Oh my God, is it November already???? And did I really last post on this blog in July????
I really can't believe I've been away from the blogosphere for so long - I've not even logged into my Blogger account since August. Again, many many apologies, and perhaps it's just better for me to say I'm only going to post sporadically from now on... sorry guys... but I will take the time to check all your blogs and catch up with what I've missed from the last couple of months - starting from after I finish this blog post.
So many things have happened since I last posted here that this is going to be one long blog post I'm afraid! I turned 28 just over a month ago, and the days in the run-up to any birthday are always a time for reflection on what you've achieved in the year. At least, they are for me, anyway.
In my final days - well, final months, really - of being 27 years of age, I actually started to feel a little depressed. That was partly the reason why I didn't post on this blog during August and September - I just kind of felt that I was fast approaching 30 with not much to show for my life career-wise, and I'd always imagined that in my late 20s I'd be hugely successful and fast climbing the professional ladder in a high-powered career.
The reality, of course, was completely different. I still hadn't got a job, and it didn't look like I had any hope of getting one - despite hating accountancy, I was still applying for those jobs just so that I'd have an income to pay off the mortgage and bills. It sounds crazy, doesn't it - why the hell would I still be applying for jobs in a profession I was so desperate to leave to begin with? To my great shame, the only answer I can give you is that it was what was familiar, and the habits in my brain were telling me to go back to what was familiar rather than risk trying something new and unknown. I think most of us do that to some extent, even when we're consciously in the process of changing things for the better!
Thanks to the ongoing credit crunch, I still couldn't get an accountancy job. Ever more accountants were being made redundant, yet I still foolishly kept trying to get an accountancy job. What made it even worse was that I'd already been commissioned for a two-day reporting stint at a magazine in late July. I think I mentioned a little bit in my last blog post. So it's not as if I was totally failing at the freelance journalism thing at that point. There was another reason too, for why I felt a bit down, which I shall go into later in this post.
But it's not all doom and gloom. The other reason I didn't post in August was simply because I was out of the country (on a dead-cheap European holiday) for some of it, which was pretty nice.
And getting my first commission was a pretty pleasing result. As mentioned, I used the four articles from my work experience stint on a national newspaper for my portfolio, bought a copy of The Writers' Handbook 2010 (it was on sale at half the price, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered) and worked my way through it. I decided to target magazines specialising in accountancy and finance to start with, on the grounds that I used to be an accountant and therefore would be able to draw on my knowledge and training in writing about it.
I cold-called a few of the editors, and most of them simply asked me to send them my CV and a sample of clips from my portfolio. However, one of them, on hearing I used to actually be an accountant - qualified and everything - asked me to come into their offices in London for coffee and a chat. I dragged my portfolio along with me and he gave me the most gruelling "chat" ever. It turned out he was being so tough simply because he was treating it as a job interview - unbeknownst to me, he was thinking of hiring me for a reporter role and just wanted to see how I interviewed under a pressured situation! I saw the funny side though, and he did apologise for putting me on the spot like that!
As a result of our interview "chat" he decided to give me a two-day trial at the end of July to see how I got on, knowing that I had very little journalism experience and even less news-reporting experience. He offered to pay me the usual daily rate for reporters.
So that's where I left off from my last post. I was so proud to send my very first invoice, for quite a nice amount too. However, it turned out I had to sign their Freelancer Terms & Conditions.
I was very unhappy with some of the clauses - especially the ones where the freelancer had to agree to take all responsibility for any legal action brought against the publication - and tried to suggest an alternative contract, which I don't think the editor was too happy about, especially as it had to be sent through their legal team. As the weeks wore on, the contract remained unagreed, and I still hadn't been paid, I began to feel very very unhappy. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), who usually advise freelancers not to sign contracts like this, refused to help me as I wasn't an NUJ member but I couldn't become an NUJ member until I'd been paid. As a result I didn't blog or even do anything to further my budding freelance journalism career during August or September, that's how unhappy it made me.
