into_thewild

Hello all. I am a dual US/UK citizen however I have lived in the UK practically my whole life. I would like to move to the US and have started looking for jobs there. I currently work as a reporter for a local paper in the UK. Can anyone give me some tips on applying for jobs in the US while based in the UK? Or is it a completely fruitless exercise?
Thanks

penguinsix

As a journalist, beyond fruitless exercise. There are massive layoff throughout the industry and you'll be up against people who will have more experience and work for less and can start tomorrow. It's just a really horrid thing right now.

You might look at branching into other related fields, from public relations to technical writing. You might find more opportunities if you spread your base a bit wider.

Generally online ad sites are really not worth your time. You'll get your foot in the door through networking and whatnot. If you happen to see a job at XYZ Corporation or whatever, tap your social, career and academic networks to see if there is anyone already in that place who can slide your resume over to the powers that be behind the scenes. Really will make quite a difference. They may interview a total of three applicants from the 3,000 they get from the online ads, but they'll also interview the three applicants from the three they get from internal connections.

ian-mstm

He's a USC... he could start tomorrow. That said, I agree 100% with the rest of your post.

Ian

into_thewild

Thanks for the info. I had an idea the journalism job market would be bad if over here's anything to go by.
Saying that, I wouldn't be adversed to going in to PR or technical writing or some such. I would even like to try my hand at teaching English, although going the process to become a qualified teacher will prolly be extremely expensive.
I know I'm lucky just to have the job I do but it is my long term goal to move to the US. I know I would probably have more luck if I was situated in the US but that would require me giving up my job over here and upping sticks with no prospects. This would most likely result in me returning to the UK with my tail inbetween my legs.

penguinsix

Yea, what I meant was locally (i.e. already in the city) as I thought he was still in the UK. There's probably an unemployed journalist (or ten) in most major cities already.

But it is a bit of a change on this site to get someone wanting to move to the US who doesn't need to hop through all the visa hurdles.

rpjs

The company my wife currently works for as a TEFL teacher doesn't require any formal TEFL qualification as they have their own bespoke system. I'm not sure if they require any teaching experience at all though, and the money isn't very good.

TimNiceBut

My understanding is that teaching in general doesn't pay very well - an acquaintance of ours is a teacher who's got additional qualifications to teach special needs kids as well and if his wife didn't have her own business that they've been working on for 20+ years, they'd be living under a bridge somewhere.

Every time we see him he's trying to decide if he should go back into construction, even with the way the economy is.

Not trying to put a downer on this, if you really want to teach there should be plenty of opportunities but you're not going to get well off, let alone rich doing it.

Bob

Yeah, all about the contacts.

Also probably depends on where you're interested, might have more luck in places like Boston or NYC, but then hardly cheap places to stay.

Technical writing is probably a good way in though, quite a bit of jobs going for that in the medical and mechanical/electrical engineering fields in and around Boston.

Kar98

Funny you should say that, we're currently looking into Boston.

Bob

what kind of sector? Might have some introductions for what they're worth.

Kar98

I sent you a PM with my e-mail address