Enduring the recession

Emily Banks is a former co-publisher and editor-in-chief of The Minnesota Daily. Since graduating with a degree in journalism in May 2008, she’s worked as a night reporter at the Leader-Telegram in Eau Claire, Wisc., and she currently interns at Georgia Public Broadcasting.

It’s hard to have much hope these days. Every day we hear another company will lay off another several hundred or thousand employees. They’ll join the masses of jobless around the world. And perhaps you will too if you’re a student scheduled to graduate this spring.
I say, be grateful if you have even a few months or years before being thrust into what some people call “the real world,” where life’s just not as fun as those “carefree college days.”
I’m determined to write an upbeat column, despite the constriction in my chest every time I think about my own career future.
And I’ll hope for the best — that you’re not a journalism student expecting to find a job in print medium, because that’s about as bleak as it gets. The day has already come when newspapers begin to fold and magazines print solely online.
Not to mention the multitude of layoffs that have already occurred and the extra, extremely experienced journalists shoved back into that jobless category. They’re now your competition.
But, I digress and reveal my biases.
If I could use my almost one year out of college as any example, I might offer a few tips.
Be persistent and apply for everything. From now until the time you get an offer. The more you apply for, your chances only improve. And, if you’re lucky, you can be picky if you get multiple offers. When you least expect it, you’ll get a bite.
Be flexible. You might be asked to have skills you’ve never learned. Or new skills might make you that much more appealing to an employer. Seek them out and learn them. Find a mentor or manual and take it upon yourself.
In times like this, you have to be resourceful. That, along with a positive attitude and ability to learn quickly might just be enough to get a job or internship. As a newspaper person in television, I’m proof of that.