Making that Money

http://www.milbanksd.com

My manager told me that my contract was going to be extended until the end of March. I readily accepted and he proceeded to give me some fatherly advice about finding a job. He said that since I’ll be spending 1/3 of my life working, it’d be worth finding a job that I enjoyed. Not arguing with that. I know many people who just have a “job” in order to get by. Do they like it? No, but it lets them live comfortably and that’s all that matters.

He said that if I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a job, that I can take a skills assessment in the recruitment office. (He’s helpful like that).

Notice that he didn’t say “find a career.”

Huh?

I’ll take a job, but I want a career. I want to be a writer!

What’s It Gonna Take?

I had two interviews last week, one for retail and the other for a communications internship. Honestly I wanted both but was really hoping for the internship since, as I’ve posted on here, I want to be a journalist. I thought I didn’t do a good job at the first but excelled at the second.

But as luck would have it, I got an offer from the retail and a rejection from the internship. Frankly I was happy about the former.

…and I’m sad about the latter.

*Sigh*

I had big plans for that internship: it was going to be my first post-college writing job and it was going to finally let me get my foot in the door to other opportunities. I’m sad. I can’t keep track of how many writing jobs I applied to but I’m getting tired of the rejection. What’s it gonna take to secure a real writing job? Is it amazing writing samples? Multimedia skills?

What is it?

I can’t figure it out. But in regards to samples, I can practice writing all I want but without them being edited by a real editor and published in a magazine or website, are they worth showing to employers? (This is my biggest question, and Google isn’t helping).

If I could go back and start college over, I would’ve majored in journalism, written for the school newspaper for a longer period of time, and done an internship.

I’m at a loss as to what to do about this career I want to pursue. My back up plan (work full-time and write on the side) is still an option, but I really want a full-time writing job.

So, what should I do now? And what about clips? What counts as writing samples to employers? Should I *gasp* give up?

Career Wednesday: The Freelancer’s Bible

I dabbled in freelance writing for a month or so. I know, not very long, but I learned that it’s not easy (obviously!). Volunteer writing was easier to get than a paid gig because it’s easier on the client: They don’t have to deal with paychecks (I did a lot of that too).

However, the gig I did land was paid, and paid better than when I was a writer for my college newspaper. I was pretty happy to see my first paycheck! And it was fun, but then it became a chore. Since then, I’ve been reaching out to local publications and am settling for writing for free, again. In a way it’s fine since I’ll be building my portfolio, but it’d be nice to get paid again.

My goal was to become a full-time entertainment writer, and to some extent it still is, but since it’s such a difficult field to break into I decided to have a full-time job and freelance on the side. The freelance doesn’t have to be entertainment because as long as I’m able to write something, I’ll be happy.

And so comes this book that my boyfriend found for me, The Freelancer’s Bible. It’s a beginner’s guide to how to freelance and covers everything from how to file taxes, to finding clients, to marketing yourself online. I haven’t read much (I marked the chapters that were most relevant to me to read later) but what I have read has been helpful. It’s putting this job called freelancing in perspective for me.

Do any of you freelance on the side? Or anybody out there a full-time freelancer? If you’re the latter, how did you make the transition from full-time office worker to being your own boss? Let me know in the comments!

Career Wednesday: Phone Interviews

I haven’t done too many phone interviews, and I always thought they were easier than in person ones because I wouldn’t have to stress about meeting someone.

But, I think I prefer one-on-one meetings.

Due to my circumstances, I had no choice but to do a phone interview for a job today. It went fairly well and took half an hour. After ten minutes in I realized that listening to someone speak over the phone and ask questions is more difficult to comprehend than having them ask me in person. I also had to be careful about my tone of voice, as that was all that the recruiter had to judge me on, and vice versa.

I’m visual so I prefer to see things. This goes with interviews too, I concluded. But it’s good to be exposed to different types of interviews right?

Do you prefer phone or in person interviews? Why? Let me know in the comments!