Category: Recruitment

Economist revenues up despite print advertising slump

Matt D'Cruz 19th June 2012

A lesson for traditional publishers everywhere- and perhaps as a knock-on the media jobs market – in the news that the Economist Group has managed to raise pre-tax profits by 9% year-on-year, despite a 17% fall in print advertising revenue for its UK title.

The Economist has been so successful at offsetting the ill effects of the ongoing print advertising storm partly because it’s been prepared to be innovative without jumping on bandwagons. While they’ve embraced tablets and smartphone apps, gaining 10,000 digital subscribers in the process, they’ve resisted the temptation to try and beat rivals in the breaking news game. And, crucially, they’ve managed to grow their digital business without cannibalising print subscriptions. Magazine subscriptions have held steady and print revenue was up 8% despite the advertising slump.

Of course, it can’t hurt that casual interest in economics has been sky high over the last few years, and that the Economist has a generally affluent readership. But it’s also succeeded by flying in the face of print publishing’s received wisdom that in the age of the internet, people want short, punchy, accessible content quickly. For years, magazines have raced to cut word counts and big words alike, oblivious to the fact that readers can get content like that on the internet anywhere. But the Economist’s success shows the opposite, that the publications best placed to survive are those who can provide an authoritative voice and something of substance to their readers, without underestimating them. Denser, longer-form articles still work better in print than online, and the Economist looks good on coffee tables. A bit of humour helps too (see left). A lesson for magazine publishers everywhere, if they’re prepared to heed it.

enquiries@trippassociates.co.uk

Martin Tripp Associates is a London-based executive search consultancy. While we are best-known for our work in the TMT (technology, media, and telecoms) space, we have also worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on challenging senior positions. Feel free to contact us to discuss any of the issues raised in this blog. 

Warren Buffett is buying local newspapers – is this good news for media jobs?

Martin Tripp 25th May 2012

So, Warren Buffett has decided the time is right to buy local newspapers. Not content with snapping up 63 daily and weekly newspapers of Media General, it seems he is eyeing more acquisitions. Could this be good for the media jobs market in the US?

Why would anyone want to buy local newspapers? Why, in particular, would the world’s most successful investor want to buy local newspapers? The perceived wisdom is that it is a shot business

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The career dangers of tweeting

Martin Tripp 1st May 2012

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

There was a minor palaver a couple of months ago when Datasift acquired the rights to search the last two years of Twitter feeds to serve its clients’ market research purposes. It was widely reported as a threat to privacy – equated with Google’s autoscanning of your Gmail account to target advertising.

Of course, there is no comparison. Twitter is, by its nature, a public platform. Facebook is – for most of its users – also public. So what has this got to do with a column on careers?

Ask Octavia Nasr. In 2009 she was dismissed from CNN for a tweet which

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Local news success must come through relevance

Martin Tripp 20th April 2012

I recently read an article by James Ashton in the Evening Standard which is one of the most incisive I’ve read in recent times about the plight of regional newspapers and the knock-on effect for media jobs in the regions.

It is ironic that, while we have a culture secretary who is championing “ultra-local” broadcast businesses, print equivalents are rapidly losing the sense of identity that makes them a ‘must buy’. Of course, it is an expensive thing to maintain a news centre

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What could Pinterest do for fashion e-commerce, tech and media jobs?

Esther Gill 20th March 2012

The explosion of Pinterest is something we hear about on a daily basis. The fact that it’s biggest group user group is 18-34 year-old, upper-income women who are interested in subjects such as fashion and interior design is of great interest to fashion e-commerce players. The site appeals to the human desire to collect things and

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Recruiting into media executive jobs: Kingfisher and Burberry lead the way

Esther Gill 16th March 2012

At this week’s Retail Week Conference, Kingfisher chief executive Ian Cheshire told delegates that they need to improve innovation in order to remain competitive and that retailers will need to recruit people with a “real point of difference and who understand brands” because it is a different skill to those who trade the business.

As well as recruiting for technologists who can lead innovation recruiting into media executive jobs is vital. Retailers should carefully consider

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Media jobs: movie marketing lessons – what’s the strategy?

Martin Tripp 2nd March 2012

Speaking on Radio 5 Live to Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode today, Andrew Stanton, director of John Carter, complained that people were fixated on “the money”. “It’s the most boring subject in the world”, he protested. “I make films for myself.”

Of course, it is difficult to criticise someone with his track record (Toy Story, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, etc). But, as Kermode later protested, if you spend $250m on making a film, people are bound to focus on the money. Investors want a return

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Media recruiting: managing your career starts at the bottom of the ladder

Martin Tripp 1st February 2012

 

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

At the end of last month’s column, I wrote: “That thing they always said about treating people well on your way up because you might need them on your way back down is really true. I can think of a number of people who struggle to get work because they burned so many bridges in the past.”

I have written little about the importance of maintaining good relationships in your career; cynically, it might be called career management. A great many people in business

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Augmented Reality T-shirts – anything in it for media recruitment?

