What are some recent journalism hiring trends?
We asked our Head of Editorial Recruitment Ben for his thoughts:
“The second half of this year has seen noticeable differences in the hiring market that have changed the experience and requirements of job seekers and interviewers.
In the financial news industry, most newsrooms began the year looking for similar levels of experience with similar salary budgets. This temporary consensus combined with low numbers of active candidates created a hyper-competitive market which contributed toward accelerated salary inflation and meant that processes moved quickly, often with very few people in process.
Since then, the industry has moved past its consensus, companies have refracted on strategy, and have prioritised gaps created through staff turnover. Ad-driven news’ recovery has been slow since the tech crash in spring, and many have made journalists redundant.
The consequence of these events is that, although vacancy numbers are still high, processes have become more competitive for job seekers and companies have had to work to evaluate the best from the rest. We have seen qualitative and quantitative assessments to evaluate writing, communication, and numeracy skills (I’m keen to hear people’s experiences in receiving and evaluating them). Interview processes are longer and there has been noticeable downward pressure on salaries.
From a hiring perspective, having experienced thousands of interview and assessment processes from a vast range of newsrooms, we’re able to advise on creating processes that will allow you to assess and compare the best candidates in the market whilst keeping them enthusiastic and engaged. We’re also able to introduce the best passive talent who may not be actively applying to job adverts.”
Those are the recent journalism hiring trends; you can view our current live vacancies in that industry here.
