This week Alex has been thinking about what to do should your career aspirations change.
I’ve been
at TARGETjobs Towers for nearly three months now and
I’ve found myself to be in a dilemma. It’s not the commute, the early mornings
or the routine that bother me, or the lack of ‘student mobility’. I’m wondering
whether I know what it is I want to do. Call it a mid-life crisis for a 20-year
old if you will.
On my first
day, I had an idea that I was going to gain a valuable insight into the way
magazine editorial works. This, I have come to realise, was a rather naïve
assumption. Not only would I be experiencing the publishing industry from a
grassroots level up, I would be thrown into a world that dipped its feet into
multiple industries on a daily basis.
Being
delegated tasks by editors who are responsible for fields as diverse as
engineering, law and management consultancy, you can imagine that my knowledge
of these different career paths increased significantly during the first few
weeks of my tenure. My youthful, journalistic mind was intrigued and weirdly, I
flirted with the idea that I could transfer into one of these industries.
Funnily
enough, and for me it really is funny, the industry I most came to be enticed
by was finance (SIGH). Up until this point in my career, I have not had the
slightest inclination to pursue a life in financial services, but now I would
be lying if it wasn’t a consideration I was making.
But I love
writing – something that I am not prepared to give up. So on to my dilemma. How
do I keep writing whilst also indulging my fancy for finance? I have lost many
(one) nights’ sleep to this question. The answer, by the way, is pretty simple
and, coincidently, it gets into our office every morning at about 10:00am. This
came in the form of a hot off the press Financial
Times. Cue an Olympic closing ceremony light bulb hat – Eureka.
It’s a
pause to kick myself moment, how something so obvious could be overlooked. Why
have I never thought of specialising in the way that I write? Yes, there is the
traditional print media, those that get circulated every day to hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of readers, but the number of specialist newspapers
and publications is staggering. It didn’t take long to realise the plethora of
opportunity that lay just outside my clammy reach.
I’ve
realised that I shouldn’t be so rigid in my thinking. Yes, I know what career I
want, but things may change depending on what you’re exposed to – in this
respect TARGETjobs has been a rebirth for my career aspirations. I’ve allowed a
wide variety of career paths to fall into my lap, ones that I had previously
never considered or knew of. Journalistic curiosity flowing, I’m ready to go
out and hunt one out.
But not
now, it’s raining.
Good post Alex. I think few students and graduates realise how many quality specialist publications and websites there are out there and the opportunities they present. The focus for media and publishing grads is more often newstand and main stream press, but you can start a very fulfilling career working in specialist B2B, B2C and trade publishing. You can also gain a lot of recognition in those specialist areas. A friend of mine who started out this way 10 years ago (as a graduate) has now just launched his own media and events business. I wish you good luck as you explore your options.
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