Part 5 (1/2)

1. Are your lecturers full-time or part-time?

The ideal is lecturers who are also doers, and who are thus continually refres.h.i.+ng their knowledge; thus if the course is delivered by part-time staff who are active within the industry, it's probably a good sign. What you want are lecturers who are active in the market they teach. This means they'll be fully up to date with what is happening in publis.h.i.+ng right now, rather than what went on in 1980.

2. Who arranges work placements?

Some universities boast about their work placement programme as a key part of the course . . . and then leave you to organise it.

3. What activities/facilities do you get access to?

Are there programmes of guest speakers to which students from across the faculty are invited? What about trips and opportunities to see relevant organisations?

4. What is the employment history of previous students?

How many had a placement? What percentage of these opportunities turned into full-time jobs?

5. Is there a buzz?

Do the staff you meet ask about you and your aspirations? Do they talk about the course and students with enthusiasm? Or do you, perhaps, get the distinct impression you're helping them make up the quota of students they are required to recruit?

6. When was the course put together?

Long-established doesn't necessarily mean well-organised. Newer courses must necessarily have been put together more recently; older inst.i.tutions may be trading on their reputation rather than the good experience they offer. Ask questions, and switch on your antennae.

If you have your heart set on working for a particular employer or type of publisher, of course don't a.s.sume that the best way in is to stay well away from them and spend years and years and piles of money studying. Some publishers, especially those in the magazine world, really don't see the value in postgraduate degrees. Nose around the section of the industry that you're keen on first, ask other employees how they got there, take the temperature of your (hopeful) employers to be. If the consensus is that an undergraduate degree and a bit of editing your student newspaper won't do the trick, and you quite fancy finding out more about the different roles in the industry through some more study, then a postgraduate degree might well be a great option.

But if your favoured section of the industry universally sneers at postgraduate degrees, and you feel happy with your skills and experience base, consider saving yourself some time and money and jumping straight in.

Work experience For every publis.h.i.+ng job there are so very many people. How are you going to make your CV stand out? One thing that certainly helps is to have made your mark already. Having been around magazines or books and got into print already shows you're serious.

What kind of work do you need to have behind you? That actually matters much less than the fact that you have some. Experience is vital, says Debbie Baron, who looks after cadet/starter job applications on the Melbourne Herald Sun. Each year she gets about 120 applications for just two to six positions. Being involved in street press, says Debbie, or your school or community newspaper is an excellent sign that you're really committed to journalism. (By the way, she also makes the pertinent point that, since you're applying to work at a business built on news, you'll want to ensure your knowledge of current affairs is bang up to date.) Still in Australia, Jacqui Cheng at Fairfax Newspapers paints a similar picture although, strictly speaking, there are no cadets.h.i.+ps there, since you need a tertiary education to get in. With its business t.i.tles, BRW and the Australian Financial Review, there are certainly opportunities if you're from a business background. But in any case, you'd better be a news junkie. Fairfax attracts more than 800 applicants for about 20 positions, and once again it's a process of applying and, if you get that far, sitting an exam and then getting through the interviews.

'The exam's pretty tough, ' says Julia Medew, one of 2005's trainee intake, 'it expects you to have a wide knowledge of current affairs, and it quickly weeds those out who don't'. Julia is a good example of what persistence can achieve. With so many people and so few opportunities, talent by itself simply isn't enough. Starting out as a 'copy kid' at 18 and then working in various departments in different roles while she did her Arts degree at Monash, she was able to build up her experience and contacts so much so that, when she faced the editorial panel, she knew them all, including the editor-in-chief. And she had a stack of published stories to show, too.

When we spoke to her she was not long back from interviewing film stars at the AFI Awards but this, she was keen to stress, was hardly typical. Her advice, not surprisingly, is that experience beats all. 'It's changed a lot in recent years, I think, ' she says. 'An arts or a journalism degree is not enough by itself. You need work, work, work, whether it's on the local paper, on a website, on your university paper any hands-on real-life experience in a workplace that means you're pumping out copy and having it published regularly.'

Here's the way to get ahead: 1. Get involved as early as you can If you're at school, edit the school magazine. If you're at uni, get involved in as much of the media activity (newspaper, radio, TV) as you can. Not only is this terrific experience a deadline is a deadline, and a crisis a crisis! it proves that you really are keen.

