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I'm a 26-year-old reporter who has been working at a 30,000-circulation daily newspaper for the past 2 1/2 years. I've been considering quitting my job to teach English as a second language in Europe. I plan to freelance while there.

My question is: If freelancing doesn't pan out and I return to the states looking for newspaper work, would the move to Europe hurt my chances landing a job?

Sincerely,

Cory

Probably.

That's not to say you shouldn't go.

dykstraNet.com via Flickr (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license)

But you should go knowing that if you leave a daily here and are not engaged in any sort of journalism there, that employment gap will give you at least three hurdles to clear:

• Your clips will be old.
• You will have to explain why you quit journalism and why you want to come back.
• Your journalistic growth will have gone into a state of suspended animation, and you will not have much more to commend you to employers than you had when you left. The best your chances would be is just the same as they were before you moved overseas.

Joe Grimm

That said, the chance to live and work in Europe may be too great for you to pass up, and this may be the best time in your life to do it. To have it all, don't make the move until you have nailed down a journalism job or some dependable clients for your freelancing.

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Coming Tuesday: She is a young reporter trying to get her career off the ground, but her editor is a doom-and-gloom burnout who is just marking time. She needs to enlist his help to get better.

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