” or they might pair you up with people who are there that have expertise in an area with which you aren’t familiar. Just as each class we teach you is meant to put tools in your toolbox, jobs should be doing the same thing for you.

 

  • WORK ENVIRONMENT: You might value the idea of working in groups or you might like the idea that you are left alone. You might want to be in an office filled with people who like stopping by your desk to shoot the breeze or you might want to work remotely. Some jobs are all about holding meetings for no real reason, while others don’t bother you at all. Some places value fast pace while others have no real sense of deadline. Finding the environment that best matches your vibe will improve your overall professional life.

 

  • MANAGEMENT: This one is drastically overlooked in a lot of ways. I’ve had bosses I’d step in front of a bus for and others I wished I could have pushed in front of a bus. If I had the choice to take less money and work for a good boss or take more money and work for a bad one, I’d sell plasma to make up the difference if I needed to. That’s how much a boss can matter. Matching your vibe to their vibe is important, but also is the issue of honesty and integrity. One boss I had, I used to joke that she was always behind you, primarily because that was the best position to stab you in the back and run away. Other bosses instilled confidence in me. If a manager trusts you and values you, there’s a lot to be said for that.

 

  • AREA OF INTEREST: In some cases, you might find yourself doing exactly what you trained for in media, only to really hate it. In other cases, you might take a job that’s somewhat tangential to your area of study and fall in love. Or the exact opposite can happen. A job becomes less of a job if you like what you’re doing, which can mean maybe being a TV anchor because you trained to be a TV anchor. Or it might mean you trained to be a broadcast journalist, but you fell in love with a job doing PR videos for an environmental organization because you really are passionate about the environment. The point is, if you like what you’re doing, you grow. My dad once told me if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. That’s pretty close to true.

 

FINANCIAL: Money isn’t everything, but it beats the hell out of whatever comes in second for a lot of people. You didn’t work this hard, study this much and give up this much of your soul to work for less than the average Walmart greeter. Consider the following part of your financial package:

  • SALARY/HOURLY WAGE:  You should do some research on the jobs you’re seeking to see what is a fair wage for the work, what kinds of expectations there are for that money (overtime vs. salary etc.) and other similar issues.

 

  • BUYING POWER: Money isn’t equal everywhere, as for what it cost me to buy one Diet Coke in San Francisco, I can buy a 12 pack on sale at the Piggly Wiggly of Omro. Trying to figure out how financially sound you are is often a reflection of where you are working and what money buys out there.

 

  • HEALTH AND LIFE: How much you have to put in for health insurance, life insurance etc. matters here, as does the quality of the bennies themselves. For some people, the ability to stay with a doctor matters more than how much they will have to pay for a co-payment. The benefit we had was that every time I took a new job, we moved somewhere new, so I basically was starting from scratch and didn’t have to worry if my preferred doctor was covered. Also, do they cover things like dental, vision and so forth.

 

  • SALARY INCREASES: How often are you likely to get a pay bump or be able to renegotiate your salary? Are bonuses in the mix or is it straight pay for straight work? What kinds of bumps are there? Do raises come along easily and fairly or are you going to have to participate in The Hunger Games to get some of that fat cash?

 

PERSONAL: There’s way too much here to consider, but think about the things that matter to you outside of work. It might be living in a certain area of the country or being closer to family. It might be the ability to eat dinner at home or work certain shifts. It might be attaching yourself to a cause that you value or something along those lines. Think about the idea of what it is that really holds sway in your life that you would give up something else to have happen for you.

For example, I never realized how much I valued stability until I saw how layoffs work. A friend of mine has worked for multiple major software companies and he’s been fired or laid off at least five times in his career. Each time that happens, he said he’s usually found a job in 3-6 months and it’s usually better. He’s used to that and the lack of stability and he kind of plans for it to happen.

For me, I’d need about 8,000 milligrams of Valium each day to deal with the anxiety of going to work and not knowing if I’d be fired that day. I make less than he does, but it takes an act of God to get rid of me without cause.

 

BALANCING ACT

The hard part is often trying to figure out where you want to be at any given point in life. As we noted in the grad school post, it’s often a question of if you’re trying to run towards something or away from something. It’s also about making sure you aren’t cutting off your nose to spite your face.

One of the most important things to understand is that every job change is usually a concept of trading one thing for another. You get something, but you give up something else.

I often tell my sports-enthused students that it’s a lot like a Fantasy Football trade: You want a lock-down running back and the one you are trying to pry away from your friend wants a high-volume wide receiver. When you make the trade, it can feel awesome that you now know you’ll get 100 yards and a TD every game out of that slot, but now you’re constantly trolling the waiver wire looking for whoever the hell is the slot receiver in Cleveland.

In each move I made (and I know that’s true for a lot of former students as well), I had to consider what I was getting and what I was giving up. Keep in mind a few things in relation to how these tradeoffs work:

  • ACKNOWLEDGE YOU ARE MAKING A TRADEOFF: One of the biggest mistakes people make in taking a job or switching jobs is that they look at it only in terms of what they’re getting. “I get to work at a bigger place,” or “I get more money.”  The problem with that is once you get there, you realize you’re not JUST getting something, but you gave up something to get there and what you got probably isn’t as great as you thought it would be. This is the recipe for buyer’s remorse and some long-term misery. You need to look at both ends of the trade among the scales before you take a gig or make a move.

 

  • WHAT DO YOU VALUE AT THAT POINT: Certain things matter more to you at certain points in time. To that degree, you often end up trading off one thing for another to maximize the value for yourself. Case in point, when you are at this stage in your life, you likely value experience and money, so taking a job that provides you the opportunity to do a lot of things and earn some decent cash makes sense. At some point, however, you might have a family and it’ll be more important to you to make it to your kid’s soccer game or to make sure you can eat dinner with the family each night. Thus, a job that’s maybe a little less go go go will be an improvement. Being honest with yourself about what matters to you personally (not in comparison to other people) will be helpful in this.
    I just had a conversation with a former student over the summer who is a single mom and was let go from her job doing news. She was obviously freaked out and hurt by this, but then she asked about what it would “say” about her if she picked a job that wasn’t as much of a journalism news thing. I told her that life is long, there’s no “club” that we would kick her out of if she did so and it would likely be fine. I then outlined the three scales and she told me “I’m in my family stage and I want to soak up time with my kid because I have to share (custody) and I’ve totally done the job thing for a while that gives me zero personal. It’s not fun. I like disc golfing more. Being with family and hell, having a night in for once or not feeling pressured to have my professional camera in hand all the time…”
    At some point in the past, digging through thousands of pages of FOIA documents was her first love. Now it’s a kid. There’s nothing wrong with that and when the kid is at that “Mom! You don’t have to hang around so much!” stage, she can go back to that if she wants. The point is, now she wants this one thing and it’s totally fine.

 

  • DETERMINE HOW EASY IT WILL BE TO MAKE THE NEXT ONE: One of the things that happens as you get further into your careers is that you might have a greater difficulty in shifting the scales. If I wanted to change jobs, it would likely mean a move out of this city or maybe the state. For someone like Amy (a nurse with a ton of experience), she can literally throw a rock off the porch and hit six employers willing to sacrifice their first born to get her. The point is, you have to play a little more chess than checkers at this level of the game.

Amazing Advice For First-Time Job-Seekers In Media From A Person Who Hires A Lot Of Them

As part of a class I’ve lovingly dubbed “Life 101,” we are drawing on the experiences of guest speakers to help students find their first steps into the world beyond college.

Karen Schneider, publisher and president of the Winnebago Media Group, served as our first speaker, providing students information about the world of “mom-and-pop” operations, hiring practices, expectations on both sides of the interview and other things along those lines.

(Minor Plug: She is looking for a news reporter and it would be a great starter job for a newly minted grad. She mentioned the papers in the group “launch ’em and land ’em” as their hiring philosophy. They “launch” newbies into the next phase of their careers and “land” people who are looking for something different after corporate life or retirement doesn’t do it for them. You can reach her through her LinkedIn page.)

Here are a few notes and quotes from her presentation that were exceptionally helpful to our students (and me), so I hope they’ll be helpful to you and your kids:

DEALING WITH NO: It’s hard for most of us to separate the rejection of an idea we have or a proposal we make from the rejection of us as a person. This is multiplied by 1,012 when it comes to trying to get a job, as “We had many fine candidates and decided to go another way,” can feel like, “You suck so hard, not even light can escape from you. Enjoy your parents’ basement, loser.”

The first thing Karen said about this situation will be included in every lecture I give on the topic of job-seeking from now on:

“Just because it’s a “no,” it doesn’t mean you’re not qualified.”

She also added this at the end:

“If you get a no, do not (panic). It’s not that you are bad. They just chose differently.”

I have been in that situation more times than I care to count and it never feels good, so to hear someone who actually does the hiring say this really helps put things into perspective. I’ve lost out on jobs where I had friends running the search or sitting on a committee and a large part of me was like, “What the hell? How is this possible?”

What is both reasonably logical and emotionally painful is that they just said, “No. We’re choosing differently.” Knowing that is important. Constantly reminding yourself of it is vital.

 

NETWORKING CAN GET YOU THERE, BUT IT WON’T KEEP YOU THERE: Karen was talking about her first job and how knowing someone who knew someone who knew her helped a lot. She said networking was vital in helping to connect with people who might need you and might provide opportunities you really value.

Her advice was classic:

“You have to network and know who is out there. Tell people what you like to do and don’t like to do.”

<SNIP>

“Become a bartender because they are the most well connected people in the world.”

The more important part, however, was that once you get there, you have to work hard and succeed. As she said, knowing people can get you in, “but you have to earn your place.”