By mid-September, it was clear that the contract was never going to be changed, and until I signed it, I wouldn't get paid. I still had no other clients, so I decided to just swallow my pride and sign it. After all, as a brand-new freelancer without a name for herself, it was hardly likely I'd have much negotiating clout in these matters anyway. I decided that if I signed it, I'd simply have to be careful what I wrote about (to minimise any chance of court action) and look into getting professional indemnity insurance. Funnily enough, even though I wasn't totally happy about signing such a contract, once I had signed it the depression lifted and I was soon buzzing with writing ideas.
The moral of the tale here is: agree on a contract first before agreeing to do any work for anyone - it really was my own fault for blindly going into something without first making sure I knew exactly what I was getting into!
So I rang up the editor at the end of September, told them I was signing and sending back the contract (so that I could actually be paid for July's work) and while I was at it, pitched a new idea to them. The editor agreed to commission the article from me, and gave me a week to do a 1,000-word article which they featured as a three-page spread in the centre of the magazine. Nice!
Due to a hiring freeze, I didn't get the reporter role that he initially wanted to hire me for (even after making me do a screen test to see how I coped on TV - they have their own web TV channel for topical interviews), but fortunately that editor was so happy with the work I've done for them so far they've agreed to commission me as a freelancer anyway. I've signed off Job-Seeker's Allowance as a result - which is great, because fortnightly trips to the Jobcentre were really doing my head in!
So to conclude my story, I spent a total of seven days in October covering on the newsdesk in their offices whenever any of the reporters were away, and contributing a lot of articles to both their website and their printed paper publication. My portfolio is now considerably larger and I actually feel like I've established myself as a freelance journalist - even though I currently only have one client!
About a week ago - yes, near the end of October - I finally received payment for July's outstanding invoice (really need to do better at credit control and cashflow in future) and have sent two more invoices to that publication, establishing a 30-day term for payment so that I don't have to wait so long for payment again (though I admit I had a lot to do with the hold-up for not agreeing the contract). I registered myself with the tax authorities as self-employed - a scary but necessary step - and am now looking for my next client and next article commission.
Funnily enough I am STILL registered with recruitment agencies for accountancy jobs and have had my CV forwarded to employers even now, but the lack of success and/or response is no longer bothering me. I'm hoping that my freelance journalism career will soon be so well-established, and paying me so well, that I'll never need to be bothered about accountancy jobs ever again.
Showing posts with label opportunity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opportunity. Show all posts
Monday, 2 November 2009
Monday, 27 April 2009
Recession and redundancy - disaster or opportunity?
My mate Steven's 26th birthday party was on Saturday night, so my boyfriend and I had the perfect excuse to spend the day - well, the whole weekend, really - wandering round in the glorious sunshine before heading over to Covent Garden where the party was. Despite a spate of redundancies at the City law firm he works for, Steven confided cheerfully that he wasn't worried.
"I've decided to take voluntary redundancy," he confessed over his pint of beer. "There's so many people losing their jobs, I'm not going to sit around and wait to see if I'm next."
"You're doing what?!?" I gasped. "I thought you liked your job?"
"Oh, I do like my job," he answered airily, "but I work such long hours all the time, I haven't had a break for years. So the opportunity's come up, and I've decided to take it. Besides which," he added, grinning, "I get a much bigger payoff this way."
"But, mate," I continued to protest. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Well, yeah," he said. "I mean, come on, this is an opportunity, innit? I can sit at home, have a rest, do nothing for a year, maybe I'll even travel a bit, then go back to work somewhere else..."
Now that's a response I haven't often heard this recession: "It's an opportunity". Open any newspaper or turn on any TV, and you'll hear a thousand and one doom-and-gloom articles about the failing economy and the ever-increasing queues outside jobcentres up and down the UK. In the past 18 months the BBC news website has featured stories of despair from people who have either been made redundant, or are under threat of being made redundant. People are worried sick, taking on more work, taking pay cuts, working longer hours, being nice to the boss, all in a desperate scramble to hold onto their jobs as tightly as possible, yet here's my mate Steven jumping at the chance to lose his job - hell, he's even asking his firm to let him go.
