Dear Future Employers

Adventuring Rule #21: Do not settle. Everything is a stepping stone. 

To whom it may concern,

If you run a newspaper in California, I want to talk to you. Let me amend that to Northern California, or the Central Valley, or the Bay Area or the North Bay. California is a big place.

I am highly interested in the jobs you have listed on every journalism job listing site I could find via Google. You hear me? I want to work for you.

If you hire me, I will work really hard. I will not take sick days unless I am actually sick. I will not show up late. I will stay late. All of my work in high school and college was for this, to do this job. Those late nights to finish my pages or to send the whole issue off were all for this.

I won't lie, I am a little scared. This is big. This is the same road I've been following all along but now the training wheels are off and I have to keep pedaling. This is the beginning of a career that I am trusting will support all of my dreams. And I dream big. Ask me about my fantasy ranch part Oregon. I want my work in this industry to make that happen. I am counting on it.

My experience is not impressive. I hold a degree in Communications from a CSU. I was the news editor my senior year for a university paper with a print run of 3,000, and the EIC of my high school paper. I have a couple of internships writing articles and editing copy. I have five blogs about different facets of my life which I update intermittently.

I never started a revolution. I didn't rescue a newspaper from going under. My biggest award was for an article about a coffee shop in 2007. Some of my clips have errors in them. The questions I didn't ask are glaringly obvious.

But I cared about my writing and my sources and in telling as much of the story as I could scrounge up. I care about learning to do that better and better until all the stories I tell are important ones that matter to people. I want to inform the public about itself and make connections and I want to do that for your newspaper.

This writer is awesome and a kickass girl to have in your newsroom. When my byline shows up on the AP wire or the NYTimes or the SF Chronicle, don't you want to say, "We had her first. She's that good because she started here." to the new interns in ten years who are just as nervous as I am now?

Right now I know I've got this part time gig. It gets me in a newsroom and around all the right people. But I want more. I won't stop until I have what I want. This is just one stop on the path. The next stop could be your paper. Don't you want this fire?

Sincerely,

Sara Jane