Advancing your broadcast news career is tough even in the best of times. Add the poor economy and the lack of jobs and you may think it's impossible to continue climbing the career ladder. Take a fresh look at your resume to be the candidate who will grab a news director's attention.
1. Understand What the Radio or TV Station Wants
News directors can receive hundreds of applications for one job. Many of these applicants are weeded out because they make simple mistakes or they take an approach 90 other applicants took. Spend time studying the job's ad, what the company wants and the way its current employees cover the news.
2. Write an Effective Cover Letter
If 50 or 100 people apply for the same job, how long do you think your potential boss will spend reading each cover letter from start to finish? If you don't grab his attention right away, your cover letter will be pushed aside so he can move on to the next one. Write an effective cover letter that sells yourself and motivates a news director to pick up the phone to schedule a job interview.
3. Position Your Resume to the Job Opening
You can blanket every media outlet with the same resume or you can show each one why you're the perfect candidate for the job. Look for clues in the job's ad. An ad for a producer position that requires 5 years experience, solid writing skills and non-linear editing experience helps you customize your resume with key points when others will be sending their standard resume for any job that interests them.
4. Take a Critical Look at Your Clips
You may be overselling yourself by sending too many of your published clips or making your broadcast news resume DVD too long. Use your very best work to land that interview. Once you take a close look at what you've been submitting, you may find you're sending in much of the same work, such as similar stories on education news. Cut the stories that seem repetitive, show your latest work and prepare a backup of clips in case the news director wants to see more of your samples by the end of the day.5. Create a Website to Market Yourself
The Internet gives you an easy way to market your skills even further than your cover letter, resume and clips. Use your website as a companion for news directors to learn more about your work and experience. But beware of relying on your website alone to help you get the job as well as thinking it's your website so you can put whatever content on there that you want. Your website should be a professional tool you use to convince any potential employer that you are the next person he wants working for him.
