After graduating, the great majority of these students (89%) did work in media, journalism, public relations or somewhere in communication, at least for some time. Most have had several such jobs.
[chart slug=”journo-60″]The largest number of people have had two to three jobs in media since graduation, and that doesn’t change much whether someone graduated between 2015 or decades earlier. Indeed, some people who graduated in the last decade have had four to five jobs already, and a few even six ore more.
[chart slug=”journo-61″]Most of these graduates who got media jobs, moreover, got their first one relatively quickly, within six months of graduating. Have more recent graduates, those who left school in 2006 or later, had a harder time? No. In every graduation cohort, the majority had jobs within six months–69% of those who graduated between 1981 and 1995, 71% among those who graduated between 1996 and 2005, and 71% among the most recent graduation cohort, those who got their degrees between 2006 and 2015, during the economic upheaval.
[chart slug=”journo-62″]One perennial question students ask is the path people took to find their jobs. The answer is there is no one path that stands out. Self-reliance matters, however. The largest number of these graduates, nearly 1 in 4, said they found their first job through a website or ad they discovered on their own (24%) or cold call or unsolicited application (14%). Internships were also important, with 16% saying they found their first job through that connection. Family members and friends mattered (13%) almost as much, as did professional network connections people had made (11%) as did academic or faculty referral. Add to that 10% citing faculty help those who discovered the job the college career office or Listserv (4%) and Alumni help (4%) and 18% mentioned formal university connections.
[chart slug=”journo-65″]Finally, the survey asked about starting salaries. This number data is a little harder to evaluate. The starting salaries of people in different graduation eras cannot be easily compared. Even those graduating just in the most recent period, 2006 to 2015 spans a decade. Starting salaries clearly have risen, and among the graduates of these schools at least, most people are starting at $30,000 or above.
[chart slug=”journo-63″]Share with your network
- Who is a ‘journalist’ today, where they work and what they do
- How these graduates feel about their work and the state of journalism
- Skills, knowledge and comfort levels with job skills
- What journalists encounter in their jobs and careers
- Journalism and communication grads’ experiences with school, student media, and internships
- How journalists are dealing with changes in the industry and their jobs
- The career paths of people with communication degrees
- Methodology
- Facing Change: The needs, attitudes and experiences of people in media
