Ask the Recruiter

Q. I was recently offered my first journalism job at a weekly. My ultimate goal is to work for a daily. Is it difficult to move from a weekly to a daily? I was planning on working at the weekly for a

INTERACT WITH JOE

* Follow Joe on Twitter to find out who's going where in the journalism industry. * Join Joe's "Ask the Recruiter" Facebook group. To get your question answered on this page, send it to Joe. Please include your full name in your message. If you prefer that your surname not be published, please indicate that. Sign up to receive Ask the Recruiter by e-mail. (sent Monday-Friday at 8 a.m.)

year-and-a-half to two years and then applying to a daily. I want to know if this is a smart thing to do. So far, daily newspapers have told me I need experience. I would think working at a weekly would provide me with this experience.

Thank you,

Concerned

A. In a perfect world, you would just start working for dailies now. Of course, the world is not perfect, and your choice is to start with a weekly today or wait an undetermined amount of time until you can start with a daily.

Joe Grimm

How long will that be? No one knows.

If you commit to working for a weekly, you really ought to give it a solid year, just to be reasonable to the people there.

If you have been searching for a while and are about out of time or patience, you might gladly take the job and get started.

However, if this is a relatively fresh job search and you can hold out for a few more months,  you might take this offer as a positive sign but keep looking. The pay difference and the speed with which you will get to dailies could make a wait worthwhile.

---

Coming Thursday: Are there seasonal fluctuations in the year that make one time of year best for job searching?