2. Get a job in publis.h.i.+ng, or as near to it as you can get, in your holidays and weekends If it's not at all related, find out if you can bring in some publis.h.i.+ng-related ideas. Would the firm like a staff newsletter or a blog for their website? If you're working in a shop on your days off from uni, make sure it's a newsagent or a bookshop, not the local bakery.

3. Make yourself available for as long as you can Since it'll take you a while to pick up anything but the simplest job, it's unlikely that anyone is going to find it worth their while to train you if you're only going to be around for a week or two. If, though, you're able to commit to a month or longer, and you're ready, keen and cheap, then you become an attractive proposition.

Interns.h.i.+ps Interns.h.i.+ps are the best way to see if you like publis.h.i.+ng, meet the right people and find the right job for you. Not surprisingly, they're screamingly compet.i.tive.

Here are a couple of stories from people who got their break in publis.h.i.+ng through interns.h.i.+ps: I did work experience with Kogan Page and Bloomsbury, both arranged by my tutor from the MA programme. After I had finished, I left my CV with both firms and both subsequently came back to me when job opportunities occurred. I like to think it was because I made a good impression, but to be honest both firms admitted that when you need to find someone it tends to be a in a rush, and if you have already found an intern who meets your needs and you know fits in well, it saves huge amounts of time and money to opt for them. In fact the job I eventually took was with Wiley, and I am about to start as their rights and licensing coordinator.

(NATALIE MEYLAN, STUDENT ON THE 20067 PUBLIs.h.i.+NG MA PROGRAMME AT KINGSTON UNIVERSITY, UK) My first job was at a small publis.h.i.+ng house in Reading. I had just left university and was staying with my parents, so I wrote to any publishers I could find within easy commuting distance and offered myself for work experience. They originally took me on for a few days a week, inputting editorial corrections, then gave me more hours working on reception and running the post room. The best thing about it was probably the office subscription to The Bookseller, where I found the advert for my next job editorial a.s.sistant on Quality Paperbacks Direct, a direct mail book club that's part of BCA. I stayed for five years and worked my way up to Editor/Buyer, then moved to Waterstone's Head Office as their fiction buyer. (SUZIE DOORe, SENIOR EDITOR, HODDER & STOUGHTON, UK) How interns.h.i.+ps work * No-one pays you If you're lucky, you may get expenses.

* Most interns.h.i.+ps are at least two weeks If you're lucky, you might get up to six months of full- or part-time work.

* You get a desk and a mentor in the company to guide you If you're lucky, you'll get some meaningful projects to work on. That gives you a taste for the job, and the company a chance to get work done which wouldn't happen otherwise.

* You get the taste of the company If you're lucky, managers find out how ace you are and get accustomed to seeing you around; and you're first on the spot when a paid role comes up.

What will you be doing?

Often companies get interns working on things they've wanted to do for ages but haven't had the resources. That can lead to some really juicy and interesting projects that might include, for example, researching potential new publis.h.i.+ng markets, reviewing editorial systems and streamlining existing processes. You might cover a junior position during a recruitment freeze or maternity leave vacancy (and hopefully be offered the job yourself).

Don't leave this to chance, though. If you don't work on the manager to define a solid project for your time there, you can end up doing the filing and photocopying. You'll still get to know people and see if you like the company, but you won't get a chance to show off your ingenuity and brainpower. So do your best to structure the interns.h.i.+p to suit you.

How to set it up and make it benefit you For an interns.h.i.+p to work for you, you need half-a-dozen things, which we talk about below. Most of all, though, before you go any further, you need cash. Since you're not going to get paid for your work, how are you going to keep body and soul together? Maybe you could be an intern for three days a week and work the other two, or work in the evenings/at weekends? Maybe you have supportive parents or partner, or funds saved up?

Find out about your ent.i.tlement to benefits and whether it is compromised by taking an interns.h.i.+p it may be that if it improves your long-term employability, and you are still available for paid work should it arise, your ent.i.tlement may not be reduced. Don't, for goodness sake, take our word for it. Get the story, in black and white (in writing), before you jump.

