Millennials, don’t judge career changers until you’ve heard their story, experience
It’s not my fault the newspaper industry imploded

I recently overheard a conversation in public that completely infuriated me. In short, a close-minded, self-proclaimed “tech-scene-for-life” millennial bashed a coding bootcamp I attended.
Does this sound familiar?
Breaking into the startup scene is a grind, or in Massachusetts terms, a wicked hard grind (no, we pronounce our R’s in the western part of the state). Not only are you competing with hundreds for the same job depending on your location, but it’s a completely different ballgame if you’re transitioning from a dinosauric industry where for some reason certain talent acquisition ninjas—primarily millennials — only look at your past job titles rather than bullet points.
In my case, I’m pivoting from print — traditional journalism.
*Cue laughter*
Wait, print? You can’t be serious? Isn’t print for old people? Why on earth did you study print in college?
I’m a millennial, but when I was in college, there was no “Writing for Digital-First” course. I literally took a class called “Writing for Print Media.” The iPhone made its debut during the spring semester of my junior year, and no one, absolutely no one, was talking about startups in my circle.
When I graduated from college, that’s when unannounced layoffs and buyout packages started to happen. Talk about great timing on my part.
Unfortunately, my industry waited until the last second to “get with it” with technology and because of that—along with multiple other reasons that I’ll save for a future post—hundreds, if not thousands, of journalists have either been laid off or forced to take an early buyout. And guess what? Not all of us are of retirement age or even close to it.
So what am I supposed to do? Sit in a corner and cry, or learn a new skill to make myself marketable? I decided to take the latter and attend a coding bootcamp for web design focusing on UX. Beforehand, I was a Sunday news editor and page designer at a local newspaper. My background is mostly in sports, but I shifted to news the last year and change I worked in print.
Print layouts to digital? I thought it made sense. It takes a certain eye and way of thinking, and as an editor, attention-to-detail and placement were my daily duties. Unfortunately, throughout this job search ordeal, not everyone sees journalism as a form of UX or any kind of transferable skill besides marketing, advertising and PR.
Newsflash: A lot of PR agencies are the devil to journalists, and the writing style isn’t the same. Period.
I’ve been writing for local newspapers since the summer going into my senior year in high school. I knew as an eighth-grader that I wanted to be a sports writer. I read the Sunday newspaper religiously every week and fell in love.
I couldn’t predict in 1999 as a 13-year-old what was going to become of print. Newspapers were thriving then. The newsroom was full, you received premium benefits, a 401K—with match—plus a pension, and when you told people you worked at the local paper, you were well-respected in your community.
Sadly today, that’s a distant memory. And sadly today, for some Godforsaken reason, social media experience means a greater deal than having a traditional journalism background with solid news judgement, plus the tech skills to boot.
#%!?
Luckily for me, I’ve always been the tech savvy one in my department. I remember when I bought my first smartphone — the DroidX—and showed it to a coworker who at the time was in his late 50’s.
I told him how I used the device as a voice recorder, could take decent, still photos with it, and when in a jam, could file my stories to the copydesk if there was no internet access.
That’s a true story by the way.
During Game 7 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Final at TD Garden between the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning, the internet cut out. No one could file their stories when the horn sounded because the NHL didn’t allow us to use our own hotspots.
Because I always plan for disaster to strike, instead of using Microsoft Word or Pages, I wrote all of my stories as a draft in Gmail because it automatically saves every time you make a change. So as the Bruins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 21 years, I finished and sent my article via my phone to make deadline.
As a journalist, I’ve learned and mastered new content management systems to not only publish articles, but build sites where I later trained supervisors, and I’m also familiar with SaaS applications because that’s how we managed our content for print.
Imagine that? Transferable technologies. But not everyone thinks that way, and it’s a huge problem that’s making this journey a never-ending marathon.
I was in a popular hotel lobby in Manhattan about a month ago where I met a friend to talk about my career pivot battle. After she left, I hung out for a while and sent out more job applications and emails. Directly to my right two guys who looked to be around my age were chatting, and I overheard one of them mention Techstars.
If you’re in the startup community, you know all about Techstars, and if you’re in the startup community in New York City, you know how small it is. Everyone is somehow connected to each other.
I didn’t say anything and continued working. But later, I overheard the same guy mention the coding bootcamp I attended. First I wasn’t 100 percent sure, and thought I must have mistaken him, but what I heard next:
“I mean come on, really? Only eight weeks to change your career,” and I immediately knew.
For the sake of this story, we’ll just call him, “Steve.”
I wish I kept quiet for a bit longer because the tone of the conversation was definitely not going in my bootcamp’s favor. I looked over, motioned, and said, “Did you say … ? Yeah, I went there.”
Oh, $#!%
Me being me, I was wicked nonchalant about the whole thing. I actually grew more angry after the conversation ended.
They asked me about my experience at the bootcamp, and I gave a nutshell version as to why I went there. Steve’s friend thought it was smart — print layouts to web layouts/UX — as I explained what’s happening in my industry.
It was an incredibly awkward conversation. Being a natural reporter, I kept talking, even apologized for interrupting their conversation, and then this happened.
Steve’s friend conveniently got a “phone call” and excused himself — I never got his name — and while he walked away, Steve was trying to duck out of the conversation.
But I still kept talking.
At first, he wouldn’t tell me the name of his company, only what they did — a managing director of a startup incubator.
Hhhmmm.
“So, what’s the name of your company?” I said, again.
After he finally told me, I asked him where they were located and his answer was, “oh, we’re here in the city.”
“No, I mean, what neighborhood? Is it around here? Because you’re here [at this hotel] right now?” I said.
Then he told me where.
“I bet we have a lot of mutual connections,” I continued, and Steve actually admitted how he knew a bunch of people from my bootcamp. Without even thinking I asked, “Do you know [this person]?” And he said, “yeah, I know [that person] well.”
Steve told me how he’s always been in the startup scene, but I later found out that he’s an ex-volunteer firefighter of nearly eight years. He said that he’d say hi to our mutual friend, shook my hand, and quickly high-tailed it out of there.
The moral of the story? You never know who you’re sitting next to.
Are you seeking a QA/UX/Support guru? Want to hear more ridiculous tales of my career pivot job search? Like this article and check out my portfolio at amandakbruno.com