 

IT’S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD:  Karen talked a lot about connections and networking as a way to get ahead, but also that those connections know other connections, so mind your P’s and Q’s.

If the world is connected via “Six Degrees of Separation,” our field is likely going to be only two or three degrees. That means your hard work and attitude can help you get a step up in the field or your lousy reputation can follow you everywhere.

One of the bigger mistakes people make in job interviews, she said, was talking negatively about other places they’ve worked or the competition in the field:

“Don’t talk negatively about competitors. What happens when you leave me? Will you talk negatively about me?”

<SNIP>

“Be mindful of how you apply, leave and decline jobs.”

 

EACH STEP MATTERS: One key reason I wanted Karen to come to class is because she hires a lot of people who are in the position my students find themselves: First-time job-seekers who have little or no experience with the whole “start a career” process. She understands what it’s like to be on the other side of the table during that process and can better help them see both the short game and the long game.

A key theme she touched on was how every job, every opportunity, is a step toward something that’s next and that every step matters. She talked about how the experience students gain and the skills they hone matter more than the major they select and the grades they obtain:

“Just because your major is X, don’t worry that it won’t fit into industry A, B and C. I’ve worked in food manufacturing, consumer sales… It’s about developing and using your skill set.”

The experience a worker gets in that first year is often enough to move on to the next stage, she said. Even if that first or that second job isn’t perfect, it’s helping you get somewhere, she said.

“You may not get the dream job right out of college, but work and behave the way you would as if that’s the job you have and you’ll get there.”

 

What employers will likely ask you at a job interview and how to avoid killing your chances with your answers (A Throwback Post)

A former student stopped by to visit a little bit ago to get some help in assessing a couple job opportunities. He’d been out of school for about six months and been looking for a decent landing spot, all while avoiding the LinkedIn recruiters who found him “perfect” for an opportunity that was clearly a Ponzi scheme.

In our discussion, one thing he mentioned that stuck with me was, “I really wish they had taught me how to do a job interview while I was here.” I immediately wrote that down and taped it up next to my computer to remind me that I needed to add this skill to my upcoming “Life 101” course in the fall.

The issue of interviewing also hit my desk the other day when LinkedIn’s Andrew Seaman posted some valuable advice on what companies are looking for out of job interviews these days. (His “Get Hired” series is one of those things every student should sign up for, even if he doesn’t always focus on their particular field. He’s got great advice and great resources.)

A lot of this is what a lot of us intuitively teach our students, but the clarity comes from the structure and analogies in here. To add to his medley of advice, please consider this throwback post that gives students some good advice on the topic as well.

 

Four questions you will likely get asked at a media job interview and how to avoid killing your chances with your answers

With Thanksgiving around the corner, a number of you out there are headed toward that awkward moment at the family dinner in which some relative asks, “So… You graduate next month… You got a job yet?”

The fear of unemployment after college is not without merit, regardless of when you graduate (or graduated) and how well (or poorly) the economy is rolling along. The job-seeking process is filled with awkwardness, anxiety and anguish, a situation I have frequently compared to a bad dating experience.

During that process, a number of things can make or break you. Some of those things are out of your control:

  • You lack the experience or expertise for the position.
  • The company is looking for something else other than what you provide.
  • Some chucklehead on the committee makes a stupid-yet-compelling argument that knocks you out of the pool.
  • A ringer ends up in the pool for some reason and thus you find yourself competing against someone like Bob Woodward for a night GA job at the Beaver County Tidbit.

One thing that is mostly within your control, however, is the initial interview phase of the process, in which your potential future co-workers ask you a string of random inquiries based on whatever HR approved for them. We are currently going through this kind of thing here at the U, where we are searching for a colleague in the journalism department, so I’ve gotten kind of a refresher on the questions and answers that work and that don’t.

To help you along in this narrow way, here are a few questions you might hear in that initial phone/Zoom call, what the questions are trying to ascertain and how to answer (or not answer) them:

 

“What do you know about (NAME OF ORGANIZATION)?”

What they want to know: This is usually the warm-up question outside of “Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?” The goal here is simple: They want to find out if you did any research between when you discovered the job and this phone/Zoom interview. If you are going into a journalism-related field, you damned well better have done some research on this before you get there. Nothing says, “I’m going to be a lousy reporter/editor/PR practitioner/marketer” like the answer, “Oh… I know you have a job opening!”

The Answer: Don’t turn this thing into a 1950s Chamber of Commerce film that includes every tidbit you can find on Wikipedia.

Instead, look for key things associated with the organization itself. In most cases, place post information that matters to them on the “About Us” section of their website. Dig around in there for some elements that can form the broad strokes of your answer. Then, do a decent Google search on the organization, and rely on trade press or recent news pieces. This is where you can find if the agency just won some major award or if the newspaper is currently digging into something particularly shady. Highlight those elements as well, as they show you are looking into not just what they are, but also what they are doing/have done that is impressive.

Finally, look for ways to integrate yourself or your interests into the answer. This will help the interviewer start to imagine you as part of the organization’s story. It can be something like, “I know that you just won the IRE prize for investigative reporting. That series of trash collectors selling rat meat to unsuspecting grocery stores was amazing and I’ve always had a strong interest in big projects like that. I’d love to work with Bill and Sue on their next investigation.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: There are many ways you can screw this up, but here are the two basic ones:

  1. Don’t do any research and spitball it, hoping for the best. This is usually something people figure out right away and that will almost immediately place you on the “reject” pile. If they think your answer to a question is BS, they’re likely to start wondering what else you BS-ed along the way.
  2. Confuse the place with some other place you are applying for a job. It feels like the “I, Ross, take thee Rachel” moment from “Friends” for the people on the other end of that interview.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

What they want to know: Of all the possible interview questions, this one has always felt like the stupidest one to me. I wish I had the gumption to answer in one of two ways:

  1. “Probably stuck here, doing an interview with a job candidate and asking that stupid question of them.”
  2. “If I knew the future in any meaningful way, I’d be buying lottery tickets, not applying for this job.”

That said, what they actually want to know is if you have any kind of longer-term plan for your life and to what degree you see yourself growing and developing in their organization. Nobody wants to hire someone with no direction or sense of growth potential. To that end, you need to have a way to deal with this question without killing your chances of getting the job.

THE ANSWER: Demonstrate that you see yourself as both present at the organization and growing through your work at it. This can be something like, “I see myself doing both (THING YOU’RE BEING HIRED FOR) and (THING THAT IS SOMEWHAT ASPIRATIONAL, YET ATTAINABLE).” In the case of a reporter, it could be covering the daily grind of political stuff at the city council while doing more open-records reporting. In PR it could be cranking out press releases for clients while looking to develop a more involved strategy for clients across multiple platforms.

Another key here is to show value in areas that are beginning to develop. Five to eight years ago, that would be talking about social media and helping to draw eyeballs to your work by establishing a dominant presence on certain platforms. (Come to think of it, that’s still what we’re hearing people say, so maybe stick with that…) Look at the job description and look at what other jobs in the field are demanding and you’ll be able to paint a picture of someone who helps this organization stay on the “cutting edge” while retaining “bedrock tenets of the field.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: First, don’t give either of the answers I listed above. Second, don’t get too basic or aspirational in your answer.

If you go with the “I’m going to be here doing this job to the best of my ability” answer, they see you as a pedestrian hire who will literally do exactly what is asked of you and nothing more.

While that can kill your chances, the aspirational answer will kill them even faster: “I see myself working for (BIG NAME ORGANIZATION) in (BIG NAME CITY) where I’m doing (BIG DEAL STUFF).” Nothing says to a potential employer who is NOT a “big name” that they shouldn’t hire you more than the answer that essentially lets them know you see them as a stepping stone to something better.

Even if the organization knows it’s not a desirable career endpoint and even if you know you want to get in, get experience and get out, this is not the time to make those goals clear. It would be like during that slow dance at prom, when your date asks, “Do you think about us in the future?” and you answer with, “Sure. I figure I get laid tonight, probably date you throughout the next month until graduation. Then, I’m going off to college, where I promise we’ll keep up a long-distance thing until I find a better and hotter option in my res hall.”

“What do you see as your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?”

WHAT THEY WANT TO KNOW: They are trying to figure out if you are in any way self-aware and be honest about it. That said, there are red flags in the honesty that you don’t want to raise (see the prom example above). They want to know how well you know yourself to determine if you actually can do the things you say you can do. They also want a sense of “fit” when it comes to personality and social skill, most of which will be related to this answer.

The Answer: You need to be ready for this one, as I think it’s a keyboard macro that every HR rep has set up on their computer for job interviews. (Control-Alt-DUH, is probably the key combination.) Look for strengths that reflect their needs and your resume, while avoiding the generics. “Hard worker” and “team player” shouldn’t be the core of your argument here. That said, you can demonstrate your value here if you pair something they desperately want with something you excel at in a way in which they can see you in the position.

For example, if on the job ad, the company lists something like “Must be able to work under tight deadlines,” you could say something like, “I think my greatest strength is how well I work quickly under pressure. I spent three years on the night desk at the Smithton Daily Crier, and I had to turn around a lot of late-breaking news, without a lot of information, and make sure it was totally accurate. That experience is something I’ve carried over to my other jobs such as… ” and away you go.