Here's how to do it: 1. Outline your goals Do you simply want to see if publis.h.i.+ng is for you? To check out a company where you want to work? To try a few different areas of publis.h.i.+ng? To make contacts? To get a job? Once you know what you want, you can make sure the interns.h.i.+p is structured to maximise your chances of getting it.

2. Work out where you want to go Interns.h.i.+ps don't grow on trees. They do, however, grow on the lists in trade directories. Talk to friends and relatives. Research the Web (Google 'publis.h.i.+ng interns.h.i.+p' for a start). Try your university course/university careers service/writers' centre/ careers counsellor/a.s.sociation (such as for women in publis.h.i.+ng or young publishers, etc). Make lists. Follow up leads. Become obsessed: this is going to take a lot of work.

3. Get in touch!

If you know which department (marketing/editorial/production etc) you want to work in, start with the department manager they're the person you'll be working for, so if they can't see the opportunity, it's probably not going to work out. If you're looking for general experience or to work across a range of departments, the HR (Human Resources) manager or (in a small company) general manager will probably work best.

Large publishers work by divisions. So, for example, McGraw-Hill in the UK has School Education, Higher Education and Professional/Medical divisions. These divisions often have parallel roles, but the management structure only joins together at the top. So if you want to try the marketing department in three separate divisions, you'll probably need to do this organising three times over, or find an energetic HR person who will do it for you.

4. Make your approach by phone (not e-mail or letter) Yes, we mean it. It increases your chances of success tenfold, for the very simple reason that it's very easy to tip a letter into the too-hard basket, and far harder to do the same with someone on the phone. It takes a bit of nerve to do this, but believe us, it pays off, big time.

Try something like this: I'm a graduate looking for a career in publis.h.i.+ng, and I particularly want to complete a voluntary, unpaid interns.h.i.+p position with your company. I wondered if we could meet to discuss how this might work, please?

Make it clear right from the start that you're proposing an unpaid interns.h.i.+p, and that you're a university graduate (if you are) you don't want them getting you confused with 16-year-old work experience candidates!

They may have a few questions for you on the phone, but if they are within travelling distance, trying to set up a meeting is always a good idea. (And if they're not in travelling distance, why do you want to work there?) If they pa.s.s you on to someone else such as HR, then pursue the lead with them. This is a good thing, by the way: you've just been referred, which means you already come carrying a little credibility.

Remember, too, that you're talking to someone who's almost certainly over worked and you're offering to work for free. There's a real chance this could go somewhere.

5. Be creative The best interns.h.i.+p is one that interests you, and if you suggest a project (based on your understanding of what they do), you're more likely to get it. You could suggest, for example, one of the following: * A new, growing area of publis.h.i.+ng that particularly interests you and looking into who publishes within it, which books have been hits, who the top authors are, whether there is export potential everything they might need to start publis.h.i.+ng in that area?

* A marketing project such as a frequent buyer scheme, website/e-mail voucher campaign or bookshop window dressing compet.i.tion . . . think of schemes you've seen that work well and how they might be adapted for your chosen publisher * Research on how the firm's compet.i.tors are approaching their market and the image they are promoting in the process You're probably thinking that you're unlikely to hit the spot. And, frankly, you're right: you won't. But most potential employers will appreciate the time and effort you've put into researching their business certainly we would.

6. Make sure the company respects you and your skills You're working for free, but you're not worthless. Ideally, you're looking for a company/manager to: * Provide you with a proper works.p.a.ce of your own, including desk, phone, computer * Take the time to discover your interests and skills and a.s.sign you to projects that use your expertise, as well as giving you opportunities to stretch yourself * Provide you with at least one mentor/manager you can work with closely and who shows you where the loo and the kettle are * Treat you like a regular employee, include you in departmental treats and pay for work-related expenses Not surprisingly, we don't recommend handing over a list of these requirements before you start. Instead it's probably best to try to establish the answers to these questions in a general meeting, before you start (can you call in the week before to find out how things work; or perhaps they can put you in touch with someone else who has done work experience so you can chat about how it went?). The bottom line is that you are doing work for nothing, and if they don't treat you with respect, it's probably not somewhere you'd like to work anyway.