Q. Recently, I was the news editor for a group of four weekly newspapers. The managing editor had his hands full with other things and was very hands-off. He always told me that he trusted me to have full control of the newsroom.
Here's where it gets a little tricky. Our group of weeklies was owned by a rather large national newspaper chain. The company acquired not one, but two daily newspapers in our area -- one major, large-circulation daily that was the paper of record for most of the southern half of the state and a second, much smaller daily paper that covered only the county my weeklies were in. It has since been reduced to a weekly itself.
The powers that be at the company began to realize that we were double, and in some cases, triple-staffing certain beats because of the overlap. As a result, they began to combine our efforts. It started with my weekly staff being responsible for our area's coverage in the smaller daily. As news editor for the weeklies, I was responsible for getting that coverage to the daily in an office 20 miles away. I essentially became the bureau chief for that office for the smaller daily, though no one ever bothered to change my title.
As things became even more consolidated, my staff began combining efforts with the staff at the large circulation daily, and my boss became the bureau chief for that paper, as well as being the managing editor of the weeklies. Because of the size of his workload, I was constantly assisting him with coordinating stories for both print and the Web for the larger circulation daily. I even had my own articles printed in the larger daily. I was, in fact, on a daily deadline schedule despite the fact that in title, I was working for a weekly paper. I've always made it clear that my ultimate goal is to report for a daily.
When I applied for a transfer to the daily, I was turned down. My boss flat out told me that the powers that be didn't award me the transfer not because I wasn't qualified, but because with the staff stretched so thin, they didn't see how the weeklies would get out the door each week without me there. At that point I felt they were unfairly holding me back, so I left.
So here's my question: So many job listings I see at daily papers require some minimum amount of prior daily experience to be considered. Despite my previous job title, I feel I have that, and I know my former boss would back up my claim if called for a reference. But how do I word my experience on a resume to make recruiters and editors understand that I do have the experience they're looking for?
Thanks,
Katie
A. The way the company is morphing and combining, it seems that a double title or one with a slash and an impossible number of syllables would have been accurate.
Having left the company, there can be no changing titles.
One solution is to build your resume with employment dates down the left or right, each entry being headed by the name of the company or school and the body of the entry being just a couple of descriptive sentences. Of course, the description of your most recent job would talk up your daily responsibilities. Something like: "Coordinated news coverage for a county daily and a related group of four weeklies."
This could still work with actual job titles. Also consider whether you can legitimately list the name of your larger employer rather than the name of your group of weeklies.
Coming Thursday: Her career is going well, but she wants to keep growing, so she is looking for an academic program in travel writing or medical writing. Where can she go?