As for the negative, look for negatives that can be trained out of you like, “I haven’t worked in a (large/medium/small) office like yours before, so I know I’d have to do some adjusting” work well, as do things that point to growth like, “I’m not as experienced as people who have been doing this for 10/20/50 years, so I know I have a lot to learn.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: You need to avoid things that overshadow everything else you have said, make you look like psychotic or can’t be fixed over time. In short, you don’t want people to remember you as “That candidate who said they bite their toenails in the break room” person or something. You also don’t want something where people can fear what you’ll be like at work, such as “I’m so competitive when it comes to stories, I’d stab a coworker in the neck to get a scoop.” Remember, your goal is to become an enticing option, not a cautionary tale.

“Do you have any questions for us?”

What they want to know: This always seems like a throw-away question because, in most cases, it comes at the end of the interview and it flips the interview on its head, giving you control of the dice. This question is only partially for you, in that you can get a few things clarified. However, it’s also for them, trying to determine what things matter to you above all else, as well as if you are still interested in this job going forward.

The Answer: You need a couple questions that demonstrate your interest in the position in a meaningful and productive way like, “I noticed you tend to work in teams when it comes to advertising strategies. Would I be integrated into one of your current teams or is there a process for new hires to become part of a newly built team?” That shows a) you know about their processes, b) you have an interest in working there, even after they asked you the previous three questions and more and c) you want them to see you becoming part of the organization.

You can also ask clarifying questions that allow them to expand on things, like, “You mentioned that this job would require me to do daily stories and in-depth pieces. What kind of balance would you want from me in this regard to help best serve the needs of the paper and the readers?” This shows the same kinds of things as above, while also showing that you were listening to them during the interview instead of just waiting to speak.

Other good questions include things like, “What is the time table for the rest of the search?” or “When might I hear from you again regarding the position?” These are simple, but show interest.

WHAT NOT TO DO:   This is always up for debate, given the situation, but here are a few things that I know tend to turn me off in a phone interview:

  1. Salary questions: It’s not that you SHOULDN’T ask this, but I’d argue that if you are on a phone/Zoom interview, it’s probably not the right place for this one. You will obviously want to know the answer to this, but that’s more of an in-person interview question. At this point, they’re still weeding people out, and anything that shatters the illusion that you are just a wonderful person whose sole purpose is to do fantastic things as part of their organization runs a risk here.
  2. “Serial Killer” questions: At this point, they are still trying to figure out if they like you or not, so questions that open a weird line of questioning can undo a lot of the good you’ve done. Things like, “The ad mentions a background check. Does that look into things that might have happened overseas?” suddenly have me thinking you buried a dead hooker in the sands of Cairo or something. When it comes to prepping out your questions, look at them the same way you read headlines to make sure you aren’t unduly worrying your potential employer. Have a friend or trusted adviser read them over as well for any “vibe” concerns.
  3. No questions: If you have no questions, come up with at least a few that will reinforce your awesomeness and how wonderful of a fit you would be in the job. Not asking questions can be somewhat of a turnoff for people.

That’s the best I’ve got. Hope it helps!

The stuff you wished someone had told you about looking for life after college (A Throwback Post)

YARN | Christ, 7 years of college down the drain | Animal House (1978) | Video clips by quotes | 8468e662 | 紗

And this guy didn’t even have student loan debt…

Students have been stopping by the office lately with one of two declarations:

  1. “I got a job! The world is full of rainbows and kittens and sunshine!”
  2. “I can’t find a job. Is there any chance you could back your truck over me a few times in the faculty parking lot so I don’t have to go live in my mom’s basement for the rest of my life?”

The highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows are both likely to find things are significantly different than they expect them to be after the cap and gown goes to Goodwill and they begin the next stage of their lives.

Today’s throwback post is a look at something I deemed “Life 101” a few years back. A group of really smart folks I’ve had the honor of knowing (and in some cases teaching) were willing to chip in words of advice for the soon-to-be graduates. Seemed like a good time to bring this back.

As the post notes, this was part one of two, so I’ve linked the original part two at the bottom if you are so inclined.

Enjoy!

Life 101 (Part I): Everything you wished you’d known before you graduated but nobody told you

life depressing funny college - 8102692096

(It’s not really that bad. You just need a few hacks here and there to soften the situation.)

A student showed up in my office a few weeks back with a big smile on her face and the peptic energy that only comes from wanting to tell someone else the best news in the world.

“Dr. Filak! I got a job!” she said, a mix of glee, elation and relief pouring out of her as she explained what she did and how this worked and where she was going to be employed.

I listened and congratulated her multiple times before I asked the inevitable question: “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but what was the offer?”

She proudly told me how much she was making, which was a decent amount. She wouldn’t have to steal Splenda packets from local diners or live on Ramen for every meal, that’s for sure.

When I asked how the negotiation for that amount went, she said, “Oh. They just gave me the salary they were going to pay me. I asked my parents if that was good money and they said it was, so I took it.”

She noticed the look on my face. “Oh no!” she said. “Did I do bad?”

“No,” I said. “But you could have done better…”

I then explained the whole process of salary negotiations to her and she realized something nobody at this institution had ever taught her: Salaries ARE negotiable. So are so many other things.

If universities are good at training students to develop skills that will help them get their first career jobs and put them on the path to a fully adult life, they absolutely suck at helping students make the transition from college to that life. I know this from my own experience, as well as that of colleagues and former students, so I thought a good wrap up for the semester would be one final lesson for the group: Life 101.

I asked the hivemind of folks I trust through various social media outlets and connections to tell me one thing they wished they’d known before they left school that they found out the hard way once they got into the “real world.”

Today’s post is the first of two that look at issues beyond graduation, focusing mainly on getting a job and the reality of that first job.

Tomorrow’s post will look at the life issues you face once you get out and become “a grown up” that you probably won’t see coming.

I hope this helps:

THE JOB SEARCH

There are few things more anxiety-provoking and terrifying than looking for a first career job out of college. You have put in the time and energy to pass the classes. You got the grades they said were going to propel you forward. You got involved in every activity someone said would “look great on a resume” and you worked at student media, internships and part-time gigs to fatten up your experience.

You put yourself out there and… crickets…

As a college student, I feared my parents’ basement. I constantly heard of students who did “all the right things” but ended up living back with their parents in a basement because they couldn’t get a job. I mentioned that to several students and several currently employed former students and the vibe was the same:

“I was scared to death that I’d done all this work and I’d be living back home in the basement. I never had a problem with my family, but I damned sure didn’t want to be back there as ‘that kid.’”

“I knew I could go home. I just didn’t want to. I wanted to be a grownup.”

I have said this before and the people who have experienced it have told me I am dead on with this analogy. Those who haven’t tell me I’m crazy. Then, they experience this and they convert to my way of thinking:

Your first job search is a lot like a bad dating experience: You are ready to go, so you put yourself out there. People are ignoring you and it feels awkward. You don’t know what’s wrong with you, so you get really worried.

Then, someone shows an interest and you have that kind of, “Cool. We should hang out. Let’s exchange info” moment and you get really excited. You start imagining how nice it’ll be and your mind takes you on flights of fancy regarding this relationship.

Then, you don’t hear from them for a while and you start wondering what you did wrong and why they aren’t calling. You start questioning everything you’ve done to this point. You wonder if you should reach out, but you don’t want to look needy.

Eventually, you’ll start to get angry with the, “OK, screw you. I don’t need you thing.” You give up, only to hear from that person shortly after that, with the person giving you a true and great reason why it took so long to reach out and that they really want to see you in a day or two, so let’s set this up…

And then you’re like, “OHMERGERD! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!” but you play it cool and the cycle begins again…

As I’ve told more than a few sobbing students over the years, “It’s not you. You are good. The right people just haven’t figured that out yet. It’ll happen. Trust me.”

(In completing the analogy, that’s what my mother used to try to tell me each time I got dumped in high school… She wasn’t wrong, but the situation still sucked.)

 

THE JOB OFFER:

The first career job offer is something most people never forget, and I certainly remember getting my job offer from Mizzou.

Well, I remember most of it.

At one point when I was being offered the job and told about what this involved, I think I passed out on the phone. Blood was pounding in my ears, my chest felt like it was going to explode with joy like a frickin’ Care Bear and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

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When the first offer came, I took it. No questions asked. I was so happy to be getting that job.

About two years later, my boss called me into his office and told me, “I need to let you know something. I totally screwed you.”

He explained that when he hired me, he gave me the lowest lowball offer he could, figuring I’d negotiate my way up to something more reasonable. When I didn’t, he was over a barrel. He couldn’t just give me more money, but he also knew I didn’t know any better.

(To be fair, he then told me he was getting me connected with the grad program so I could go after a Ph.D. It was a fair trade in the long run.)

He was a good guy and it never occurred to me that he had lowballed me. He then gave me the best advice I share on a regular basis, “Never take the first offer. Always negotiate for your worth.”

Of all the things people mentioned in their responses to me, salary negotiations were the most important:

“Journalism is not a ‘calling.’ It’s a business. Negotiate your pay. Don’t work for less than you’re worth. Think 5-10 years down the road.”

 

“Don’t count on the editor who hires you to have your economic interests at heart. You should be prepared to negotiate for the pay you need to live, and expect them to expect you to negotiate because it may be a LONG TIME before you have as much leverage to get yourself more money than when you have the initial job offer.”

 

“Know your worth and don’t settle just to get hired and have a job. A LOT of companies are hiring, so test the waters and see where you feel valued.”

 

“Agreed with everybody who said negotiate your starting salary. Do some research of similar roles in the area and don’t just take the first offer that comes because you’re scared/excited just to get one, which is what I did.”

In addition to negotiating salaries, people noted that they wished they’d negotiated for extra vacation time, an earlier start for health insurance, improved hours/requirements and other bennies that they thought were just written in stone.

Another person noted this “look forward” in life as crucial:

Take whatever 401k match is offered, even if you can’t contribute anything else right away.

