Essential journalism qualifications are key to success

Journalism is a highly competitive industry, especially at entry level, so good grades in relevant qualifications are a key tool to getting that all-important first job in the industry whether it be print, broadcast or digital media.

The qualifications needed to be a journalist will be different from country-to-country so it's worth contacting your local careers service or school/college careers adviser to find out what qualifications are essential to being a journalist where you live.

In the UK editors will be looking for a good first degree coupled with a nationally recognised qualification in journalism gained through an accredited National Council of Training Journalists (NCTJ) course.

The NCTJ-accredited course will provide you with the core foundations needed to become a journalist including shorthand, law, public affairs and essential writing and reporting skills.

It is the benchmark qualification used by editors when taking on new recruits and is the standard qualification required to do the NCE, which is a further course of study provided by the bulk of media companies on entry to the profession.

Many UK colleges and universities offer NCTJ-accredited courses and it is possible to complete a course of study on a distance learning or short course basis.

Often a first degree in journalism will include the standard NCTJ qualification or you can do what I did and study for a degree then complete a one-year postgraduate course in journalism.

The disadvantage to doing a separate degree and postgraduate journalism course is that it takes four years to complete instead of three. But, in my opinion, it does allow you to gain a better-rounded education than just doing a course geared toward the job itself.

I studied business, communications, media and cultural studies for my BA (Hons) degree and these subjects have been useful throughout my career as a journalist as they have provided me with a good understanding of people, different cultures, business and economics and the general workings of the world.

If you have ambitions to be a foreign news reporter for the BBC for instance a degree in Arabic or Chinese could be a good asset before doing an NCTJ-accredited postgraduate course. Likewise, if you want to be a business correspondent a degree in economics is likely to be useful.

As well as recognised qualifications editors are increasingly looking for a whole range of multimedia skills such as photography or video filming and editing and often favour candidates who can demonstrate use and understanding of social media.

So whether self taught or gained through a course of study keeping yourself up-to-date with the workings of new technologies and the potential new media has to the industry will give you an edge in the new-recruiter job market.