Denied again

Once again, I'm denied a job and lost out to a guy with more experience than me. It's difficult to keep your chin up after losing in a job interview, and yes, there are losers in these things. After a month of applying for this government position, an interview and a few anxious weeks awaiting a callback, calling myself and getting the final word today, I'm getting tired of this. It's depressing.

I've written about it here before, but trying to transfer my job skills from journalism to another profession is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I even had volunteer experience in a Congressman's campaign, which was successful, but still didn't get the job. I understand that other job candidates may have the exact experience the employer is looking for, but in this case and many others I'm positive I could do the job expertly. Experience is great, but job skills are also a great way to judge if someone can do the job. I gave my references, which I don't think were checked, and I'm sure they would have been great references if called.

I'm trying not to get too down on myself for not getting this job, because a dozen years of experience will probably always trump a newcomer, but I've still got to believe someone will see my transferable skills, drive, ability to do the job, and give me a chance. I don't mind starting anew again, but after six months of this rejection, I'm having a hard time finding the ability to keep going. Tomorrow may be a lot different, with some hope. That's what I, and every unemployed worker, can strive for. To keep on pushing forward and forget the offer that didn't quite make it.

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Tech tools

On Jan. 22 I'm attending the event below, which applies to all reporters, not just health reporters. I'm interested in how these tools can help me as a journalist, but also as a job hunter. I already regularly use Twitter, Facebook and a blog, and wonder what are the best ways to use them to their full advantage. Through my job search I'm open to remaining a journalist, probably online, but also see these online tools as things to use in my next job, whether it be in communications or elsewhere.

***** Thursday, January 22: TECH TOOLS FOR HEALTH REPORTERS

Tech Tools for Health Reporters: How blogs, Twitter, social networking, and more can improve your skills

Where: San Francisco Business Times
275 Battery St., Suite 940, San Francisco
6 8 pm
Light refreshments will be served
This event is free; please RSVP

Event details:
Whether you're a staff reporter or freelancer, you've undoubtedly heard that to survive in the media in the future, you'll need to blog, podcast, and Twitter. A few writers have become conversant in online technologies and are using them to the benefit of their careers. Many of the rest of us, though, may have experimented with a blog or used Facebook to find sources for a story, but are still waiting to see how the digital revolution is really going to help our work lives.

We'll explore this question with a panel of folks who are using online technology or helping others to do so.

Amy Tenderich, author, Diabetes Mine blog, and a San Francisco-based writer and consultant diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2003. She's using the blog as an outlet for what she's learned about the disease and a way to help others. Her blog is chockfull of information, colorful and graphic-laden and includes advertising. We'll learn more about how she developed the blog and how it fits into her career goals as a writer.

Jerry Monti, technology training instructor for UC Berkeley's Knight Digital Media Center, will discuss how journalists can and should be using online technology to further their work.

Moderator: Jan Greene is a longtime healthcare freelancer who has been waiting for her blog (http://www.healthplanconsumer.com/) to catch fire and ignite her career. Jan, based in Alameda, has a daily newspaper background and writes for healthcare-related trade and consumer magazines and newspapers.

for more information, please contact: Colleen ParettyChair, Bay Area AHCJ chaptercparetty@pobox.com or Bay.Area.AHCJ@gmail.com

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Even a hooker knows to collect first

What career did the telegraph writer go into when he got laid off? Did the horse and buggy driver take six months to find a job when his job was eliminated? Did typewriter repair shop owners polish their resumes on a typewriter when computers took over? Will the last auto worker in Detroit please close the door?

As an unemployed newspaper journalist, I can see how workers in dying professions, or at least massively changing professions, must have felt as their jobs ended. I expect newspapers will survive in some form, but as news content moves to the Internet, they're starting to learn how to get there before they die.

The Detroit newspapers recently made a smart decision, I think, that is at least an effort to keep from going under. They will publish three days a week and charge people to read their content on the Internet. Hooray! Finally, a newspaper is charging to read it online. I hope it's a success. At least a prostitute knows to get payment on top of the dresser before services are rendered. Instead of giving it away, the Detroit papers are asking for money upfront to read online. The Detroit Free Press online is $12 a month or free with a home subscription.

That move is too late to save my job at a California newspaper, but it gives me hope that newspapers will find a way to survive and be profitable.

I doubt if I'll work in newspapers again, although the news business is a career I love. I just now hope to either do it online or find another career equally exciting. Like autoworkers, who face a dying profession unless GM and Chrysler can get their act together, journalists are being laid off left and right to keep newspapers financially afloat. In the end, this may come back to haunt the newspapers, which rely on strong reporting and editing to produce a product readers will want. The cuts they've made may be so deep that readers will notice the little local news that makes it into the paper.

Drink or go home

Tonight I'm going to an editorial planning meeting of The Public Press, an online source of noncommercial news for the Bay Area that I'm volunteering at. It's a nonprofit.

After all of the heavy discussion about content and the direction of the news site, the talk will eventually turn to going out for a drink. The offices are in San Francisco, and I've heard that some people are talking about going to North Beach afterward for some drinks. My dilemma: I have to take BART all the way back to Concord after the meeting ends around 9 p.m. or so, so my parents can be relieved of babysitting duties and go before midnight. My wife is working tonight, as she does most nights. Journalists, as you may have seen in a few movies, can drink. There are plenty of Facebook groups dedicated to them.

