MNO Grads Visit NYC Magazines for Tips on the Job Hunt

As 12 Magazine, Newspaper, and Online graduate students sat in the Wenner Media offices in Manhattan, Tyghe Trimble, a senior editor at Men’s Journal, asked his colleagues to introduce themselves. He pointed to Matt Harrigan, an MNO student, and asked how long he had been working there. After a blank stare from Harrigan, Trimble quickly realized that Harrigan was in fact not an employee.

“Everyone is coming in and out these days!” Trimble said to laughs from the Newhouse crowd.

Not that Harrigan would have minded one bit if he already were on staff at a place like Wenner, which also publishes Rolling Stone and US Weekly. But the annual benchmark trip comes in mid-May, just before the 12-month program’s final summer semester. The purpose of the trip, organized for the past few years by Newhouse MAG and MNO faculty member Mark Obbie, is to put nearly graduated grad students in a room with magazine pros to get industry insights first hand.

The theme of the pros’ advice: have more ideas. Trimble, an MNO alumnus (’05) who worked previously at Popular Mechanics and Discover magazines, told this year’s benchmarkers that ideas are worth more than writing well. He called new ideas “the great currency of journalism,” as great ideas are what sell.

“Brainstorming new ideas will get you further than writing,” he said. “And if you don’t have good ideas, you’re not practicing.”

Eric Gillin, the director at Hearst Digital Media for PopularMechanics.com and Esquire.com, echoed that sentiment—with a sprinkling of job advice.

“Have more ideas, and don’t cry at work,” the 1999 Newhouse magazine-journalism alumnus told his visitors from Syracuse.  “You’ll be successful if you have more ideas, and you don’t cry at work.”

Gillin’s best advice for brainstorming ideas—use your own curiosity to feed ideas, and to notice the world around you. Coming up with ideas is a skill, not an art, he said.

“Ideas should not be about you,” he said. “Go out and experience the world through others. The ideas that get people paid—they have nothing to do with me.”

What helped them and other magazine employees get their start was work ethic and resolve. Trimble advised students to be a squeaky wheel; of the dozens of interns he’s worked with over 10 years, he said only two persisted and kept in touch.

“Nobody (keeps in touch) anymore, but that’s how I got my first internship,” Trimble said. “A certain amount of aggression pays off in the industry,” he said. “There’s lots of competition here. But putting yourself forward will pay off.”

Recent MNO program graduates and newly employed NYC transplants gave job advice to MNO students about to start the job hunt. In a panel discussion at SU’s Lubin House, they shared what helped them stand out in a sea of interns and entry-level employees. Erica Sanderson, a freelance web editor at ELLE DÉCOR, said she learned early on to ask, “What can I help you with?”

“Do more than what was assigned to you, or asking ‘do you need help?’ It shows that you’re engaged,” Sanderson said.

Her advice got reinforced in other visits to magazine offices. “Be that on-point person who says, ‘I’ll take it,” said Jourdan Crouch, senior associate editor for Country Living magazine. “You have to make the most of your opportunities. It’s a small industry, people will remember you—I never thought I was above any task.”

Other editors advised students to stay open-minded in the job hunt. Before Molly Ritterbeck, a beauty assistant for Seventeen, started her job, she was nervous about finding ways to appeal to younger readers. But after interning “for two years straight,” she said she knew how to be a true professional.

“Be open-minded, because you’ll never know what you’ll end up doing,” she said. “It was an adjustment at first, but as soon as you get there it’s not as scary as it seems.”

It takes a certain kind of determination to break into the industry, recent grads said. Meagan Walker (MNO ’10), an associate editor at Footwear Plus and Earnshaw’s, was unemployed for two months in New York City before landing her current job. Although she felt discouraged, she kept Prof. Melissa Chessher’s advice in mind: The people who give up too soon are the ones who don’t make it.

Still, experts who talked to MNO students were excited for the future of the magazine industry. Jim Meigs, the editor in chief of Popular Mechanics (who was recently promoted with Hearst’s acquisition of Hachette Media to director of the Men’s Enthusiast Group), advised students to be “the eyes and ears of the digital space.”

“We’re living in a digital space as consumers, who are engaged with content,” said Meigs. “You don’t have to do everything, but you have to know—can you spot a good story? It’s harder than it sounds. But every story should have the ability to engage readers with depth, even if they don’t understand it fully.”

His final words of advice to MNO students: “Be an in-house agent for change, while respecting the qualities of traditional journalism.”