While the next few weeks will show if Steven actually meant it (or whether he'd simply drunk too much beer), I couldn't help wondering about both points of view. Clearly the media have painted the credit crunch as an unmitigated disaster, the worst financial crisis for a century; but there is a small crowd who feel that the recession has thrown up plenty of opportunity. In Steven's case, he's 26, single and has no domestic or financial commitments. He went straight into practising law after university, so unlike myself, he didn't have the chance to travel or try something else before embarking on a career. It's easy to see how he'd view this recession as a big opportunity for himself.
But it's not just him, though. Some businesses are taking that view as well. Budget supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl in the UK are apparently having a great time, as is any business marketed for "the credit crunch". Foyles Bookstore in London's Charing Cross Road put up posters listing their examples of businesses that had started in recessions:
While I am not going to be one of those dismissive or unrealistically "optimistic" people who bray that this recession is nothing to worry about, or who belittle the hardship and distress of many going through tough circumstances, I do feel it's probably worth remembering that there are two sides to every story as with everything else.
Now I just have to sit down with a cup of tea and consider what opportunity my own redundancy has given me!
"I've decided to take voluntary redundancy," he confessed over his pint of beer. "There's so many people losing their jobs, I'm not going to sit around and wait to see if I'm next."
"You're doing what?!?" I gasped. "I thought you liked your job?"
"Oh, I do like my job," he answered airily, "but I work such long hours all the time, I haven't had a break for years. So the opportunity's come up, and I've decided to take it. Besides which," he added, grinning, "I get a much bigger payoff this way."
"But, mate," I continued to protest. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Well, yeah," he said. "I mean, come on, this is an opportunity, innit? I can sit at home, have a rest, do nothing for a year, maybe I'll even travel a bit, then go back to work somewhere else..."
Now that's a response I haven't often heard this recession: "It's an opportunity". Open any newspaper or turn on any TV, and you'll hear a thousand and one doom-and-gloom articles about the failing economy and the ever-increasing queues outside jobcentres up and down the UK. In the past 18 months the BBC news website has featured stories of despair from people who have either been made redundant, or are under threat of being made redundant. People are worried sick, taking on more work, taking pay cuts, working longer hours, being nice to the boss, all in a desperate scramble to hold onto their jobs as tightly as possible, yet here's my mate Steven jumping at the chance to lose his job - hell, he's even asking his firm to let him go.
While the next few weeks will show if Steven actually meant it (or whether he'd simply drunk too much beer), I couldn't help wondering about both points of view. Clearly the media have painted the credit crunch as an unmitigated disaster, the worst financial crisis for a century; but there is a small crowd who feel that the recession has thrown up plenty of opportunity. In Steven's case, he's 26, single and has no domestic or financial commitments. He went straight into practising law after university, so unlike myself, he didn't have the chance to travel or try something else before embarking on a career. It's easy to see how he'd view this recession as a big opportunity for himself.
But it's not just him, though. Some businesses are taking that view as well. Budget supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl in the UK are apparently having a great time, as is any business marketed for "the credit crunch". Foyles Bookstore in London's Charing Cross Road put up posters listing their examples of businesses that had started in recessions:
- Burger King
- Disney
- FedEx
- Microsoft
- CNN
- General Electric
- MTV
- Sports Illustrated
- Hewlett Packard
While I am not going to be one of those dismissive or unrealistically "optimistic" people who bray that this recession is nothing to worry about, or who belittle the hardship and distress of many going through tough circumstances, I do feel it's probably worth remembering that there are two sides to every story as with everything else.
Now I just have to sit down with a cup of tea and consider what opportunity my own redundancy has given me!
Thursday, 16 April 2009
National newspaper comes calling!
First of all, very briefly, many thanks for all the comments that have been left on my previous posts - I enjoyed reading and replying to them and enjoyed reading the blogs that were linked to them too. Please do keep giving me feedback, even if it's (constructive) criticism. I am quite keen to get discussions going too, so don't hesitate in leaving a comment. I am happy to share all the lessons I've learned, so here's my most recent one....
