Yesterday morning I couldn’t tear myself away from Essex Chronicle Media Group senior editor Nev Wilson’s Twitter feed as he made his way through a stack of applications from people hoping to become a reporter on his papers.
It was quite clear from his tweets that many of those fighting for a chance to break into journalism in a hugely competitive job market were seeing their applications fall at the first hurdle because they were making very basic errors.
Journalism is a trade that values accuracy, research and – perhaps most importantly – the ability to handle language with care and confidence. Badly spelt applications and covering letters addressed to the wrong person won’t get you very far in most walks of life – but they are certainly not ways to ensure a newspaper editor remembers you. For the right reasons.
I’m not going to say much more on the subject – partly because I’m hoping Nev might get round to blogging about his experience – but you can see a selection of the tweets from Nev in this Storify I put together.
