Kirstie's job log: 45

The story so far... Kirstie gave up her job in sales to pursue her dream of a career in journalism with a Masters at Westminster University, which is now coming to an end.

Home not Manchester

It seems I was getting just a little bit ahead of myself in my last blog. After all my careful research, revision and preparations before heading up to Manchester for my interview, it all came to nothing… I wasn’t offered the job.

However, even though I didn’t get the job, the whole interview experience was really helpful. With fewer and fewer jobs being offered in the media industry at the moment, anything I can do to get some practice in is a good thing. It’s just a shame I had to go all the way up to Manchester to do it!

So, that means my plans are back on track again. Since my last blog, I have moved out of halls in London and carted everything back home - and just as I thought, there doesn’t seem to be room for everything I have accumulated throughout the past year. I’m still living out of suitcases, as there is so much stuff clogging up my room that whenever I decide it’s time to have a sort out, I usually find something else (much more urgent) to do after taking one look at the mess!

Multi-employee

I haven’t been sitting around in the sun since I moved home though, as much as I’d like to. I have managed to pick up a plethora of minimum wage jobs in an attempt to keep my bank statement in the black. I am now a Secretary twice a week, an Audio Typist in the afternoons, a Cleaner in the evenings and a Telemarketer at the weekends. It’s great having money coming into my account again - unfortunately all this working for other people leaves very little time to get my own coursework done!

In fact, I haven’t got much further than coming up with an idea for the 30-minute radio documentary. I have decided to look into the impact of the credit crunch on the younger generation, and in fact I came up with the idea after writing an article for Prospects around the topic a few months ago. Although it seemed like a great idea at the time, it turns out the best interviewee would be a lecturer from a university in Edinburgh. It’s only the fact that I’m still pretty enthusiastic about the idea that means I’m considering the best (and cheapest!) way to get there.

I actually need to try and sort out my interviews as soon as possible - with the school summer holidays coming up soon it’ll be harder to pin people down. It’s been suggested that we try and get around 15 different interviews in order to fill the half hour slot, and I’m not sure there’s even close that many people who will have an opinion on the subject! Whenever I think about getting started on the work for it, I just remind myself that after all, I still have three months until it's due in!

Back of the queue

As for looking at jobs in journalism, all the work I’m doing at the moment means I have very little time to put together many applications. The ones that I have sent off haven’t been the best, and so far all I’ve had back has been rejection letters and emails - I’ve not even made it as far as another interview yet! With so many journalists being made redundant recently, companies can afford to employ those who have much more experience than I do at the moment.

It’s a real catch 22 situation I’m stuck in - I could work for free in order to gain more experience, but in order to do that I would need money in the bank to live off of while I did so. For the moment then, I’m planning to try and get some freelance work writing articles, which I can do from home in my own time – while I continue to build up the savings in preparation for yet more time without an income!

Read my previous job logs   

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