How to get a job in the media industry

The problem may lie in several utterly outdated yet trusted approaches that yield meagre to zero results.

The most popular approach is typing up a resume and scrambling together a few portfolio works - and chances are you played a minimal part in it because you were either an intern or some other lowest lifeform in the company you "worked" for. With that done, you then look up jobs online or in the newspaper and you start performing a variety of rituals hoping for an interview. The end.

Going the recruiter route

The second is the seemingly easy, passive approach in which one fills out an online recruiter's form and you hope the recruiter finds it interesting enough to see the potential for a high incentive in pushing it for you. What you have just done in this case is you have passed the buck completely, to a stranger nogal! I am sure there are several more near-vain ways of job hunting but let's rather concentrate on the solutions.

A few of the qualities you intend communicating through your resume or at the interview desk is your capability to translate theory into practice - which a resume cannot communicate adequately. But the most important is that you are the kind of person that the particular organisation requires. As a future marketer or future sales / brand / communications manager you need to first brand yourself, market your talent and sell your skills. Stating that "I am looking for anything in advertising or media" in your resume should be declared a cardinal sin punishable by eternal unemployment.

Solutions:

• Identify and resolve to concentrate your energy on one or two companies that you believe represent you and fit well into your ambitions and gun for them.
  
• Study the company's history, operations, successful employees etc. through articles, word-of-mouth or online.
  
• Be proactive and prove that you can produce, if possible, improved versions of what they are already implementing in line with what you want to do. This will prove with no doubt that you are capable and are serious about the organisation hiring you and not another person.

The golden rule to not forget is that you are a service provider first and employee second.

These solutions are hard work and offers no definite guarantees but work is what you need in the first place and nothing guarantees results anyway.