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• Actor
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• Writer

Best & Worst Things About This Career

"I love working with different people all the time. I get to meet people of all ages who are involved in all aspects of the town or towns I'm covering. I also get to make my own hours. I am a mom and like to work from home. I can do a phone interview and then throw in a load of laundry. While I'm waiting on the laundry, I can start to write the story. The hardest part of working from home is that you can receive phone calls at all hours of the day. If you are working on a story for deadline you have to be available to get the information when it arrives."

"The best part of my job is being my own boss and working out of my home. The worst part of my job is that it never goes away because I work out of my home. Also, since I only employ a part-time intern, the work doesn't get done when I'm sick. However, being my own boss outweighs any of the above issues. Still, you need to be very disciplined in order to run your own business. You also need to be a risk-taker and willing to put in the hours needed to be successful."

"The best parts of my job are getting to make my own hours and work from home. I also meet some extremely interesting people who make up our eclectic community. I never know who I'll meet. I learn so much about new web technology as well. The worst part of my job is the technical part! We have programmers and site designers. But I hate it when a client asks me a tech question that I cannot answer. I know what looks good and sounds good, but sometimes I'm just not sure how to make it happen on the web page without our designers' help."

"The best part is learning new things and being able to challenge myself on a daily basis to make deadlines and find great stories to write about. The worst part is having very tight deadlines and having a stressful day of churning out story after story. One or two stressful days are OK, but during a busy time like earnings season it can wear you out. During earnings season we report on what companies have reported for their quarterly earnings and we may write as many as five stories a day."

"The best part of my job is being able to help a client come to a new understanding of their customers. I also work from home, and I really like the freedom! The worst part is the writing deadlines. They keep coming fast and furious."

Tips for Succeeding in This Career

"You need to be able to manage your time well and be extremely accurate in what you write. If you interview someone or take a direct quote, make sure you are using their exact words. Meeting deadline is critical to the success of being a writer. It is important to be able to make conversation with people. Being shy is not gonna cut it when you have to walk into a room and find the right people to interview. Before you get started, it is a good idea to write for an organization or school newspaper."

"Intern while in college to ensure that this is the line of work you want to pursue. Find a mentor (a working professional who can guide you). Ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to make a mistake. That's how you learn and grow. Put more than 110 percent effort into everything you do. Did I mention that you need to ask a lot of questions? Never assume anything. Triple check your facts and then check them again. Always be accurate in your reporting. Have goals and work hard every day to attain them."

"My advice to anyone who wants to get into web design is to branch out, learning everything you can about what's needed to design web media. Those things will help you enormously, but you also need to know how to write. Learn creative writing skills. Take photography classes and learn about digital video. All of those things are necessary to excel in web design."

"1. Get published before you graduate. Write for your college paper, volunteer for your local paper, and find internships. 2. When you're close to starting your job search, set up informational interviews. That means contacting someone who's in the industry and asking to meet just to talk about his or her job. Dress professionally and bring a list of questions about what the job entails on a daily basis and see if the person you're meeting has any advice for you. 3. When you're ready to get a job, call on all of your contacts and let them know you've started looking."

"As a writer and editor, it is very important to be extremely comfortable with the rules of grammar. You will be called upon to make sure your writing is correct and that you can correct other people's mistakes. Some tricky thing are words like "between" vs. "among." For example, if you are talking about a conversation between two people, information flows "between" them. If there are more than two people, the discussion is "among" them. Be comfortable looking up facts on the internet for both your own and other people's writing. For example, you might have to look up whether a company is ABC, Inc. or ABC Corporation. Be confident in what you do. When you are writing or editing, you need to be the expert! That means doing the research and talking with mentors and colleagues to be sure you are ready to advise others."