As with everything in life, when an opportunity in life presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands. As you move forward on the conveyor belt of life, sometimes it flashes by with only a split second to jump up and grab it. For me, this was one of those moments.
As already outlined in previous posts, once I'd drawn up my financial plan in January 2008 - and took steps to implement it - I started to take stock of what I wanted to do with my life if I wanted to leave the accountancy profession. I spent the next few months mulling this over, but by spring in 2008 I still hadn't come to any definite conclusion. While frustrating, I don't think it's entirely uncommon among people who want to change career. So I decided instead to just identify what I had been interested in at school and university, and follow those interests to see where they would lead - if anywhere at all. In order to hone my eventual career-change decision, I decided to try out any possible avenues along the way if the opportunities ever arose.
For example, two things I'm definitely interested in are writing and people, both on an individual psychological level and a socio-cultural level. Trouble is, so many people are interested in these subjects - and are a lot better than I am at them, too - that it's really hard to break into these fields. Take writing for instance, where the odds are particularly stacked against the newbie. Even if you want to just get a short unpaid placement on a local newspaper for experience on your CV (resumé), that's hard enough, so the chances of getting one in the nationals is virtually impossible!
One evening in late March, my mum happened to mention the fact that her boss regularly played football (that's soccer to any American readers) with someone who was the editor of a well-known national daily newspaper. I think he regretted mentioning it at all because as soon as my mum told me, I was ringing the poor man at work the next day and pleading with him to mention me to that newspaper editor.
His protests that he "didn't know him that well, only casually" didn't deter me as I tried to persuade him (nicely, of course!) that if he could just mention that I was available for any type of unpaid work experience placement on that editor's newspaper, I'd be very grateful. "Well, OK...." my mum's boss started, hesitantly, "but I can't promise anything...."
"There's no harm trying though, is there?" I pressed. "Please....?"
"Well.... I can try.... but he's a busy man.... national newspaper.... they get thousands of requests for unpaid work experience every year...." he said.
"But you can still mention me, right?" I persisted. "There's no harm trying, is there? The worst he can do is say no, and neither of us has lost anything if he does....?"
Eventually, he agreed to mention me, if only to shut me up: I wouldn't be surprised if he was inwardly cursing my mum at this point!
Nevertheless, he was as good as his word: the editor told him to tell me to get in touch with his PA. I wasn't provided with a phone number or email address, but fortunately there was a switchboard number on the newspaper's website, so once I was put through to her I introduced myself and informed her that her boss asked me to ring her to discuss the possibility of an unpaid work experience placement (I had to write out my little speech before I rang her; I was so nervous that I was convinced I was going to completely fluff it!)
She was surprisingly receptive: she simply asked me to send her an outline of my experiences to date, and a sample of any work I'd ever had published. The last time I'd written anything - the last time I'd actually had time to write anything, before I started working long hours as an accountant and spending my spare moments studying for demanding exams - was at university in 2002, so I emailed her a PDF scan of one of my articles that got published in the student magazine. I hoped that the fact that I'd written it 7 years ago - when I was 20 - wouldn't count against me, but I wasn't expecting to hear anything, especially as my working and academic experience since 2002 hasn't really been relevant to journalism or writing.
I was therefore stunned and pleasantly surprised when I got a response inviting me for a two-week unpaid work experience placement, starting in June! Result!
So there you are - have a go and try any opportunity, because you simply never know. I really wasn't expecting to be accepted but I am glad I plucked up the courage to try! (It's the first time in my life that networking has actually paid off. My mum's boss has been profusely thanked in the meantime, rest assured!)
While obviously I don't know if journalism is for me - even in spring 2009, a year after my initial career change decision, I'm still undecided - I am sure this unpaid work experience for a fortnight will help me find out; after all, you can never be certain what any career is going to be like until you try it for yourself.
