How to break into journalism

Some good tips on how to begin your career from new journalists Josh Halliday, trainee media and technology reporter at the Guardian, and FHM's Chris Mandle on The Guardian's own How I broke into Journalism careers podcast.

Josh gives some great advice on using tools such as Twitter and your own blog to get involved in the conversation with other journalists - and get noticed. He was involved in the student mag but wanted to go even further than that, so set up his own hyper-local blog in Sunderland.

Chris, meanwhile, followed a more traditional route, starting out as music editor on the students mag, then being asked to do gig reviews for the NME, then work experience, all of which helped him get started on his route to FHM.

Advice from employing editors bears this out. They've been telling me for a while that if you want to show you're serious about journalism you should be doing all of the things Josh and Chris have done:

• using twitter and other social media
• work experience
• blogging
• getting published in print and web titles, if possible
• taking part in online discussions
• attending journalism events and courses
• keeping up with all the online and print journalism trade media

The podcast's worth a listen.