The Quote for the Day on the Twitter handle of Media Career Development Network @mediacareerngr on Thursday, March 12, 2020, was adapted from an article by Rebecca Tee, a top Career Management Expert on why professionals should take personal responsibility for their career.
The quote stated that journalists are quick to accuse their employers of not providing them with opportunities to develop their career. Journalists it stated like other professionals should accept their responsibility and start making plans for future career development.
Our employers should normally be interested in our career development, but when they don’t, as many do, we must take the necessary steps to rise above the limitations of our workplaces.
Here are five things to do to take charge of your career development and become the journalist or media professional you ought to be by Lekan Otufodunrin, a career development specialist
HAVE CLEAR CAREER GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
What do you want to make of your career? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to be remembered for when your career is over?
If you don’t have answers to the above questions, you are leaving your career to chance and you have no one to blame when you get disillusioned or look back someday and wonder why you practised a profession for many years and achieved nothing.
As they say, if you don’t know where you are going, everywhere you get to will look like where you are going. You will be satisfied with mediocre achievements when you have the capacity to do a lot better.
READ ALSO: Media Career Q&A: How can I get a media job in 2020?
HAVE TIMELINES
Timelines for targets enable one to work with a timeframe in mind instead of thinking you have all the time to accomplish some goals.
You will be deadline conscious and know when to speed up when you are running behind schedule.
If your plan is to get a higher qualification in two years, you will not keep postponing what you should do to get it. Even if you miss the timeline, you will work hard against further delay.
After five years on the job, you don’t want to remain a faceless reporter. If you still remain one after five years, you will know you are not making the desired progress and have to do something about it.
Progress in journalism doesn’t necessarily depend on how long you have been on the job, but how well you are doing on the job in things that can draw attention to you.
REGULAR TRAINING
Unlike in other professions, training is not unfortunately given priority in the media. Meanwhile, without regular training, a journalist will not be aware of new developments in the profession.
He will keep relying on old skills that cannot take him or her beyond what he or she should attain.
If your media organization is not as training conscious as it should be, take time to find relevant ones and participate. If you are not given permission to attend, explore the possibility of taking your leave and in other cases take online courses. There are many local, national and training opportunities if you make it a priority to find the right one for you.
I worked in a media house for ten years and become a line editor before I attended any major training.
Due to my desperation to get the necessary training, I got a three-month all expenses training in the United Kingdom which opened me to lots of networks that have remained useful to me till date.
ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
Apart from short training, higher qualifications could be key to making desired career progress.
Don’t be too busy working not to find time out of no time to get higher qualifications apart from your first degree or diploma.
You may even decide to read other courses to have options of what to do later in your career like some journalists who read Law and are now practising law or using the qualifications for other endeavours.
Even in your workplace, there may time when getting promoted to some positions will depend on the higher qualifications you have. Other job offers may also come up that may require more than your years of experience but higher qualifications.
I enrolled for a Masters in Mass Communication twenty years after my first degree when I was turned down for a part-time teaching job that needed a minimum of MSc degree notwithstanding how long I have been practising.
ACQUIRE NECESSARY GADGETS
Without the necessary tools, it will not be possible to perform our duties maximally. If your media house provides you with all you need, count yourself lucky. If they don’t, get the ones you can afford.
It doesn’t matter if you are using them to work for your employers. What’s important is that it will enhance your work and may give you more opportunities beyond your workplace.
I remember the story of how a former staff of a magazine bought a desktop computer and brought it to the newsroom and his colleagues thought he was foolish.
He proved he was wiser judging by the career progress he made unlike those who failed to realize that there is nothing too much to sacrifice in getting their job, with their byline, done.
When readers read a bad copy in a newspaper, they don’t know the media house is not living up to its responsibility to its workers, what they see is a bad copy by a supposed incompetent reporter.
Help yourself if you can until you move on to where you can get what you need to be the best in your work.