Esther Gill 10th December 2011

Clothing company Zappar takes augmented reality clothing to a whole new level. This year, the company created interactive t-shirts that work with a free app – customers download the app and then view the t-shirts through their device screen. The t-shirt then ‘comes alive’ as the customer touches part of the t-shirt on the screen (see video). What’s really clever about the Zappar t-shirt is that it merges shopping and games in a move to generate interest and push sales. The t-shirts went on sale in the autumn in Macy’s and JCPenney stores in the U.S.

U.S. retailer Moosejaw created an X-Ray App last year that uses

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Changing face of media – fifteen years as a headhunter

Martin Tripp 9th December 2011

Today marks fifteen years since I first became a media headhunter.

It is astonishing how much the sector has changed in that time. The job titles themselves are indicative of these changes. While we still recruit MDs, Editors, Sales Directors and so on, we are now as likely to be working on roles like Head of Product Roadmap or Chief Scientist. As business models keep changing, so too do the attributes of the individuals who can add value. 

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Media recruiting tips: graduates beware

Martin Tripp 1st November 2011

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

I have just watched BBC3’s “Up for Hire.“ Four young unemployed people were given an opportunity to show how they would work under different circumstances. I found it quite depressing: not least because it served to underline prejudices about media degrees and media graduates.

Kirsty, one of the four candidates, had graduated in Newspaper and Online Journalism. She was disappointed because she had “paid a lot of money” and couldn’t get the job she wanted in the media. She also mentioned she didn’t like being “told off” or in a team: “I like working on my own really – that’s got something to do with me wanting to be a reporter.” The inability to take direction or collaborate seem pretty large barriers to entry in any career – especially journalism.

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As media headhunters, we disagree with Kelvin MacKenzie about journalism courses

Martin Tripp 1st May 2011

Shock news: there are a lot of dinosaurs in the media. And Kelvin MacKenzie is amongst them. Is anyone surprised?

MacKenzie said last month that you learn nothing from journalism courses: “It’s a job, a knack, a talent. You don’t need a diploma… There’s nothing you can learn in three years studying media at university that you can’t learn in just one month on a local paper.” He would “shut down all the journalism colleges today.”

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Media headhunters’ view: the christmas job market cheer

Martin Tripp 18th December 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

I am writing this in December, a week before Christmas. And, guess what? This week, I have ten interviews in my diary.

This time last year, our media headhunters‘ diary was empty. I was not alarmed; December is always quiet, but last year felt different. Looking at the column I wrote then, there was a sense that the Christmas job market was holding its breath: the economy was fragile, and the election was coming. Magazines and newspapers were closing, and people had spent the year making cut-backs. Even the buoyant online market was showing signs of caution.

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Media recruiting: hiring data experts

Martin Tripp 1st October 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

Those few of you poor souls who have been reading my media recruiting column over the last year or so will have noticed one thing: I am an eternal optimist. While in these dark days of enforced austerity it is difficult to be upbeat, I have a small chink of light for you. Particularly for those of you who have spent the last several years toiling away in the geekier recesses of B2B media.

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Media recruiting tips: going freelance

Martin Tripp 1st October 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

Last month, I wrote about the positive reasons for changing jobs at the moment. But not everyone gets to choose; redundancies and closures are happening across every sector of the media, and, as a result, more and more people are being forced to go freelance. With this in mind, I asked a few editors what they thought were the golden rules – the media recruiting tips – of establishing yourself when new to the market. It seems to boil down to the following freelance tips:

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Media recruiting tips: post-grad courses for journalists

Martin Tripp 1st August 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

Last month, in a somewhat garbled column (blame the theft of my laptop), I looked at journalism degree courses. This month, I want to talk about further media recruiting tips, in fact the first stage of this process – post-grad courses for journalists, and emphasise how important they can be for entry into the industry.

To a large extent, the days of wandering into a newspaper job direct from school are long gone. Many editors regard NCTJ-accredited training as a minimum requirement for new journalists. This is not surprising: the NCTJ is described by its CEO Joanne Butcher as an “industry charity” with a mission to ensure that training reflects the “industry’s gold standard”. Each NCTJ-accredited course should teach the media basics, such as media law, public affairs, ethics, and shorthand. For Butcher, shorthand is a benchmark. “If you’re starting out in the business, get shorthand. It will open a lot of doors.” She recognises that “not every journalist will need it, but it says a lot about someone’s commitment to journalism.”

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Editors need to become commercial players

Martin Tripp 1st March 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

How commercially-minded are you?

If that question brings you out in a rash, take a deep breath. With B2B publishers fighting for every penny, journalists need to think broadly about media jobs, they need to be to able make a real-terms contribution. They are expected to create supplements, roundtables, and conferences, and work with advertising sales to maximise revenue opportunities. So what does this mean for editorial integrity?

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Media executive search viewpoint on media sector recovery

Martin Tripp 14th February 2010

Is the economy out of the woods yet?

Apparently not. Most experts say that 2010 will be just as challenging for the media sector as 2009; consumer and business confidence will remain low, and advertisers and subscribers will be increasingly selective.

