Ask the Recruiter

I love your column and read it every day. When I started thinking about my future career, I knew I should seek your advice.

I love my job, and my boss may be the best, most understanding editor on earth. The company has been good to me. It has promoted me from a writing job with no benefits to a full on-staff writer at one of its new publications in another state. They even paid my moving expenses.

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Here's the problem:

When I applied for and started attending J-school at Columbia University four years ago, I really wanted to write in-depth, long-form magazine stories on international subjects, particularly Africa. After two years with this company I'm doing exactly half of that.

I write long form and can focus on whatever topic I choose. Everybody in this city reads our paper, and my stories have resulted in the wrongly accused being freed from jail and bad men losing their positions. It really is great.

Only problem is, I'm doing this work in the American South not Southern Africa. Since I don't work at a daily there's no track for me to end up at a foreign bureau. If I were to get a daily job, there's no way I would have the autonomy or space in the paper that I get here, and I feel like it would be a step back.

I'm planning on staying here for at least another year because I'm enjoying this so much, but I want to start planning for the future.

Any advice you could offer would be a great help.

Many thanks for your column,

Columbia grad

You know you're living someone else's dream, don't you? There will be a line of people out the door to take your job when you leave it.

Here's how I would prepare for that day:

Joe Grimm

Your editors seem incredibly open-minded, though they are running a publication with a specific audience and content. Take advantage of their flexibility by pitching a story project that would serve your readers and allow you to do some international reporting -- in Africa, or anyplace else. Think hard about a global/local story. What are the roots of your communities? Where are people coming from now? Where is the talent from our industry moving to?

The story has to be tailored so finely to your audience that it is not one that can simply be grabbed off a wire service.

Write up a solid story proposal as they do at The Wall Street Journal. Pitch it to your editors, and be prepared to work with them on keeping the costs within budget, as this is certainly not in their budget plans. You might have to pay some of the expenses, or maybe you'll have to shop for bargains. Fine-tune your pitch and the finances based on what they say.

An option for this piece or a subsequent one is to meld a vacation with some reporting -- for this publication or another one. International reporting, even on this limited basis, will satisfy you now and make you a better candidate for your target publications.

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Coming Thursday: Her career is going fine, but it is causing havoc at home and may cause her to have to move.

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