Tips for Landing Your Dream Job: How I Finally Scored a Gig with Reuters After 3 Years of Trying

Welcome to?Hezron's Insights, a weekly newsletter where I share practical advice, and the learning experience of moving your corporate communications & careers to the next level.

It's the dream of every learner to land their first gig with a large company upon graduating from college.

After spending years of hard work and sleepless nights while studying, the next big thing is to land a decent well-paying gig in a top-notch company.

It might be surprising but a lot of graduates don’t think about making small steps like securing a gig in a startup or opting for an unpaid internship purposefully with a view to gaining skills that will position one for that dream career.

When you’ve just graduated, chances are high that you don’t have the requisite experience needed to compete for top jobs.?

Even so, aspiring to land a dream occupation is largely a good thing. However, it can breed disappointment if you over-idealize it.?

The truth is, after college the real challenge comes into play.

I am no exception.

After I completed my university education a couple of years ago, I dared to dream.

Being in the field of Communication and Media, the Canadian-based Reuters would be my next destination.?

Not until I realized it was too far out of my reach to ever secure a job with them, upon making numerous unsuccessful applications.

Three years on, nothing was forthcoming.

Of course, I went through five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and finally, acceptance.

During this low moment, I was reminded of what a friend once told me: facing rejection may not necessarily mean the end of your relationship with your dream company.

According to him, it may well keep alive your chances of being considered at some point in life.

He was right after all.

This was evident three years later when I landed a writing gig with them.

It came about after I published an exclusive story titled: Kenyan businesses close in fear of electoral violence.

That was two months before the 2013 general elections.

A day after the story was published in The New Humanitarian , I received a phone call from a Reuters journalist who wanted to run a follow-up story and

requested my support.

I saw this as an opportunity to establish contacts with them and of course, who knows what comes next?

Indeed, I came in handy to give a helping hand.

A week later, the entire crew arrived to document the story which was published three days later.??

At the time, the general elections were first approaching, and ordinarily, at this time most media companies would want to increase their presence across the major cities for effective coverage.

And just like that, I was proposed to be among the journalists to be recruited, thanks to our newly founded partnership.

But it wasn’t that smooth—it came with some sort of job interview.?

I was tasked to analyze the security situation in Kisumu, Kenya's third-largest city, ahead of the elections: Intimidation, machetes point to Kenya election violence: groups.

To cut the long story short, I landed the job, a move that has since bolstered my online presence alongside my resume.?

Apart from establishing contacts with the Canadian multinational conglomerate, I later netted The Times—a British daily national newspaper, and Trust News—a sister publication of Reuters, among others.

Although I am not an expert in careers, the long wait taught me some valuable lessons—that landing a dream gig requires patience, hard work, and determination.

Here are some of the tips that helped me land the gig at Reuters.

Networking

Your regular work and career-related activities should include career networking.

Your career network should be ready to go whenever you need it, whether it's for job hunting or climbing the corporate ladder.

It makes sense to have a vibrant professional network since you never know when you might need it.

Embrace work ethics

You can be the smartest, and most skilled but without work ethics you’re likely to miss out on opportunities. What’s more, hiring companies now prioritize work

ethics.

Work ethic?refers to a set of moral principles, values, and attitudes around how to act at work.

If I hadn’t gone out of my way to do an exclusive story, probably I wouldn’t have been noticed by Reuters.

Sometimes building a successful network calls for going out of your way to support your networks.

It may seem unpaid venture but the returns are enormous.

If I hadn’t spared my time to support the Reuters team probably I wouldn’t have been recommended for the job.

In conclusion, whatever you do, give it your all. You never know who is watching. To my fellow scribes: prioritize exclusive stories…move away from ordinary stories of ‘he/she said, he/she said’.

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