I have to admit, though, that I'm really looking forward to it and will definitely post to let you all know how it goes. Stay tuned!
As with everything in life, when an opportunity in life presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands. As you move forward on the conveyor belt of life, sometimes it flashes by with only a split second to jump up and grab it. For me, this was one of those moments.
As already outlined in previous posts, once I'd drawn up my financial plan in January 2008 - and took steps to implement it - I started to take stock of what I wanted to do with my life if I wanted to leave the accountancy profession. I spent the next few months mulling this over, but by spring in 2008 I still hadn't come to any definite conclusion. While frustrating, I don't think it's entirely uncommon among people who want to change career. So I decided instead to just identify what I had been interested in at school and university, and follow those interests to see where they would lead - if anywhere at all. In order to hone my eventual career-change decision, I decided to try out any possible avenues along the way if the opportunities ever arose.
For example, two things I'm definitely interested in are writing and people, both on an individual psychological level and a socio-cultural level. Trouble is, so many people are interested in these subjects - and are a lot better than I am at them, too - that it's really hard to break into these fields. Take writing for instance, where the odds are particularly stacked against the newbie. Even if you want to just get a short unpaid placement on a local newspaper for experience on your CV (resumé), that's hard enough, so the chances of getting one in the nationals is virtually impossible!
One evening in late March, my mum happened to mention the fact that her boss regularly played football (that's soccer to any American readers) with someone who was the editor of a well-known national daily newspaper. I think he regretted mentioning it at all because as soon as my mum told me, I was ringing the poor man at work the next day and pleading with him to mention me to that newspaper editor.
His protests that he "didn't know him that well, only casually" didn't deter me as I tried to persuade him (nicely, of course!) that if he could just mention that I was available for any type of unpaid work experience placement on that editor's newspaper, I'd be very grateful. "Well, OK...." my mum's boss started, hesitantly, "but I can't promise anything...."
"There's no harm trying though, is there?" I pressed. "Please....?"
"Well.... I can try.... but he's a busy man.... national newspaper.... they get thousands of requests for unpaid work experience every year...." he said.
"But you can still mention me, right?" I persisted. "There's no harm trying, is there? The worst he can do is say no, and neither of us has lost anything if he does....?"
Eventually, he agreed to mention me, if only to shut me up: I wouldn't be surprised if he was inwardly cursing my mum at this point!
Nevertheless, he was as good as his word: the editor told him to tell me to get in touch with his PA. I wasn't provided with a phone number or email address, but fortunately there was a switchboard number on the newspaper's website, so once I was put through to her I introduced myself and informed her that her boss asked me to ring her to discuss the possibility of an unpaid work experience placement (I had to write out my little speech before I rang her; I was so nervous that I was convinced I was going to completely fluff it!)
She was surprisingly receptive: she simply asked me to send her an outline of my experiences to date, and a sample of any work I'd ever had published. The last time I'd written anything - the last time I'd actually had time to write anything, before I started working long hours as an accountant and spending my spare moments studying for demanding exams - was at university in 2002, so I emailed her a PDF scan of one of my articles that got published in the student magazine. I hoped that the fact that I'd written it 7 years ago - when I was 20 - wouldn't count against me, but I wasn't expecting to hear anything, especially as my working and academic experience since 2002 hasn't really been relevant to journalism or writing.
I was therefore stunned and pleasantly surprised when I got a response inviting me for a two-week unpaid work experience placement, starting in June! Result!
So there you are - have a go and try any opportunity, because you simply never know. I really wasn't expecting to be accepted but I am glad I plucked up the courage to try! (It's the first time in my life that networking has actually paid off. My mum's boss has been profusely thanked in the meantime, rest assured!)
While obviously I don't know if journalism is for me - even in spring 2009, a year after my initial career change decision, I'm still undecided - I am sure this unpaid work experience for a fortnight will help me find out; after all, you can never be certain what any career is going to be like until you try it for yourself.
I have to admit, though, that I'm really looking forward to it and will definitely post to let you all know how it goes. Stay tuned!
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