 

WELCOME TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE (OR NOT)

When I went to my college orientation session about 30 years ago, the people there told us that we would likely change jobs about six or seven times in our lifetime. At that point, they meant that we would likely climb the corporate ladder, maybe switching companies within our field, but essentially staying put.

According to recent data, Millennials will change CAREERS almost six times in their lives. People now tend to stay with an employer for an average of three or four years, even with opportunities for advancement. This shifts the entire paradigm of how to look at your first job. Here are some thoughts from the hivemind:

“Paying your dues” is an outdated concept. Don’t let your parents, employers or friends convince you otherwise.

 

The quality of the job and the people you work with are far more important than the location.

 

Having a different approach to teaching and research is a GOOD thing!… Students need to know there’s many paths towards your goals in life. Do what works for you.

 

You don’t have to stay in the first job you get after college forever. It’s okay to change your mind or realize it’s not something you enjoy.

 

(I wish someone taught me how to deal with) not starting exactly in the position you want and how to be content with the growth process. Your degree does not always land you your dream job immediately.

This last point leads us to the unfortunate truth associated with taking that first job…

 

YOUR JOB MIGHT SUCK

As much as the dream job might be just a dream, it doesn’t mean suffering and pain should be your daily life at work. Everything from toxic workplace environments and weird bosses to feeling lost and becoming undervalued can make that first job you were so excited about feel like an abusive relationship.

I’ve worked for bosses that I would step in front of a bus for, because they were so helpful, supportive and just entirely amazing. I have also worked for bosses I wouldn’t feel bad about nudging into path of oncoming freeway traffic.

The folks who chimed in on this had similar experiences:

Your boss makes all the difference for how well you do in your first few jobs. Take your first job based on how well you vibe with the boss.

 

I once told my son that if he ever has a job where the manager/supervisor/head honcho etc, comes over and parks his butt on your desk, smiles and says, “we’re all like family here”…….Leave.

 

Also that just because things aren’t perfect, it isn’t necessarily your fault:

 

Your first job isn’t your only job. Sometimes it legitimately sucks and that’s OK. It’s not an indictment on you or your work.

 

Always work toward aligning what you want to do with what your job/career actually is, while still getting your current job’s work done of course. But always keep working toward doing what you want to do, even if your first job out of school isn’t your dream job (it won’t be).

The one caveat I’ll offer here is the one based on my own sense of paranoia: There’s nothing wrong with leaving a job because it’s not what you want or need. That said, have your next move already to go upon your decision to quit.

I equate it to the old “Tarzan” movies when he’s swinging from vine to vine across the jungle. Don’t let go of one vine until you have the other in hand.

TOMORROW: Life, or something like it, after college.

Filak Furlough Tour Update: Hanging out with Colorado State

The final stop on the fall version of the Filak Furlough Tour took place at Colorado State University, where we decided to kind of go with a broader Q and A approach.

Like every pit class I’ve ever taught or attended, I had a couple in the front row, a couple in the middle of the auditorium and a back row that would probably gone further back if they could have.

It’s nice to know that some things in life are eternal…

Students line up before class to make damned sure they sign in and get credit for putting up with me…

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY — FORT COLLINS, CO

THE TOPIC: Pretty much anything they wanted to talk about. The one key area students hit on a couple times was the issue of how to get ready for life beyond school, either through internships or through finding something that matters to you.

THE BASICS: In terms of finding an internship, it’s not what you know. It’s whom you know. My best advice is to get to know the people teaching your professionally oriented media classes, as they are the ones with connections in the field.

The reasons they have these connections can vary based on if they’re still working the field or if they’ve been retired to academia, but the one thing that is a universal is their connections. I explained to the students that in most cases, there was someone five or six years ago who was sitting in the same seat you are and was desperate to get an internship. Now, those people are the ones looking for interns, and they’re probably going to reach out to that professor and ask, “You got anyone good?”

I don’t know how many times I’ve played matchmaker over the. years, but what I do know is that I have a lot of former students who have hired a lot of interns from my classes. I also know a lot of former students who work with other former students, as birds of a feather tend to flock together. Also, the students who tended to like the way I taught them and the skills I helped them hone will likely want similarly taught and honed students.

That’s not to say that being an alumni-based nepo-baby is all it takes. You still need to be skilled in the field in which you want to work, have work product to show potential hiring folks and basically be a worthwhile human being. However, there seems to be an abundance of folks who are all relatively similar in the minds of hiring professionals  in regard to each of these areas. Therefore, to separate yourself, that’s where the connections come in because these people can vouch for you in a way that has real meaning to potential hiring folks.

 

BEST QUESTION OF THE DAY (PART I): In your experience, how much of a problem is it if a student doesn’t really have a full sense of where they want to go or what they want to do with their degree upon graduation?

BEST ANSWER I HAD AT THE TIME (PART I): The truth of the matter is that nobody has it all figured out in college. The people who say they have always known they want to do X and are working on a degree to put them on a path to achieving X are most likely going to change majors four times, change colleges at least twice and end up wandering the earth like Caine in “Kung Fu” trying to find something or other.

What tends to put you on the best path is when you go into something with a desire to learn something of value. In media classes in particular, I like to talk about putting tools into your toolbox. Each skill you pick up will make you more useful down the road, wherever that road takes you.

I recommend trying out things through student media and student orgs to see what appeals to you and what looked better on paper than it did in real life. Internships also give you a peek at what you might like and what you might not.

Either way, look for things that interest you and there’s a strong probability that your media skills will somehow apply and get you where you want to go, even if you don’t know where that is yet.

 

BEST QUESTION OF THE DAY (PART II): What are the most important things you can have or skills you can develop if you want to be a success in this field?

BEST ANSWER I HAD AT THE TIME (PART II): As much as I know people want to hear things like “Learn THIS social media tool” or “Pivot to THIS platform,” the best answer I have is completely different. I have found these were the things that have made a difference for me and a lot of other people I know who have been successful in this realm:

ENTHUSIASM: Of all the things ever said or written about me, my favorite is in a going-away card that’s about 25 years old. When I left the State Journal, the folks there were nice enough to give me a going-away party, a cake and a card. In that card, were a lot of “Good Luck” messages, but my editor, Teryl Franklin, wrote this: The one thing I’ll always remember about you is that whenever the scanner went off, you always asked, “Can I go?”

Teryl was a lifesaver for me, quite literally, as she came to be my editor at one of the worst points of my career. I was a mess after suffering a terrible editor and then dealing with editor roulette. The former crushed my self-confidence while the latter helped me learn how different people worked, even as I was essentially a reporting orphan. Teryl was the person who helped put me back together, trusted me and got me back on the horse. Praise from her was like manna from heaven.

We talked about that note before I left and she basically said that it was my willingness chase any story, go anywhere and do anything that let her know I was worthwhile as a journalist. As long as I kept up that level of enthusiasm and work ethic, I’d be totally fine, she said.

Decades later, I’m still dedicated to that principle. I often tell people that I was never the smartest, or the fastest or the best at anything, but I made up for that with the desire to just do whatever I could to make something work, regardless of the odds or the enemy.

LIFE-LONG LEARNING: A great bit of advice I picked up over the years was to find out how to do something at my job that no one else knew how to do, thus making myself indispensable. In some of my earlier jobs, it was figuring out how to keep the garbage bags properly tethered to the rim of the cans. In later years, it was knowing how to fix the copy machine or how to run a particular piece of software.

At the core of this was the concept of life-long learning: Always be willing and able to pick up a new set of skills, figure out something else you want to learn and be ready to take on new challenges instead of resting on your laurels.

Over the years, I’ve picked up various skills like furniture restoration, hand caning, pinball machine repair, auto repair and more. When a kid at one of the Furlough Tour stops asked me what I would like to do next, I think he assumed I’d say, “Write another textbook” or “Create Specialty Course X.” The truth surprised him: “I’d love to go back to the Tech out here and learn how to do welding.” Why? I’ve always wanted to do body work on my car and I need that skill to do it.

If you never outgrow a desire to learn, you’ll always have a place somewhere in your career field. And if you get bored, you’ll have a bunch of other skills to fall back on.

PRACTICE: As we’ve discussed on the blog before, there is an inherent difference between a talent and a skill. Talents are given from birth and allow people to excel by the mere dint of who they are. Skills are learned actions that can be developed through repetition and desire for improvement. In short, skills require practice.

A common conversation I have with students in my writing class takes place right about the time we start working on leads. I tell them they will need to write one sentence, but it will take about three class periods. They look at me like I’m daft, until they try it, we edit it, we review it, they try it again and they eventually turn something in.

The frustration is palpable, but I try to put the situation in perspective. I’ll often ask if they played a sport or an instrument. When the kid tells me, “Yeah, basketball” or “I still play the piano” I’ll ask if they were sinking threes the first time they picked up the ball or playing Beethoven right away. They, of course, laugh and tell me how long it took them to get good at that sport or instrument.

My point then becomes clear: Skills take practice to develop, and writing is no different. Why would you expect to be perfect on the first pass on this assignment?

Like most things, the more you practice journalism, the better you get at it. Then, you can challenge yourself to try bigger things or more complex maneuvers. Keep working on it and you’ll be fine. In the mean time, give yourself a break.

NEXT STOP: Winter Break

An open letter to Kathleen McElroy: Forget about Texas A&M. Come to UW-Oshkosh.

Please consider these words of wisdom… If it would bring you here to UWO, Dr. McElroy, I would gladly perform the entirety of any scene from “Cool as Ice” for you every day, simply for your amusement.

