Get After It! 003: The benefit* of staff transitions

*In the long term.

When I was early in my career and just began writing, an editor at a Medium publication took note of my early work. At first, he hired me for fact-checking. Then, since I did a good job on that assignment, he hired me for a story that involved a bit of writing. After a  few years, that venture-capital backed publisher shut down. My editor moved on. But we always kept in touch. At his new job, we worked on stories of varying length, and it was always an enjoyable experience. I was sad to hear that he moved on to another new job (but the magazine he worked at still exists) last year, but, I can tell you, I’m reaching out from time to time to see if there’s an opportunity for us to work together.

The job market is still volatile as ever, and, of course, media is not faring much better with mass layoffs and publishers shuttering entirely. But these staff transitions (broadly defined) are an opportunity… in the long term.

The argument I want to make today, though, is if someone you love working with has moved on, your potential client base has, in essence, doubled. Provided that the place your contact has left still exists, you still have relationships with others there, and, over time, your contact will perhaps land another job where they might be in a position to hire you again.