I did nothing today but reach out to prospective candidates for hiring. Been trying to poach reporters from other news wires (tough) and other international media entities. Trying to hire locals with English skills in Indonesia and Thailand is so hard. Since I am the one training and editing the junior reporters who have come and gone from our bureau, I know what I’m looking for: Grit and willingness to learn and be down in the trenches.

It doesn’t matter if this person doesn’t have financial journalism background but as long as this person has the above-mentioned qualities, I am willing to take him/her under my wing and teach that person everything I know.

So far… I haven’t seen that, even in our recent hires. 🤦🏻‍♀️ It’s hard especially in this current tight labor market.

Some friends who had a dinner party somewhere in the metro yesterday had been talking about the difficulty of hiring new reporters. The Gen Z kids no longer want to be permanently employed; they prefer to be freelancers and not be tied in one place. These are the kids who grew up with the gig economy, with all those influencers working with their laptops by the pool side or by the beach. These are the kids who do not embrace the corporate culture and prefer the hipster lifestyle.

With this in mind, and the struggles I’m having with the hiring, I need to compose carefully the things I must say in the career orientation that my high school will be holding next month. I must be encouraging and not preachy, but I have to tell the students the truth that journalism is not glamorous. It’s 90% grit and intellect and the rest is the writing. The pay and hours are horrible. Before I became what I am now, I ate dirt and barely had vacations. I was eating and breathing news. I was like a walking deadline—every moment is a deadline—especially when I was in online news, which operates 24/7.

That said, I shouldn’t compromise on the quality of hires because in the end, it is me who is going to suffer if I have another lazy/slacker dude who would just slap information without being careful about it. I had experienced several take-down threats because our last hire had cut so many corners in pursuing stories. And this person was much older than me 🤦🏻‍♀️ I had a lot of headaches. Lord knows he tried my patience.

That’s the reason why once I take over, I need to keep an eye on each journo under my watch and visit them regularly in their home turf. To keep them on their toes.

But before that, I need to hire two three more people before the year ends.

To power me up today, I had this for brunch:

The girls and I did a little top-up shopping tonight at Save More. Bringing them with me to do errands to help me carry shopping bags keeps the cobwebs away and their minds healthy.

And we had grilled chicken in barbeque marinade for dinner.

Happy weekend!