 

Dear Dr. McElroy,

Even though we have never met, I have been following your situation from afar and find it depressingly untenable. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be recruited, lauded and praised by an institution you love and admire, only to have that place fold up on you like a cheap card table when the wind started blowing in another direction. I also can’t imagine what it’s like now trying to figure out where to go in life: You basically told your previous employer you were leaving, only to now realize you CAN’T leave for this other job.

The interim dean at A&M, who apparently pointed out to you that you are “a Black woman who worked at The New York Times,” (both of which he seemingly considered negatives somehow when he made that statement) has resigned his position in the administration over this cluster-mess.  University President M. Katherine Banks, who professed astonishment and ignorance of all the changes to your position,  has “retired immediately” because the “negative press has become a distraction.” (Right. The PRESS is the problem, not the not-so-thinly-veiled racism, the shameful backpedaling or the generally terrible way the school handled this situation.)

This has to be twice as painful for you, as TAMU is your alma mater and that really seemed to be a driving force for you, based on what I read. (For me, I’d be pretty OK if I went back to one of my degree-granting institutions. The other one? I’d rather you stabbed me in the face with a live cattle prod than send me there for a faculty slot.)

This would be a comedy of errors if it weren’t so sad and tragic.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer you this plea: Drop those zeroes and get with the heroes here at UW-Oshkosh. We would LOVE to have you, and I personally would love to spend as much time learning from you as humanly possible.

Here’s the best case I can offer you for such a career move:

Your governor is treating DEI like it’s an STI, signing a bill that would close all offices at universities that he deemed “anti-white.” He’s also anti-tenure, anti-education and looks like a terrible 1980s televangelist to a really creepy degree.

Our governor is a former state superintendent of schools, who favors public education and improving the lives of school children throughout the state. He also pulled off one of the smoothest line-item veto moves in history, to increase public education spending for the next 400 years.

The person who was going to be your boss at A&M had a history of doing some truly dumb things with student media, including trying to overstep her position and kill the print edition of your amazing student newspaper, The Battalion.  She then rationalized her decision to go against the wishes of pretty much everyone in this situation with the immortal line of “I’m not a professor of journalism, I don’t understand exactly why [print media] is important to the field.”

The person at UWO who would be your boss has been pretty darned good to journalism and student media. When a bunch of little… um… student government people demanded my head as the adviser of the student newspaper, he stepped in and kept the idiots at bay. He was also instrumental in our fundraising drive and even gave money out of his own pocket to help out.

In addition, our offices are in the newest academic building on campus, right down the hall from our African American studies department. “Doc” Simpson is an amazing leader of that department and Dr. Denae Powell is one of the coolest people I know. (If you like to laugh, we enjoy sharing a lot of “guess what a student just said/did” stories as we pass each other’s office on a daily basis.)

We’re a fun, small, collegial bunch and we take care of each other. We don’t silo up into “news” versus “PR” or whatever, and we really do our best to help each other and all of “our kids” that enter the program. Based on what I’ve read, that sounds like it would be right up your alley.

I grant you we aren’t perfect: We get 10 feet of snow every year, it takes a while to learn how to pass  farming equipment on our highways and you can’t breathe within six inches of the Illinois border without being forced to pay a toll. We also have our share of knotheads who treat higher education as if it’s some sort of a Communist plot, which might not sound like much of an improvement over your current situation.

I also grant you that I don’t have fiat power in terms of offering you a job, but I’m a hell of a persistent cuss when it comes to getting important things done, so let’s figure that one out when we get there. I just think you’re too important and valuable to waste on an institution that’s treating you this way.

Feel free to shoot me a note via the contact form here if you’re interested in taking a chance on the Harvard of the Fox Valley.

Sincerely,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

If you are panicking about not having a journalism internship, read this. (A Throwback Post)

A couple students were in my office Wednesday, concerned that they couldn’t find an internship yet or that internship folks had turned them down. In one case, the place rejected her and then reposted the internship. This is like being told, “I’m sorry I can’t go to the prom with you” just moments before you hear that same person telling everyone around the lunch room, “I really want to go to prom and I’ll literally go with ANYONE!”

More than a few other folks have been stopping by with crises of confidence, so I made the kids a deal: I’d dig out this post for a Throwback Thursday if they promised to read it. It’s a look back about five years ago, but the core of this is still spot-on.

Here’s a look at me living up to my end of the bargain:

Five helpful thoughts as you panic about not having an internship yet

When March turns to April, summer seems only a few short weeks away. For those of us in Wisconsin, that means the snow might finally finish melting and we can finally put away our shovels and salt spreaders for the year. For journalism students everywhere, however, April means moving from “Hey, I applied for this internship” to “Why haven’t I heard back from the internship?” to “GOD, WHY?!?  WHAT HAVE I DONE IN LIFE THAT IS SO FOUL AS TO NOT GOTTEN AN INTERNSHIP YET?!?!”

I asked some folks I know who hire interns in the field what thoughts they had about this time of year, working through the hiring process and so forth. I also dug through the old file of rejection letters and such to come up with some advice for those of you who are somewhere between moderate concern and psychotic panic.

The Most Basic Advice:

 

You aren’t doing yourself or anyone else any good freaking out. The process is going to be the process, so don’t get yourself so wired that you’re tied up in knots and likely to send a horribly embarrassing text or email to a potential employer, begging for information. Cooler heads prevail, so YOU MUST CHILL. As one person who has worked for everything from top 20 circulation newspapers to promotions for the UFC explained:

My favorite quote: Patience is not absence of ambition. #EverybodyChill

This Takes Time

I remember working night desk at the State Journal one night when we were looking to hire a swing-shift reporter. My boss, Teryl, was responsible for reviewing the candidates. It was the end of a hellish night and I had just finished the midnight cop calls and settled in near the scanner to keep an ear out for any breaking news. Teryl sat down and pulled this giant stack of folders out of her desk drawer and dropped them on her desk with that clanging THUD that only half-metal, half-Formica desks can emit. There had to be 50 or more folders there, easy. She picked up the first one and with a heavy sigh, she started going through them. I thought it would take longer for her to get through them than it took for Andy Dufresne to make his way to freedom. I’m sure it felt just about as fun for her as it did for him.

Even now, these things take time and there is a ton of work involved. Even if you are the perfect candidate, it’s going to take a while to dig through the pile to find you. Or as one of the pros I talked to who is currently hiring interns said:

I’m at a very small agency and my colleague and I also have SO many of these things to sift through. We received more than 50 resumes for our one internship, and there’s only two of us to read them through. The process of trying to line up schedules and find a time for interviews is an absolute nightmare. Even once we do that, we’ve usually gone through 2-3 rounds of candidate interviews before we find someone we like. We try to put a dedicated effort into finding someone quickly and it still takes us about 3 weeks per hiring cycle.

You need to have reasonable expectations of how long this will take and understand there are actual human beings on the other end of this process who are likely doing their level best. Your best bet is to check in when you submit your material and find out what their general plan is for contacting people and then add about two weeks to that. Once that time has ended, you should give them another week and then contact them. But only do it once and do it in a, “I know you’re insanely busy but I wanted to check in” way. As a guy who works for Facebook explained to me:

Have the students ask what the typical turnaround times are so they have the right expectations and use the time spent waiting for one internship to apply to 3 more.

That said, if you have important updates, it helps to let the people know about that so you stay at the forefront of their minds in a positive way, according to a top PR pro who has worked for major players all across the country:

I also think that continuous follow up always keeps you ahead of the game. If it means thanking them for their time, sharing a story about the news they heard about the company (recent awards or otherwise) or writing a letter about how they are the ideal candidate and list specific strong reasons why… it goes a long way. I’m currently helping hire our interns for Baird and those are just a couple of things that stand out to our Directors/Managers.

Have a Plan B (and C…)

What might be the perfect internship for you might not make you the perfect candidate for the company. With that in mind, it helps to cultivate multiple options. If you are afraid that you might not get THE internship, keep an eye out and toss your hat in the ring for others that come open. One former newspaper editor who hired interns explained why this is a good idea:

I’d also recommend that students not put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to jobs and internships. Take the time to apply for a variety of internships. At best, you have a few great options to choose from. At worst, you got practice with the application process that will help you for years to come.

Another pro, who has worked in news, PR and university marketing, said not only should you be applying for multiple internships, but you should look for every opportunity to get experience if you get one:

Don’t sit tight waiting for one or two opportunities to pan out. Keep searching and keep applying. And be willing to seek and do work that gets you access to watch and learn, not necessarily do the “intern-version” of the “full-time thing.” Be a clerk. Tackle phones and backstage stuff if it gets you a front row seat. Bottom line: apply, apply and apply some more.

Take Advantage of Bad Situation

It helps to keep your ear to the ground for just-posted internships right about now and here’s why:

  1. Media outlets don’t always have their acts together when it comes to an internship program. Some places will get involved late in the game because they finally got permission to hire or because the money was finally available for the position. This means right about now, another wave of internships might be cresting and it could be yours to ride.
  2. Don’t feel bad about this, but it is possible that other candidates out there are viewed as being better than you are. As you sit at home, in a panicking dervish of anxious hope, those “better candidates” are taking internship offers and planning an awesome summer. Yes, this eliminates a few internship possibilities for you, but it also means that several other places that were banking on the Golden God/Goddess candidate are now looking for their Plan B. In some cases, you might be that Plan B. In other cases, they run out of options that are available and they might re-post the position. This gives you another shot to apply for something you might have missed or bypassed on your first salvo of applications.

    (You might not like it if you think your next internship sees you like this, but consider it a chance to prove them wrong.)