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Media recruiting tips: how to succeed in an interview – if you get one

Martin Tripp 1st February 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

This month, as promised, further media recruiting tips, namely a brief look at how to succeed in interviews. I’ve had some real horrors in my time, including a man who, boasting about the money he earned, dropped his trousers to show me the labels. Unusual: but there are many potential pitfalls. With some comments from Allan Cross of The Media Network, here are some danger areas to watch out for:

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Media recruiting: why your business needs media people

Martin Tripp 27th January 2010

We are all media companies now. And we need media skills to match.

The phenomenal pace of change in internet and mobile technology means that retailers, banks and other consumer-facing businesses are no longer just competing with their high street rivals; they are competing for consumer attention with anyone who has a presence in the digital space. To be effective, they are having to think like media businesses.

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Media recruiting tips: ensure your journalism CV gets you an interview

Martin Tripp 1st January 2010

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

I promised to write about the journalism CV this month – some basic media recruiting tips. I wish I hadn’t. It’s a minefield. Here are five simple rules, though, which are pretty much universal.

  1. You will not get a job in journalism if there are mistakes on your CV. Get the spelling and grammar right. We all know how tricky it is to edit our own copy: get someone else to check over your CV for errors.
  2. A CV should be (relatively) brief. Note to Australians: two or maximum three pages please. No CV should attempt to encompass every aspect of your career; just the most relevant bits (see 3).
  3. CVs are not a standard document. There is no rule that says it is cheating to adjust it for the job you are applying for. By all means have a standard one ready for generic HR-style applications – otherwise, take your cues from the job description to which you are responding. Make it relevant.
  4. Do not lie. If you didn’t launch the Daily Snipe’s Saturday Magazine, don’t claim credit for it: the media world is small, and someone will know someone… However, if you were the Features Editor on the launch and created a template for ground-breaking profiles, mention it. The same goes for dates of employment: be accurate, and do not try to cover up gaps.
  5. Probably the most important of all: CVs should be about achievements. Everyone has an understanding of what a Features Editor does: there is no point banging on about responsibilities. Tell us what made you a great Features Editor.

So, given these rules, an example of work experience in a journalist’s CV might look like this:

May 2000 – June 2003: Features Editor, Sunday Cod.

Team of 15; budget responsibility for £1m; frequent Sunday Editor.

  • Commissioned ground-breaking investigation into slavery in the Congo.
  • Established William Topp, Jane Solid, and Sunita Pluck as columnists.
  • Won Press Award for Best Feature in consecutive years (2002 and 2003).
  • Created “Three’s Company” series of profiles, which still run in C2.
  • Reduced commissioning budget by 40% while maintaining quality.

As discussed above, CVs are all about relevance. Write your CV backwards: potential employers want to see your most recent role first. Similarly, there should also be a greater weight of achievements highlighted in your recent roles: the implication that you started brilliantly and tailed off is one you want to avoid. For the same reasons, employers rarely like to see your education given a higher priority than your work experience: stick your GCSEs at the bottom please.

And should you include Interests? If they are relevant or genuinely interesting, by all means: it often gives insight to a character, and might give the interviewer something to break the ice with. However, please do not put “Socialising”. It means you are a drunk.

Next month, I’ll be delivering on my promise to provide equally devastating interview tips. Another minefield awaits.

 

enquiries@trippassociates.co.uk

Martin Tripp Associates is a London-based executive search consultancy. While we are best-known for our work in the TMT (technology, media, and telecoms) space, we have also worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on challenging senior positions. Feel free to contact us to discuss any of the issues raised in this blog. 

Media search consultancy’s view: Hiring in contract publishing

Martin Tripp 1st November 2009

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

Not so long ago, Louise Chunn and Marie O’Riordan were facing it off across the newsstand: Chunn at InStyle, O’Riordan at Marie Claire. Yet this year, they were competing for the contract to publish the John Lewis magazine.

For many years, customer publishing was considered the poor relation among magazine publishers. But publishing agencies were quietly building an impressive portfolio of titles: many would not disgrace the newsstand – indeed, the source of their funding means that their production values can be higher than their paid-for cousins. There are now over 1000 customer titles, with 92 launches in the last 18 months: two of these (I and Arise) have been nominated for BSME’s Launch of the Year category.

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Media headhunters for business-to-business media

Martin Tripp 15th September 2009

In a tough trading environment, the difference between success and failure is marginal. Let’s assume that 5% makes all the difference. This means publishers squeezing 5% more out of their budgets; sales directors improving their profitable revenues by 5%; and editors getting 5% extra creativity out of a budget reduced by 5%. The same principle applies for the events and research sectors – indeed, for any business.

But how does a company achieve this? Well, it requires

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Moving jobs in a recession

Martin Tripp 1st September 2009

This article first appeared in Press Gazette

It’s September: the kids are back in school, the holiday in Cornwall seems a distant memory, and you are back at your desk. Again. Writing captions on unfunny photographs of minor celebrities. As every year before, you start to think “there must be something better than this”. You log on to pressgazette.co.uk to look for new media jobs.

Except this is September 2009. If you are lucky enough to have a job, the last thing you are going to do is look for a new one. The economy is shot, advertising revenues are in freefall, and the world has suddenly gone risk averse. Why on earth would you think of moving jobs in a recession, when nothing is certain and the worst position to be in is “last in”?

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