criodain

Hi all,

I reckon this is my first time ever creating a thread since I've been on here. Well, I've commented in several forums, but haven't been on the Aussie one in a few years now at least.

I had been thinking about Aus about four years back, but personal stuff got in the way, and I'm still in windswept old Ireland.

I went back to uni to pursue a masters in journalism.

I am under no illusions that it will be easy to get a job as a straight ahead journalist, so really need to start considering my options as I come to the end of the course.

My background is technical writing and online marketing (SEO & PPC), so I'm hoping to combine my journalistic skills with those and end up with a super duper job!

The online side of journalism would be an obvious first choice to look at.

From my job research at the moment, Ireland is bad. There is little to nothing full time in the writing game.

I'm 37 and not interested in nixers. I'm sick of being broke!

My options are: the UK, continental Europe, and *maybe* Australia.

London would be a good place to get some experience, but I could never imagine settling there but I would certainly not rule it out.

I speak French and Italian, and both countries aren't faring out much better than Ireland. Again, not to say they are impossible. I lived in Italy, and some of the bureaucracy can be horrendous.

So, I'd like to explore all my options.

It's on the skills list, so that's a bonus for now. I haven't looked into visas etc for now, but I will.

I would be interested in hearing from people in the writing game in Australia and what your experiences of it are?

I've been to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane so have a general idea of what each city is like.

michael_w

Don't want to dash your dreams but it's a very difficult time to be a journo in Australia, especially for someone who has no local experience or contacts. Been a lot of redundancies at the B2B publishers where I work. We were just joking today that the local pub is doing booming business with all the leaving parties. I have seen very experienced colleagues get the chop - often because they are the highest paid and the company now prefers to use interns and freelancers/casuals. It's still possible to find work here, but if I was starting again I would head for London - there is just so much more work there. Australia is a very small pond in comparison. Other possibility would be to consider somewhere like China - many opportunities there for native English speakers.

spouse of scouse

As an Aussie, would agree about the 'small pond' thing especially in my home town of Perth. Don't know if this will scare or inspire you, but I'll give you the career progression of one of my sisters.

Studied journalism at Uni
Worked for a commercial radio station doing the news for the breakfast show.
Worked for Department of Corrections as an Executive Manager - primarily dealing with media, writing press releases and overseeing communications between the Department, community, prisoners and families.
Currently, Director of corporate communications with a large State government dept.

I realize that the work she's doing mightn't be for you - am just trying to say that it's likely you'll need to explore some 'non-traditional' careers as pure journo jobs are scarcer than poultry dentation.

Best of luck!

criodain

Thanks for the replies. It seems like it's not just up in Ireland where things have gone to pot in the journalism game.

I didn't expect to get a job as a traditional journalist anyhow. But I would like a job writing. That could be pr, technical writing, communications department.

It looks like journalism is becoming more and more a freelancing game. I have no problem with that I suppose.

Yes, London is on my radar, but I could see a large expensive city like London possibly grinding me down after a few years. I'd prefer somewhere like Manchester, but I won't turn down a good opportunity in London either.

I suppose I was trying to look at the bigger picture. (taking the lifestyle into account as well).

I would have thought the likes of Melb and Syd would be as good as any other large city in the world?

But I can also see how the lack of local experience and knowledge would be a hindrance.

MountainHiker

Technical writing is a good avenue to explore plenty of jobs, helps if you have an engineering background though. Bonus is you can work from home so you can live anywhere you like.

Bermudashorts

Melbourne and Sydney are small ponds in terms of world cities, not even close to same league as say London.

DianneH68

When I came over eight years ago I sponsored by a company called Pagemasters as a sub-editor....they have since taken over the world as a sub-hub - most papers outsource all their subbing to them.
I now work as a sub at the Gold Coast Bulletin on a casual basis. I took redundancy from them before though as they chopped lots of staff.
Think newspapers are on the up again after some hefty cuts a year or two ago

babyposer

Hello

I am a french SEO executive and if you are willing to come to Paris, loads of work there.

I personally dislike this city but if you like it and speak french, why not.

I have a friend who went to Australia, she got job offers via Linkedin (to work in the SEO/copywriting field). Unfortunately her english was poor and so she was not able to accept these jobs.

Anyway, loads of job in the UK to work in this industry I think. I applied myself for some jobs in the UK and got replies pretty quickly. It's an asset if you speak both french and italian

samnrob2

Hi there. I work for one of the major Aus PR/Comms agencies. It's certainly tough at the moment and plenty of very qualified comms people coming out of the traditional media trade into the industry, joining the new grads and the bloody advertising guys who think they can string a sentence together. What's more we're seeing the other professional services (lawyers and accountants) along with engineers claiming to offer stakeholder engagement and comms advice *shudder*.

There's blurring of lines so you may want to look at unconventional sectors (like the ones mentioned) who will be looking for good technical writers. Plenty of groups on Linkedin to look out for.

PM me if you want any more thoughts.

Ta

Rob

babyposer

Hi samnrob2,

Does your company hire SEO manager/SEO copywriter too ?

Thanks!

samnrob2

We don't employ directly. We tend to bring in specialists as required. PM me if you want to discuss further.

Thanks

Rob

paulry

With your bag of skills I'd be looking in the Business Analyst space. The last time I looked, there were tons of vacancies for a good BA (of various orientations) in almost every western country. I'm not sure so you'll need to check on the govt immigration website, but I think "Business Analyst" is likely to be on the current skills in demand list (or whatever they're calling it now). Once here in Australia you can proceed with any occupation you like - including journalism. Good luck!

Gordon Barlow

Just a thought, but mightn't it be useful for Criodain (the OP) if he could point prospective employers to stuff he has written - perhaps as collected on a personal blog? I don't know from practical experience whether that would work or not, but it seems logical. I have a blog, but I write it for my own amusement and am not looking to sell anything. Nevertheless, if I were looking to sell myself as a writer, I would probably offer selected essays from the blog as samples. It makes sense, in theory.

criodain

Apologies for the late reply. 10 months later! In the meantime, I finished my masters and am in the process of starting a paid internship until July.

Yup, 38 years old, I should be well shot of internships, but it'll give me some good direct experience in the field, which seems to be a stumbling block of sorts since I finished last September.

I'm still back to square one in August though and still looking at moving out of Ireland.

I've had no joy applying to the UK so far or on continental Europe. Perhaps it's a case of having to be on the ground rather than blindly applying.

I'm not ruling out Canada or Australia either. Both very different countries obviously, and both with their advantages. I'm free and single that way...

criodain

I have a link to anything I got published in newspapers on Linkedin, as well as a link to my personal blog too.