I know this all sounds like, “Hey, you might not be all that good, but you might be the best of the really lousy candidates left after all the good kids take the good jobs,” but that’s not the point. Yeah, you can look at this like you’re some kind of damaged goods if you want, but it’s better to think about it this way: You want the internship and the experience that goes with it, so suck it up, check your ego and apply to be someone else’s “good enough” option.

There’s a huge benefit to this: The ceiling on how impressive you can be is really unlimited. You have the ability to prove to them that you are awesome and you probably are better than whoever it was from the Almighty Deity School of Journalism and Perfection that turned them down. Plus, nothing makes someone work harder, stronger and faster than a really big chip on the shoulder.

Don’t Be This Candidate:

You might find yourself wondering “Why?” when it comes to the lack of communication from your potential internship suitors. This is where it helps to go back through your materials. In one case, someone didn’t get the gig because they mis-typed their phone number on their resume and people couldn’t get a hold of her. In another case, the applicant’s package never made it and he was too bashful to check in on the process. Then there are candidates like the ones this pro described:

And for the love of all things holy, please ask them to read their resumes over numerous times for errors, have someone else do it, and then do it again. I just threw out one for calling the Huffington Post the Huntington Post and another for spelling her own school’s name incorrectly.

This is why it pays to edit the hell out of your resume and cover letter before you send it off. (I screwed up and misspelled the name of editor on my cover letter, but he hired me anyway. Conversely, I saw Teryl toss one of the applications away when the person wrote “Dear Mr. Franklin” to her in the salutation. It’s dicey out there.) It also would help to have someone look over it for you, preferably someone whose not just going to say, “Wow! You’re great! Now can we go to the bar?”

If you turned out to be the person who screwed up in one of these ways, it will be in your best interest to figure that out before you have to send stuff out again.

Dear Students, Don’t let the “grownups” make you feel like you suck (A throwback post)

I dug this one out for Throwback Thursday for two reasons:

  1. It’s the end of the semester and I’ve got a lot of kids dragging out there who are operating under the overbearing expectations of some truly stupid professors, bosses and other alleged adults. I’ve heard “I must really suck” more often these days than I would at a vacuum cleaner self-affirmation conference.
  2. My kid just got into the college of her choice.

The first one is pretty obvious: When people like this Everett Piper dude decide to make themselves out to be the second coming of perfection, while simultaneously crapping all over you, all for their own personal benefit, you need to know there are folks out here who want you to know you’re fine. Hang in there. Don’t give up.

The second one needs more context: Last year, Zoe sat down with her high school guidance counselor and talked about what she would like to do after graduation. She listed off several schools she wanted to attend, two of which were pretty heady picks, but not Ivy-League places or schools with a 0.0001 acceptance rate. These out-of-state places had strong accounting programs, an area for which she has a passion that defies explanation.

The counselor told her not to bother. Pick a couple UW branch schools because, “Nobody from Omro ever leaves the state for school.”

There is nothing wrong with a UW branch school. Her first acceptance letter came from a UW branch school and she was totally happy with that opportunity before her dream school came calling. Hell, I’m TEACHING at a UW branch school, despite what the marketing folks here will tell you through their branding.

(The rule in the marketing department, I’m told, is that they use hyphens with all UW schools except for us and the flagship campus because they need to set the tone as being a quality institution, not a second-rate branch. Never once have I met a student who told me, “I was considering UW-Stevens Point, but then I saw that hyphen and thought it had to be a total crap hole.” Then I saw the hyphen-free UW Oshkosh, and realized, “This is the place for me!”)

The point is, why would this person think it’s acceptable to tell a kid, “Look, don’t bother trying for stuff you want. It’s kind of a waste of both of our times.” Who does that?

Quite a few chuckleheads, including the one we’re covering in this post below. Enjoy the burn…

Dear students, Don’t let Everett Piper tell you that you suck.

For reasons past my understanding, this thing is making the rounds again:

The President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University gave a lecture to students they’ll never forget. Recently a student complained about a sermon that made him feel guilty and blamed the school for making students feel uncomfortable. This is not uncommon. Many universities now are so afraid of offending even one student, that political correctness has run amuck.

However, this University is based on religion and so one would expect that discipline, good character and personal accountability would be a big part of the curriculum.

Everett Piper, who is the President of the school, wrote a letter to the students admonishing them that playing the victim, blaming others and not admitting mistakes is not a way to live a productive and meaningful life. Here is the letter titled “This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University!”

Piper’s open letter originally made waves in 2015 when he first posted it and it suddenly went viral, thanks to his leveraging of social media and the talk-show circuit. Every so often, someone finds it again and posts it to a listserv or a Facebook feed and it starts to catch fire again.

Professors often deal with a wide array of students, but it is usually the best and worst ones that make the greatest of impressions. Thus, we tend to recall the kid who skipped seven weeks of class and then showed up for the final or the guy who swears his grandmother died 19 times in the semester to justify his frequent absences. Get about four professors in a room around this time of year and a game of, “I bet you can’t top this” will inevitably happen, as we tell tales about student baffling student behavior.

That said, this letter is total crap for a number of reasons. For students out there reading this, and who are tired of getting dumped on, here are a couple points to ponder before you let a guy like Everett Piper make you feel miserable during finals week:

 

Recall the Johnny Sain Axiom on Old Timers Day

Johnny Sain, a longtime pitcher and pitching coach, had a disdain for Old Timers Day, when out-of-shape old players would return and tell stories of their glory. He captured the reason perfectly and with a phrase you should always remember:

“The older these guys get, the better they used to be.”

I don’t know Everett Piper personally, but if he’s like every other human adult I ever met, I’m fairly confident he wasn’t perfect at the age of 19. If I had a nickel for every mistake I made, stupid thing I said, dumb question I asked and wrong position I held in my college years, I could buy Earth and evict Piper from it. The point is to learn from those mistakes and help other people who are likely to make those mistakes as well.

I occasionally get a question that goes something like, “Wow, you work with college students? Don’t you ever feel jealous of them for (whatever freedom they supposedly have to drink like a fish, hook up every night or just have a metabolism that doesn’t reflexively add inches to my waistline every day)?”

The answer, “No and HELL no.” I remember living off of buckets of Ramen and those frozen chicken things that were probably part cat, but were 10 for $5 at the local convenience store. I remember having to decide between another beer and laundry money. I remember the anxiety associated with asking people out, trying not to screw up a relationship and having to listen to The Cure for hours on end after each break up.

Would I care for a return to crappy apartments where the heat was controlled in only one unit, brown water that came out of the tap and a basement that smelled of god-knows-what? No thank you. I survived the first time and I’m lucky I got out with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Remembering that is what drives me to help you get better.

Too many people eventually get older and develop selective amnesia, thus allowing them to tell kids, “When I was YOUR AGE, I (never/always) did (whatever)…” and really believe it. I’d bet every dollar in my pocket against whatever Piper has in his that there were times when he whined as a student or groused about something being unfair or complained about how he felt without thinking about how it would sound to other people.

It’s not that we have too many trigger warnings or that too much stuff is gluten free or that we can’t say “Merry Christmas” to anyone without starting a culture war these days. Those are all strawmen, just like Piper’s student at the front of his letter.

The fact is, there have always been good things and bad things that people exalted or wailed about in life. It’s just the people doing it now have forgotten how much they hated hearing about their grandparents explaining how ungrateful “kids in your generation are these days,” which is why they do it to other people.

Keep that in mind if you ever end up the president of a university and you have an urge to yell at a kid for standing on your lawn.

 

Consider the Source

In journalism, we teach people to look at the source of the information before we consider how much weight to give it. Sure, from the outside, Everett Piper may look like the shining beacon of greatness upon the hill of glory, but consider the following information before you worry what he thinks about you:

He grew up in a town of about 8,000 people and attended a nearby private school of about 2,000 people in late 1970s/early 1980s, when you weren’t required to hock an internal organ to pay tuition. Upon graduation in 1982, he took off for the work world, as you can see below:

PiperExperience

So he graduated at the age of 22/23, immediately went into academic administration and never left. Not exactly the story his university tells about him:

A native of Hillsdale Michigan, Dr. Piper grew up in a family that valued hard work, a mindset he carried with him as he moved from industry into pursuing a college degree.

Not sure how much “industry” work he did between the ages of 18 and 23 while in school, but he wasn’t a returning student, or a single parent, or a GI Bill kid, or any of those other kinds of folks I see on a daily basis who work their asses off to survive. He might or might not be the prototypical example of a guy who thinks he hit a triple when he was actually born on third base, but he’s also isn’t a latter-day “Rudy,” either.

Piper’s proud defense of his university not being a daycare seems a bit suspect, as he is making money off the deal. He turned his “catchphrase” into a nice cottage industry of castigating the youth and yelling about the snowflakes on his lawn.

The university even promotes the purchase of this stuff on its website. (What was that story about Jesus and the money changers in the temple? Oh, yeah…)

Also, consider this line from his letter to the masses:

If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.

(The emphasis on those two statements is mine.)

If the irony of that first line doesn’t send your hater-ade filled soul into laughing fits, I don’t know what will. It’s easy to “arrogantly lecture” people, as Piper has clearly shown with his letter doing exactly that. Also, instead of dumping all over the kid who came to you with this concern about a Bible passage you likely understood far better than he did, why not help that little snowflake “humbly learn” what it meant instead of using the kid as a strawman to bolster your self-serving position?

(Side note:When someone tells me that something “actually” happened and “I am not making this up” in successive paragraphs at the front of a story, I’d bet money that person is making something up.)

