Paul Conley has three tips for employers and potential employees — what employers should look for, and what people entering the work force should prepare for.
I especially like point number two: Be self-taught.
On resumes and interviews, for every position I’ve tried to fill over the past three or so years I’ve looked for this attribute consistently. In this day and age, you need to be a person who is always learning and knows how to learn without teachers or guidance. Teachers and guidance are great, and I am happy to mentor people, but if you have to be able to do it on your own, too.
couldn’t agree with you more, howard. in the classes i teach for the interactive journalism program at AU, my students always want me to walk them through the lessons in Mindy’s Flash Journalism book. I tell them no and that I am here to teach them how to teach themselves. They will always have the book, but they will only have me for one class and for me to just read to them while doing a show and tell would be a colossal waste of their valuable tuition dollars and time. Additionally, in our field, you must prepared for the next technology coming down the pipe or be prepared to push existing technology in different directions to be competitive.
Learning is lifelong, and being self-taught generally goes hand-in-hand with creative problem solving abilities.
[…] Mindy McAdams, Ryan Sholin and Howard Owens, among many others, have blogged about the changing skill set of journalists. […]
[…] Howard Owens points out that you can’t wait for/depend on training; each journalist needs to initiate and develop his/her own career development: “In this day and age, you need to be a person who is always learning and knows how to learn without teachers or guidance. Teachers and guidance are great, and I am happy to mentor people, but if you have to be able to do it on your own, too.” […]