Preparing for your second job

Various times throughout the past year I have found myself facing questions about my positions, internships and jobs such as, “Are you planning on staying there for a while?” “Is this what you want to be doing longterm?” “Do you plan to make a career from that?”

First off I have to ask:

At what point does a job qualify as your career?

It makes me confused because, after all, aren’t I starting my career no matter what I’m doing? OK, I admit, I probably couldn’t count my Church internship because I knew I’d only be there for four months. But what about the freelance work I do…if I’m a freelance journalist or editor, isn’t doing that, even as seldom as I do, considered the beginning of a growing career?

Maybe my situation is different because I have been working in positions that directly relate to the career I chose in college since, well, before I even turned 18. I didn’t graduate college and just pick up a random job that pays well.

I guess I’ve been lucky in getting so much experience directly related to what I’ve wanted to do. In every position I was working with people who were in fact, making that work their career. Or maybe it wasn’t really their career…maybe I have no idea what that actually entails. But isn’t it pretty common knowledge that people will actually entirely switch careers an estimated 2 or 3 times in their life. And that they may switch jobs about 4 or 5 times?? (Yes, I did make up those exact numbers but I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics I’m referring to…my numbers are probably close. probably.) So at what point along the way, either in the first job or the fourth do you know that you are making your career?

Does that change depending on how long you plan on staying there, how much you enjoy the position, or even if there are other things you would like to do as well?

If you know, please tell me and help me understand why people keep asking about my career.

And the reason for this post:

I’m pretty much addicted to blogs and love finding random blogs I find interesting. (Especially when the family/friend blogs aren’t updated nearly often enough.) The other week I found one called “Teaching Online Journalism” by Mindy McAdams, Description: Notes from the classroom and observations about today’s practice of journalism online.

For any of you fellow journalists or those interested in learning more, check out the blog; I’ve seen several good postings so far. When I was browsing the blog’s content, one post really stuck out to me.

Preparing For Your Second Job

Here are a couple excerpts:

College students have always felt nervous about their job prospects as their graduation day draws near, but in a lousy economy, that nervousness grows even more. One thing stays the same, though, in good and bad economic times—your first job is exactly that. A first job.

If any of you read my blog last Nov/Dec when I was approaching graduation or last Aprilish when my internship was rounding up, you may have seen my posts where I was not only nervous but basically freaking out about my unknown future.

I advise students to look at ads for jobs they would like to have and, rather than feeling depressed because they do not (yet) meet the requirements, plan ahead. If you see the kind of job you would like to have, then make sure your first job will serve as good preparation for that future job.

Journalism students should understand that two years spent working “in a 24/7 newsroom environment” with “Internet publishing tools” will open many, many more doors for them than spending two years in graduate school.

Ah-ha. Yes this is just a blog, but I take that as very official information that readily confirms my previously stated beliefs that going back to school will really do nothing for me in this field.

That first two years might be tough—long hours and low pay, just like you’ve been told all along. But I believe there is still light at the end of the tunnel for young journalists who pay their dues (just like always) and acquire a flexible skill set.

So I probably struck lucky on my first job because I personally don’t face any of the “toughness” described. (Which probably best applies to the newspaper newspaper world.) But as I’m writing this, I do realize that there are lots of other things I want to do and other aspects of the journalism world I want to encounter. Luckily my experiences thus far have given me a flexible skill set. (newspaper writing, magazine writing, PR writing, writing for the Web, substantive editing, copy editing, editing for all kinds of audiences, AP style, Chicago style, print and web design, familiarity with popular industry programs, online journalism, blogs, Web sites, podcast, etc. etc.) And that skill set can only continue to grow. So while it might not necessarily be dark in this tunnel, there is always a way for things to get lighter. And, though I’m not sure how long I will be staying here at my FIRST job, I do count this as the start of my career, and at some point later, a jumping board for another awesome job.