 

(It’s even more amazing than when you have the ability to monetize your grousing…)

The second line (and any other similar phrase) always annoys me when it comes from people in a position of advantage. When is the last time University President and Almighty Deity of Knowledge Everett Piper was called out for his horsepucky? Probably back when people were rocking popped collars and jamming out to Duran Duran. It’s easy to say that people need to be confronted when you possess the power and position to do so, without fear of retribution.

And if all that hasn’t convinced you, read his Twitter feed. The guy has a transphobic Chuck Norris meme up there (as one of his many anti-LGBTQ tweets), called incoming house Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a clueless child and referred to universities (all except for his, I’m guessing) as “bigoted, Intolerant, ill-liberal, inconsistent and closed minded.” Not exactly the bastion of intellectual argumentation I’d expect from a guy who reflexively calls himself “Doctor” more times than you’d hear it on a Thompson Twins’ Greatest Hits album.

 

Don’t Let These Guys Win

The problem isn’t that Everett Piper exists or that he has created a nice little business out of shaming college students with the tone of a high-strung school marm. The problem is that he isn’t alone.

Each generation likes to blame the one before for its problems and dump all over the one after it for not being perfect. As mentioned earlier, people like to get together and complain about how “a student did something you wouldn’t believe…”

Like any other stereotype, it contains a kernel of truth. Like any other stereotype, you can beat it. And like any other stereotype, you should call it out when you hear it.

Don’t let Piper and his ilk decide that you damned kids and your hippity-hoppity music are ruining this world and that if we could just get “Happy Days” back on the air, life would be good again. Don’t let this guy sell books off of the assumption that you will crumble or melt or whatever the comparative is that Piper or the next chucklehead uses to deride your generation. When someone decides to grump in your general direction, use your finely honed interviewing skills to pick apart their self-serving rubbish and demonstrate your intellectual journalistic superiority.

Sure, there are self-absorbed twerps in college who will claim their goldfish’s death merits a six-week extension on an already late paper. There are also dingleberries out there who misapply triggers and trigger warnings to mean anything they would prefer to avoid, as opposed to the actual medical situation they are.  There are plenty of examples of students that make us shake our heads until we develop neck cramps.

However, when you see something like this, written by someone like Piper, take a moment and smile. Think to yourself, “Gee, it must be so sad to think so little of the people you are supposed to help that your best approach to dealing with ONE QUESTION is to publicly rip AN ENTIRE GENERATION to shreds with a letter and then go write a book to pat yourself on the back for being superior to anyone under the age of 22.”

Then, go back to working hard to be better than this guy is. Commit yourself to being the antithesis of what he purports you to be. In other words:

Life 101 (Part II): Everything you wished you’d known before you graduated but nobody told you

What Am I Doing With My Life?

Monday’s post looked at the Life 101 issue of looking for and getting your first career job out of college. If you missed it, you can see it here.

Today’s post takes a look at things that go beyond the job hunt that recent grads told me they wished someone had told them before they graduated.

 

WELCOME TO WHEREVER YOU ARE:

I got a note from a former student who asked me about how to deal with “bad things.” She had recently graduated and was about nine months into her first career job. She was living in another state, in a small town in which she had never heard of prior to taking a job she loved.

After a few false starts of me guessing at what she meant, I picked up on a thread in her responses and asked, “Wait a minute. Are you feeling lonely?”

Bingo.

She had been actively involved in clubs, sports and other stuff while building an immaculate GPA at UWO. She was always on the go and always known wherever she went. Now, she was in a completely new place where she knew no one and she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel.

I had fewer friends, fewer interests and fewer people who knew/liked me when I made my first big move, but I felt similar pangs of anxiety. After my dad helped me move in, he spent the night before saying goodbye and leaving the next morning.

After he left, it dawned on me: Nobody here knows me at all.

(Side note thought: I could die in this apartment and nobody would notice until eventually I missed a rent payment or someone caught a whiff of decomp.)

I went from running constantly from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. every day to working a nine-hour-a-day job and going home to… what? I took a lot of walks, bought groceries at normal times of day and generally looked for a place to fit in. It wasn’t easy, and apparently that was something others faced as well, given some responses I got from my former students:

It takes AWHILE to transition from being a college student to a working adult. Give yourself time and grace when going through this transition and don’t doubt your worth. You’ve got this.

 

Envision your life outside of work when considering a job – If you’re outdoorsy, does it have great trails? If you dig X, does it have X? The city has to pass the vibe check, or you’ll depend too much on work to bring you all your happiness.

Others noted that life got a little weird for them, living somewhere new, knowing nobody around them and generally losing that entire support structure of friends and family they’d taken for granted.

Friends and family are still there for you, just in a different way. It’s also an opportunity to spread your wings. Think about when you landed on campus four (or five or six) years earlier and how you didn’t know a damned thing about anything. It’s like that again, which sucks. That said, you survived and thrived in that once before, so the precedent is there for you to succeed.

 

WELCOME TO ROOKIE BALL

One of the hardest transitions people often make is from being the big cheese to the lowest of Limburger.  It hit me hard when I took my first pro gig.

At the student newspaper, I didn’t get much editing. People generally said, “You’re great!” or at the very least, they had bigger problems to fix, so I kind of skated by with the assumption that whatever I was doing was fine.

When I got to the Major Leagues, I got a rude awakening. A lot of my copy was getting hacked and slashed. My source material was being questioned. My use of quotes was second-guessed. My overall ability to do a good job was under constant scrutiny.

At the time, I needed help, guidance and support, but I had a boss who had either no interest or no capability to provide those things:

(This editor can’t be bargained with. She can’t be reasoned with… And she won’t stop until you realize you suck!)

I eventually gained my sea legs, but I never forgot what it felt like to get my ears boxed in on a daily basis. Apparently, neither did some of the folks who responded to my post:

 

Imposter syndrome is real and it is awful.

 

Nobody knows what they’re doing… They’ve just been working through it longer than you have. Hang in there.

 

Being the newest person means everyone else has a leg up in some way… Be ready to work weekends and holidays.

 

You have to know what the rules are first before you break them.

 

It’s tempting when you’re new to think folks with more experience have everything figured out. The truth is everyone is making it up as they go along on most things.

 

In kind of pairing these previous two thoughts, something else a student mentioned resonated with me when it came to being the new kid: You’re often the youngest kid by a stretch.

The student who got me thinking about this issue told me she had this weird age gap thing. She was too old to connect with the people she covered (high school athletes) and yet too young to really connect with the people she spent time with (colleagues and the athletes’ parents). It felt like there was nobody her age to connect with.

For the majority of my career life, I was always the youngest person in the room. I was 21 when I got my first gig in a pro newsroom, 22 when I got my first teaching gig, 24 when I got my first professor/editor gig, 28 when I got my first tenure-track gig and so on…

Those early years were awkward, in that I often had nothing in common with my coworkers. The people at newsroom parties  were talking about kids and soccer games and 401K accounts. Conversely,  I was like, “Hey, uh… is that beer over there free for, like, anyone to take?” I was told rather bluntly that if I was caught “associating” with students, my boss would hide strap my ass to a pine rail and ship me out of town.

It wasn’t the easiest of situations in those early years, but it was even harder because I had nobody to talk to who was going through the same thing. Maybe that’s why still tell my students my door is always open, even after they graduate.

I know it sucks to be the rookie.

 

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

Of all the advice the hivemind chipped in with, this insight needs to be screamed from the top of every mountain:

Try not to compare yourself to your friends who have seemingly better jobs. Instead of resenting the job you have, see what you can do to make it better – to make yourself better at it so you can easily move onto the next position.

During my doctoral program, I researched in the area of Social Comparison Theory, which examines the way in which people try to figure out how they stack up in a particular area of life by looking at other similar people in their area. I also watched it  play out on a daily basis there as I taught kids at the journalism school.

It was a constant game of keeping up with the Joneses. If Bobby got a front-page article, Suzie needed to get the top article on the front page. If Jane wrote 40 stories in a semester, Carl needed to  write 45.

It got even worse when they went after internship and employment opportunities. If Marco got an internship at a 75,000 circulation daily, Maria had to get an internship at a 100,000 circulation paper. If Nellie got a gig at a top 50 market TV station, Willie had to get one in a top 20 market.

I watched this transpire long after I left, with former students chasing each other up the golden ladder for no real reason other than to prove some level of superiority. I saw students leave perfectly good jobs to take on jobs that didn’t fit them because one of their peers had moved up a rank or got a gig at a larger publication.

In one case, a great student left a job where he was perfectly suited and wonderfully gifted as an editor in a smaller publication to chase other jobs that made no sense. He eventually ended up doing night cops at a paper in Kentucky, working for a mentally unbalanced night editor and feeling miserable.  When I asked why he took the job,  he cited two reasons:

  1. The paper’s circulation was huge, comparatively speaking to his previous job.
  2. One of his former cohorts had gotten a gig at some place “better” than where he was.

This made no sense unless you understand the competitive nature of the school, the kids and the field. I eventually got him to see that “better” is in the eye of the beholder.

I have friends that make more money than I do, but I wouldn’t trade positions with them under threat of death. I have friends with classier titles and bigger offices, but they also have more problems, or at least the types of problems I hate dealing with. I have friends who do a lot of things that, on paper, sound like they’re living a much “better” life than I am. However, I get a lot of stuff that can’t be measured on a spreadsheet and I’m relatively happy with a great portion of my life.

Every day is not an Academy-Award-winning performance,  but it’s what I found works for me. I figured out that chasing someone else’s dream or trying to prove superiority by making myself miserable in my career made no sense.

A few other folks who chimed in on this topic made similar statements, saying they wished someone had told them to just worry about themselves and not chase the dreams of others. They finally figured out that comparing themselves to their former classmates made no sense and it made them miserable.

