Credit where it’s due: A few days Jodee Redmond wrote: “Will Taking a Low Paying Hurt Your Career.” Jodee’s post is the inspiration for this one.
Disclaimer: This post isn’t encouraging writers to accept low pay, it’s merely a discussion of whether or not your low paying past will hurt you when you apply for other gigs.This discussion isn’t about low pay or whether or not writers should accept entry level opportunities. It’s whether or not these opportunities will cause you to lose work.
When I was younger it was my dream to become a newspaper columnist. I couldn’t wait to see my little picture and byline at the top of a column. Several years ago I found my chance when a new newspaper opening in a nearby major city, advertised for journalists and editors. Even though they weren’t hiring columnists, I didn’t think it could hurt to query. Taking a deep breath, I pitched anyway, for a column about saving money. All I had to show my style were a bunch of clips from entry level freelance writing jobs. I sent them, pitched and landed a regular gig as newspaper columnist. No one ever came back and said, “Sorry. You wrote for low pay. We don’t want you or your stinking clips.”
Good Writing Matters More Than Pay…or Even Experience
When a potential client asks for clips, they want to get an idea of your writing style.They want to know you can handle the material. Many times clips that are related to the potential client’s niche are fine, even if they come from a low paying market. Many times your client has no idea what the other places pay. I often recommend writers who have no experience write up a few articles and use these to apply for jobs, and more than a few have been able to land jobs using unpublished clips. Good writing stands out. You can be the most experienced writer in the world but if you send in bad clips you won’t get the gig.
To be fair, if you’re applying for a high paying journalism job and only have certain types of clips, an editor might be inclined to pass you over in favor of someone who has actual journalism experience or has written for well-known magazines. However, those same clips might land you a higher paying gig in a niche topic, if this is something you write about often.
Every career has entry level openings and positions and none of these positions hurt, they only lead to valuable experience. I believe this to be the case with low paying opportunities as well. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set your goals higher, but taking entry level gigs for the experience isn’t a terrible thing.
Who is Really Looking Down On You?
There’s a lot of speculation on the web that writers who accept entry level gigs are seen as “laughingstocks” or have “no self respect.” However, I don’t see many hiring editors say this. It’s only from anonymous commenters and freelance bloggers who don’t approve of entry level opportunities. Again, when I was first freelancing, not a single editor or client told me I couldn’t have the job because I wrote for low pay in the past. When I worked in publishing, we never looked a writer’s past pay, or even experience when considering freelancers for our magazines. We put more value into the pitch and the clips. We didn’t look down on anyone who wrote for free or earned very little money. One more time because people tend to misquote: I don’t believe every writer should only work for low payers and not aspire to do better, and that’s not what this piece is about. My point is that entry level opportunities won’t hurt your career.
Granted….
Many schools won’t accept certain content sites as sources for reports and articles. However, this has nothing to do with freelance writing jobs. In my experience, it doesn’t necessarily matter where you have worked in the past as long as you put forth a good effort. It’s sort of like an audition for a television show or movie. Sure, big names have a better chance of getting the job, but that doesn’t mean the C-list or Indy star won’t land a role in a major movie. Always put forth your best effort no matter who you write for and soon the sky will be the limit.
What is your experience? Has using clips from entry level opportunities helped or hurt your career?
I’ve been curious about this myself. Not that I’ve worried about the rinky-dink clips hurting my career. I just worried that they wouldn’t help much.
In most cases, I haven’t had trouble getting an assignment with a great cover letter and some small-scale clips. Actually, I’ve only been in contact with one editor who balked at my lack of national magazine experience. I’m curious to see what others have experienced.
I don’t think where you get your clips matters at all. As you said, most of the time people won’t know how much you were paid, if at all. I managed to land an article in a national magazine based on clips I’d done for local businesses and my own blog. What matters more is the quality of your work: if you can write a solid query, if you present yourself as a professional. Don’t think of yourself as a writer with itty-bitty clips, just think of yourself as a *writer* and go for it. The worst they can do is say no!
I personally won’t hire writers or proofreaders (and let’s be honest, I mostly hire proofreaders!) who show me all/only clips from one place such as … I don’t know … whatever is the Content Flavor of the Week. It has nothing to do with quality- but moreso with experience. I want to hire someone who has been in this field X amount of time, and demonstrates it with an upward arc in clips.
Now, if I was hiring for something in which I wanted the very beginners, I guess I’d expect to see beginner clips, and be ok with that.
…. random thought though: a lot of the things I hire for– it’s more important to me that I dn’t have to hold the sub-contractor’s hand (hence experience), because I can clean up basic web copy, which is 95% of what I outsource…
I’m honored to be the inspiration for a post. 😀
I was given a one-time writing gig that paid pretty well and the only clips I had to apply for it with were from low-paying content sites. I guess I did something right with those articles.
I’d be interested to see where some prominent authors, bloggers and other writers got their starts. Like anything else, you have to start somewhere. Just like famous actors who started off in commercials or sitcoms and went on to become Oscar winners, there’s no reason old work should ever be held against you.
Interesting discussion here!
I remember when I applied for my very first post-college writing job. I proudly handed over my stack of college newspaper clips and short clips from my summer and school internships. A few years later, when I applied for a new job, I went back and looked at some of those clips and shuddered. Some of them were still okay, but some of them were so obviously the work of a total amateur who had a lot to learn! But that was okay. I used newer clips from that point on and continued to work upward. Today, I would never use any of the clips from that era of my career simply because I have much better clips that I’ve produced since then.
So what’s the point of my musing about that? My advice is simply to take a good look at the clips that you DO have and pick the very best ones. A good editor will probably be able to detect if you have some skill or show steady improvement. And if s/he thinks you’re not ready and need to get more experience, well….then you keep doing that until you do have more clips and more experience. You gotta start somewhere, right?
I had no clips when I got my first freelance writing job. I simply found an ad at a webmasters forum, applied and made sure my message would look professional enough. I noticed the other applicants didn’t write too well, so I hoped my application would stand out, as it did–in fact, the employer hired me again a few days later.
Nowadays I do have clips, of course. Some are available on my own blogs, others have been published on content sites. I never had a problem, i. e., so far none of my prospects told me they wouldn’t hire me because my clips come from Entry Level Site X or Low-Paying Blog Y.
Several years ago I wrote 57 articles for a low-paying content site which at that time was paying pretty well (according to my beginner’s standard at the time). Now I get considerably more money, but 99% of my clips are from those years. I’ve run into more problems with the age of my clips, frankly. I have only 17 recent clips, all for the same client, but (1) she claimed this work as her own writing, and (2) she “edited” my work after purchase and inserted errors! I feel that limits my ability to use these clips without some kind of explanation.
@Susan: I just sent you an email via your contact email on your website. I thought maybe we could work out something — I’m looking for a few high-quality guest posts and you need current clips. Might be a good exchange – I hope so.
Have a great weekend!