It's not the worst possible problem, I admit, but I am torn: Beer or home to family life. Vote now!

Sick and still tired

It's tough enough taking care of a 4-year-old who has a constant stream of energy coming out of her, but having a cold makes it much, much worse. I got sick Sunday night and this afternoon and evening was difficult as I sneezed, downed vitamin C by the glassful, and tried to take a nap while the kid watched TV and ran around screaming. I couldn't find the pills fast enough.

But now she's asleep, and the job hunt continues. I learned tonight that a government agency wants to interview me for a communications job I applied for at least a month or two ago, so I'm preparing for that. (I'm getting superstitious and don't want to reveal the company name until hired.) I enjoy preparing for interviews, partly because I get to use a reporter's skills in researching, but also because it's a fun chance to learn something new about an organization I didn't know too much about before I applied for the job.

Today was also spent doing an interview for a story I'm pitching for Spot.us, so all wasn't lost in the tea-filled haze I've been in. I will also have some good news to report on the blog, which I expect to have available for publication by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

Oil spill story pitch

Spot.us is going live Monday, Nov. 10 in an official launch, and I have a second pitch for a story about the Cosco Busan oil spill a year ago in the San Francisco Bay. If you've donated, thanks. If not, check it out and see what you think. And for people who have pledged to make a donation, please remember the final step of actually funding that donation with your credit card.

I have another story pitch about solar power if you're interested in that one. Both are stories I think are important and I plan to do many more for Spot.us if these are successful.

The site, you may remember from previous blog entries, uses "crowdfunding" to raise money so journalists like me can report and write these stories. That type of funding was popular in President-elect Barack Obama's campaign, where he raised millions of dollars through small donations on the Internet. So far, Spot.us is focusing on the Bay Area but the ultimate goal is to someday get it everywhere in the country.

My story pitch

I have a pitch on Spot.us to write a story about solar power in the Bay Area and why we don't see more solar panels on homes. I want to find out why it costs so much and what companies are doing to bring that cost down.

If you read the previous blog on making the media profitable again, then you have an idea of what Spot.us is doing: Using "crowdfunding," like Barack Obama did in his presidential campaign, to raise a lot of small sums through donations on the Internet.

Ten percent of the money raised for a story goes to an editor for fact checking and the rest goes to the reporter. So for the solar story, the total cost is $1,000 and the editor would get $100 and I'd get the remaining $900. A good way to keep me off the streets. If you can afford a small donation of $10 to $25, then please donate. If not, pass along to someone else who can. It's a great way to support important journalism.

Good and bad days

Everyone, whether they're searching for a job or not, has bad days. The trick to getting past them, I think, is to find some small accomplishment to proudly point to and not feel like the day was a total waste in the job hunt or whatever it is you're doing.

Some days feel like you haven't accomplished a thing, while others feel right on target with many accomplishments. Today was a mixed bag for me, but a lot of positives to take on a day that didn't start out so well as I ran into a lot of traffic on I-680 on my way to an informational interview. The talk, with a former CCT colleague, went great and was an inspiration to keep trying. I wanted to know how someone who has been a life-long journalist moved into another field and how they overcame the barriers employers throw up to people witih transferable skills, but maybe not the exact, defined skills they desire. The guy I talked with, for example, found a great job in corporate communications, but had never done such a job before. He turned his managerial experience at newspapers, his abilities under deadline pressure at newspapers, and other skills he used as a journalist, and turned them into a job in corporate communications. I'd like to do the same, among other job possibilities, and he helped me see how to do that better.

Other bonuses today: A friend who works for the state government forwarded a job opening to me, which I will apply for on Thursday. I'm looking into taking a PowerPoint class at the local adult education center in December, the earlies it's available. I plan to go to the local community college on Thursday to look into working as a guest lecturer and taking classes, if I can afford them.

Those were the highlights. The low? I found out from a recruiter that a Nevada newspaper is going forward with two candidates for an editor position, and so far isn't calling me in for an interview. And awaiting callback from Texas.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

A former co-worker this week kindly wrote in an e-mail to me that from reading this blog, it looks like I may "make my fate" through the volunteer work I'm doing. As you may recall, I'm volunteering my writing and associated journalism skills to Jerry McNerney's re-election campaign for Congress. It has only been a few weeks, but I've been busy writing, and this week I did research on campaign sign restrictions in the various cities and counties in McNerney's 11th Congressional District. I'll detail the rundown, in case anyone's interested, on lawn sign regulations in a minute.

One thing I hope to show during this volunteer stint is how my journalism skills can transfer. They include not just writing and editing, but researching, analytical skills, taking complex issues and making them easy to understand, handling multiple projects on deadline, and other skills journalists have. I still believe that they're valued skills in this economy and that someone will pay me for them.

As for the lawn signs, I created a spreadsheet of maximum sign size, where they can go, where to call to complain about an illegal campaign sign, etc. While jurisdictions vary on size and how long they can stay up, they all include the basic common sense of not putting signs on public property or where they can block a driver's view. Other than that, some cities are picky about size and some allow any size sign to go up. It's a bit of an insight into how cities are run, whether they're full or red tape and limits, or free-wheeling and open.