Ask the Recruiter

During a time when the news industry is frantically searching for solutions and new directions, journalists' lives have been disrupted by cutbacks and job changes. Poynter Online wants to help by sharing stories of success seekers. We are offering how-they-did-it snapshots from people who faced employment challenges and found some measure of success.

ALEXA CAPELOTO

Age: 31

New job: Assistant professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. I'm a journalism professor and faculty adviser for the college's student newspaper. It's a full-time, tenure-track position.
 
Old job: Enterprise editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune, where I worked with four metro reporters and the metro columnist. Overall, I spent nine years as a newspaper reporter or editor in Los Angeles, Detroit and San Diego.

Biggest change so far: Moving from San Diego to Manhattan. In addition to the newspaper life, I said goodbye to family, friends, my boyfriend, my car, much of my furniture and any high heels I couldn't walk a mile in.

I left because: I saw newspapers, including my own, make drastic cuts and thought I'd better consider a change. I was teaching journalism at night and loved it. I applied for one or two teaching jobs, and when I was offered one, I accepted and gave notice at the Union-Tribune.

Alexa Capeloto

I was out of work for: Two months. My last day at the paper was June 27. My first day at the college was Aug. 26. In between I took a cross-country road-trip with my dad and stayed with my mother and stepfather in Massachusetts. I thought I'd need the time for class prep and apartment-hunting, but in retrospect it was too long of a break.

I relied on: Stockpiled vacation pay from the Union-Tribune, and the hospitality of my mother and stepfather. Savings also helped when I needed a deposit for my NYC apartment.

This new gig is: Such a departure. I teach five hours a week. There's plenty else to do, especially with the student newspaper and my research, but it's up to me how and when I do it. After years of 10-hour days in a newsroom, the freedom is strange. I still spend every weekday all day at my college office because it's how I'm programmed. 

Financially there's not much of a difference. I make about the same at the college as I did at the paper. New York living costs much more, but I also have the time and freedom to freelance and get published elsewhere. I have long breaks in the winter and summer to focus on research and publication, which the college really values.

One thing I miss about my old job is: The immediate payoff. My work was reflected in a tangible product within a day or not long after, and it sometimes made a visible difference in the community. Now I'm learning to take the long view. I work toward something that hopefully will pay off in the future choices and actions of my students.

I also miss my colleagues. It felt like we were in the trenches together, sharing stress and a determination no outsider would understand, especially when challenges beset the industry. Being a professor is more solitary.
 
One thing I don't miss is: Those 10-hour days! I don't miss the resignation in friends' voices when I'd call to cancel dinner plans last-minute. I don't miss coming home exhausted, my mind still wrapped up in work and unable to downshift. I don't miss dropping everything when big news broke. (Well, sometimes I do miss that.)
 
One surprise about my new job is: The excitement of watching your teaching take root in a student's mind. It's a big responsibility, but there's nothing better than seeing a student improve and develop and feeling like you've played some part.

I'm lucky that: I get to work on journalism at a broader-view level. I spent every day doing it, but now I get to think about it and its future. No one knows where journalism is going, but I have faith in our future journalists, and I like the idea of working with them to try to figure it out.

The hardest part was: Letting go of daily newspaper work, which I thought I would be doing forever. 
 
I learned that: Journalism skills and ethics are still valued, even in the new world order. John Jay wanted someone with on-the-job experience to help build a journalism program and student publication. We have a duty to adapt to new technologies, but it’s just as important to maintain the core values we’ve learned as working journalists.
 
My advice: If you're feeling unstable in your job but aren't ready to leave, start weaving a new career into your free time. Do something on the side that interests you and might someday be a foot in the door. I started teaching at night because I liked it, but also because I was thinking about that door.

(Joe Grimm met Alexa Capeloto when she was a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and recruited her to work at the Detroit Free Press.)

If you have a transition story that might help other Poynter Online readers, please e-mail Joe Grimm at joe.grimm@gmail.com.

Coming Tuesday: What job opportunities are there in the U.S. for a visiting journalist?