Once they settled in and just enjoyed being themselves, they found happiness.

 

THE FINAL ADVICE LIGHTNING ROUND:

Some of the best bits of advice didn’t really fall into a perfect category but it was so worth keeping, I figured this would be a good way to do it. So here comes the lightning round of advice:

 

Ask questions, ask for feedback, ask for what you need to succeed in a position and know that they hired you for a reason. And if that still isn’t working out, find something else that you love to do.

 

Know your worth and celebrate your accomplishments, achievements, and recognize the significance of your contributions. Don’t downplay them.

 

It’s very rare that in reality something is as high stakes as it can feel in the moment. After a fuck-up that felt career-ending for me but in retrospect did not matter in the slightest in the big picture, my boss told me “we’re not curing cancer.” And that’s stayed with me – very little is life or death, at the end of the day.

 

Your career is not your identity. It’s a reflection of you but it does not define you.

Well, that might not be everything, but I hope it’s a start.

If you have any other questions, comments or concerns, feel free to hit me up on the contact page.

Otherwise, have a great summer and best of luck in all you do.

Vince

(a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

Life 101 (Part I): Everything you wished you’d known before you graduated but nobody told you

life depressing funny college - 8102692096

(It’s not really that bad. You just need a few hacks here and there to soften the situation.)

A student showed up in my office a few weeks back with a big smile on her face and the peptic energy that only comes from wanting to tell someone else the best news in the world.

“Dr. Filak! I got a job!” she said, a mix of glee, elation and relief pouring out of her as she explained what she did and how this worked and where she was going to be employed.

I listened and congratulated her multiple times before I asked the inevitable question: “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but what was the offer?”

She proudly told me how much she was making, which was a decent amount. She wouldn’t have to steal Splenda packets from local diners or live on Ramen for every meal, that’s for sure.

When I asked how the negotiation for that amount went, she said, “Oh. They just gave me the salary they were going to pay me. I asked my parents if that was good money and they said it was, so I took it.”

She noticed the look on my face. “Oh no!” she said. “Did I do bad?”

“No,” I said. “But you could have done better…”

I then explained the whole process of salary negotiations to her and she realized something nobody at this institution had ever taught her: Salaries ARE negotiable. So are so many other things.

If universities are good at training students to develop skills that will help them get their first career jobs and put them on the path to a fully adult life, they absolutely suck at helping students make the transition from college to that life. I know this from my own experience, as well as that of colleagues and former students, so I thought a good wrap up for the semester would be one final lesson for the group: Life 101.

I asked the hivemind of folks I trust through various social media outlets and connections to tell me one thing they wished they’d known before they left school that they found out the hard way once they got into the “real world.”

Today’s post is the first of two that look at issues beyond graduation, focusing mainly on getting a job and the reality of that first job.

Tomorrow’s post will look at the life issues you face once you get out and become “a grown up” that you probably won’t see coming.

I hope this helps:

THE JOB SEARCH

There are few things more anxiety-provoking and terrifying than looking for a first career job out of college. You have put in the time and energy to pass the classes. You got the grades they said were going to propel you forward. You got involved in every activity someone said would “look great on a resume” and you worked at student media, internships and part-time gigs to fatten up your experience.

You put yourself out there and… crickets…

As a college student, I feared my parents’ basement. I constantly heard of students who did “all the right things” but ended up living back with their parents in a basement because they couldn’t get a job. I mentioned that to several students and several currently employed former students and the vibe was the same:

“I was scared to death that I’d done all this work and I’d be living back home in the basement. I never had a problem with my family, but I damned sure didn’t want to be back there as ‘that kid.'”

“I knew I could go home. I just didn’t want to. I wanted to be a grownup.”

I have said this before and the people who have experienced it have told me I am dead on with this analogy. Those who haven’t tell me I’m crazy. Then, they experience this and they convert to my way of thinking:

Your first job search is a lot like a bad dating experience: You are ready to go, so you put yourself out there. People are ignoring you and it feels awkward. You don’t know what’s wrong with you, so you get really worried.

Then, someone shows an interest and you have that kind of, “Cool. We should hang out. Let’s exchange info” moment and you get really excited. You start imagining how nice it’ll be and your mind takes you on flights of fancy regarding this relationship.

Then, you don’t hear from them for a while and you start wondering what you did wrong and why they aren’t calling. You start questioning everything you’ve done to this point. You wonder if you should reach out, but you don’t want to look needy.

Eventually, you’ll start to get angry with the, “OK, screw you. I don’t need you thing.” You give up, only to hear from that person shortly after that, with the person giving you a true and great reason why it took so long to reach out and that they really want to see you in a day or two, so let’s set this up…

And then you’re like, “OHMERGERD! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!” but you play it cool and the cycle begins again…

As I’ve told more than a few sobbing students over the years, “It’s not you. You are good. The right people just haven’t figured that out yet. It’ll happen. Trust me.”

(In completing the analogy, that’s what my mother used to try to tell me each time I got dumped in high school… She wasn’t wrong, but the situation still sucked.)

 

THE JOB OFFER:

The first career job offer is something most people never forget, and I certainly remember getting my job offer from Mizzou.

Well, I remember most of it.

At one point when I was being offered the job and told about what this involved, I think I passed out on the phone. Blood was pounding in my ears, my chest felt like it was going to explode with joy like a frickin’ Care Bear and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

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When the first offer came, I took it. No questions asked. I was so happy to be getting that job.

About two years later, my boss called me into his office and told me, “I need to let you know something. I totally screwed you.”

He explained that when he hired me, he gave me the lowest lowball offer he could, figuring I’d negotiate my way up to something more reasonable. When I didn’t, he was over a barrel. He couldn’t just give me more money, but he also knew I didn’t know any better.

(To be fair, he then told me he was getting me connected with the grad program so I could go after a Ph.D. It was a fair trade in the long run.)

He was a good guy and it never occurred to me that he had lowballed me. He then gave me the best advice I share on a regular basis, “Never take the first offer. Always negotiate for your worth.”

Of all the things people mentioned in their responses to me, salary negotiations were the most important:

“Journalism is not a ‘calling.’ It’s a business. Negotiate your pay. Don’t work for less than you’re worth. Think 5-10 years down the road.”

 

“Don’t count on the editor who hires you to have your economic interests at heart. You should be prepared to negotiate for the pay you need to live, and expect them to expect you to negotiate because it may be a LONG TIME before you have as much leverage to get yourself more money than when you have the initial job offer.”

 

“Know your worth and don’t settle just to get hired and have a job. A LOT of companies are hiring, so test the waters and see where you feel valued.”

 

“Agreed with everybody who said negotiate your starting salary. Do some research of similar roles in the area and don’t just take the first offer that comes because you’re scared/excited just to get one, which is what I did.”

In addition to negotiating salaries, people noted that they wished they’d negotiated for extra vacation time, an earlier start for health insurance, improved hours/requirements and other bennies that they thought were just written in stone.

Another person noted this “look forward” in life as crucial:

Take whatever 401k match is offered, even if you can’t contribute anything else right away.

 

WELCOME TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE (OR NOT)

When I went to my college orientation session about 30 years ago, the people there told us that we would likely change jobs about six or seven times in our lifetime. At that point, they meant that we would likely climb the corporate ladder, maybe switching companies within our field, but essentially staying put.

According to recent data, Millennials will change CAREERS almost six times in their lives. People now tend to stay with an employer for an average of three or four years, even with opportunities for advancement. This shifts the entire paradigm of how to look at your first job. Here are some thoughts from the hivemind:

“Paying your dues” is an outdated concept. Don’t let your parents, employers or friends convince you otherwise.

 

The quality of the job and the people you work with are far more important than the location.

 

Having a different approach to teaching and research is a GOOD thing!… Students need to know there’s many paths towards your goals in life. Do what works for you.

 

You don’t have to stay in the first job you get after college forever. It’s okay to change your mind or realize it’s not something you enjoy.

 

(I wish someone taught me how to deal with) not starting exactly in the position you want and how to be content with the growth process. Your degree does not always land you your dream job immediately.

This last point leads us to the unfortunate truth associated with taking that first job…

 

YOUR JOB MIGHT SUCK

As much as the dream job might be just a dream, it doesn’t mean suffering and pain should be your daily life at work. Everything from toxic workplace environments and weird bosses to feeling lost and becoming undervalued can make that first job you were so excited about feel like an abusive relationship.

I’ve worked for bosses that I would step in front of a bus for, because they were so helpful, supportive and just entirely amazing. I have also worked for bosses I wouldn’t feel bad about nudging into path of oncoming freeway traffic.

The folks who chimed in on this had similar experiences:

Your boss makes all the difference for how well you do in your first few jobs. Take your first job based on how well you vibe with the boss.

 

I once told my son that if he ever has a job where the manager/supervisor/head honcho etc, comes over and parks his butt on your desk, smiles and says, “we’re all like family here”…….Leave.

 

Also that just because things aren’t perfect, it isn’t necessarily your fault:

 

Your first job isn’t your only job. Sometimes it legitimately sucks and that’s OK. It’s not an indictment on you or your work.

 

Always work toward aligning what you want to do with what your job/career actually is, while still getting your current job’s work done of course. But always keep working toward doing what you want to do, even if your first job out of school isn’t your dream job (it won’t be).

The one caveat I’ll offer here is the one based on my own sense of paranoia: There’s nothing wrong with leaving a job because it’s not what you want or need. That said, have your next move already to go upon your decision to quit.

I equate it to the old “Tarzan” movies when he’s swinging from vine to vine across the jungle. Don’t let go of one vine until you have the other in hand.

TOMORROW: Life, or something like it, after college.