If you don’t learn new skills, you’r employer will find someone else

I’m at the Online News Association conference in Toronto this week, hearing lots of great ideas from other news operations. But it was a poster pinned to the bulletin board near the check-in desk that stopped me in my tracks.

WANTED: Video blogger

The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville is hiring one and posted the flier for this opening. For those who work at newspapers in the jobs they were hired in and haven’t changed with the digital times, this should send a message. The same for students who are working towards journalism degrees to get a job that has no innovative qualities (read: traditional).

The next time the news organization (the one you work for or want to work for) has an opening to fill, they won’t be filling it with the same type of person who just left. All new hires will have to have at least some digital skills. And some, like this one from Jacksonville, will be entirely digital.

UPDATE: The next day, this bulletin board was jammed with web-related job postings. About 35 by my quick count. Plus MSNBC had a booth on the exhibitor row trolling for talent with 12 advertised openings.

At dinner Wednesday night, an executive editor from a paper in the Midwest wondered where all of today’s J-school grads were going to get jobs, given that so many newspapers are cutting staff. Well, I can’t remember seeing so many journalism jobs posted at conference before so I would say, as long as those students have web skills, the opportunities will be there.

Posted by MarkBriggs on Thursday, October 18, 2007
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