Reply #15: Recognize that the newspaper industry is in its death throes. [View All]

[Moondog]

The sooner you start and implement your personal transition plan, the better off you will be. Since there already are sizable numbers of unemployed J-school grads, with more to come, it would probably be more productive to take stock of what marketable skills / experience / education you have other than journalism and the news biz. Is there a way to combine these other skills with your journalism credentials?

Do you know people who are _not_ in the same industry as you? Start networking. As a practical matter, since you clearly can put together a coherent sentence, you are way ahead of most of the working population. If you also "play well with others", then you are 90% of the way there. Most people can learn the essentials of most jobs, assuming that some sort of professional license is not a requirement for the position. The real issue for someone making a hiring decision, once you make the initial cut, is whether or not he or she thinks you will "fit in" to that particular workplace. If you are offered something that looks like an entry, or near entry, level position in another industry that looks promising, but in which you have no previous experience, if it were me I'd think pretty hard about taking the longer term view and taking the job. If at first you need to make up some lost income, so be it. Moonlight for a while, if need be. Do what you have to do.

Good luck.