Networking in real time

ShareThisThe economy is down, jobs are scarce and hope for that internship you wanted is slowly fading because a) they might be cutting back and b) they also might not exist anymore.

Well, consider this: when looking for a magazine job that does still exist , sometimes it helps to actually meet someone in person.

Yes, I know.

You haven't done that since the days before laptops, when you were just a wee babe in an unconnected world, a world with neighbours who had names and public transportation that was void of private and inappropriately detailed phone conversations.

But we're not telling you to rid of that computer device altogether. Quite the contrary. What we are saying is that sometimes, you have to actually shake a tangible hand or two.

That's what the Canadian branch of Ed2010 thinks, anyway. The group of Canadian magazine editors banded together in 2002 after their American counterpart was established. The original version posts jobs, and advice for neophyte magaziners; the Canadian branch in Toronto goes even further, by encouraging those starting out to meet face-to-face with people already in the business.

As Morgan Dumas writes in a recent Ryerson Review of Journalism article,  "Ed2010 is important not only for networking, but also for the organization's affordable professional development opportunities." Those include networking events, resume workshops and consultations.

Ed2010 members communicate via Facebook and later this year, a fully realized Canadian Ed2010 website is expected to launch. It will host Dream TK, a blog run by Ed2010's Canadian director Corinna vanGerwen, who is also a senior design editor for Cottage Life magazine. She tells Dumas that, "When the economy is harder and there are fewer jobs, it's whatever little edge you have over the next person, especially in an industry like magazines where the jobs are never ever posted."

And for you cynics out there, fine, right now may not be the ideal time to lock down a job or internship, but in a couple of years when and if things get better (and we hope they do, or we hope they do), it pays to have met the right people, to have been remembered, to have shook that hand.