10 Lessons I've Learned from 19+ Years as a Freelancer & Recruiter in the Editorial Industry

Lessons Straight From the Publisher of InkwellEditorial.com

If you’ve read any of my work before, you probably know that I've been in publishing since 1987, have been a freelancer since 1993 and ran an editorial staffing agency in New York City from 1996 through 2004.

Some lessons I’ve learned from this crazy journey are as follows:

1. Staying abreast of technology is crucial: I remember back in 1998, when I first started the process of getting a website for my company. I was pushed to because clients and candidates alike were asking questions like, “Can I apply online? Can I download the contract from your site? Can I post a job to your website?”

Well, as we didn’t even have a website, I would embarrassingly say no. The “loud silence,” especially from clients, on the other end of the phone line got to be too much. Going through the process of getting a website taught me the value of staying on top of technology. I learned that while I don’t need to be a hard-nosed techie, to stay competitive, I had to know enough to be able to stay competitive. This meant not only getting a site, but learning how to update it myself.

One of the wonderful things about technology is that new tools are constantly being developed for those of us who are NOT tech-savvy, eg, FrontPage software for building websites, autoresponder software, listserv software for building mailing lists, etc.

Stay tuned for the rest of this article tomorrow!

Coming Wednesday: A new selection from our Best, Worst, Most Lucrative Job Series.

Editorially yours,
Y. Black, Publisher
InkwellEditorial.com
InkwellEditorial.blogspot.com
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