If you have been selected for an interview for an interview then you need to make sure you do all the preparation you can to make you shine to your future employer remembering that a key aspect of any journalism role is researching.
Preparation is definitely the key here! As a good journalist you will already be very good at doing your research, so ensure that you do the same for before you get the job!
Start by thoroughly going through the job description and job role to ensure that you know what parts you can do and think of examples of work that you have done which is related and that you could use as examples. Have you worked for any newspapers before, even as work experience, what can you draw from this time. Or perhaps you can draw your experiences from when you were learning at college or university.
Once you are confident you can do what they are looking for then you need to ensure that you have researched the paper/magazine etc thoroughly. Who are their competitors, who would you be working against to get the best news? How can your news be better?
You need to know everything you possibly can do, look at their website, go through recent stories and articles that they have written on a number of topics. Make sure you know these well enough that you are able to comment on them and draw some comparisons. Get a feel for what they have done in the past and how they are perceived in the market place.
You also need to think carefully about what kind of questions you may be asked and below is a list of questions that you can think about prior to your interview:
Can you tell me how you research and how successful you have been doing this to date?If you are successful, what are would you like to be in and why?If you ran the paper, what areas would you say are the most newsworthy and why?Have you ever missed a deadline? Although you are not bound to be asked a any of those questions, it gives you an idea on what types of questions you could be asked and this will obviously vary from the company and the person interviewing you.
In the media world, employers are looking for a good communicator that will be different and this is where you need to make your skills and personality stand out.
Related: Journalist Job Description
Good Luck.
