Sports radio jobs obviously require some interest in sports generally and depending on the type of radio station job openings available, you may need particular experience or passion for a particular sport before you will be seriously considered. Many radio hosts started their careers with very humble beginnings and took the route provided by radio entry level jobs and positions that allowed them to gain experience and insider knowledge of radio host job openings.
The issue is, what can you be doing to maximize your opportunities of gaining a break in the radio host job market?
The first thing you need to appreciate is that these are very attractive and sought after positions. A radio show host has a degree of fame, celebrity, good pay, and benefits and depending on what the person is actually covering and their ratings, the potential to go much further with their career much higher than simple local or regional career opportunities. This is a very highly competitive market you are operating in and you need to differentiate yourself as a candidate from the rest of the pack and you also need to develop a competitive advantage that allows you to quickly access job information and hiring details so you can act upon it very quickly and steal a march on your competitors.
The internet provides a range of very powerful tools to help you develop your competitive advantage and help differentiate your self from the herd. A very big issue with the internet and World Wide Web is finding information that is current and actually provides meaningful value to your efforts to find a radio position. You need to ensure that the web resources you are using satisfy your need to provide helpful and accurate information that is delivered on time and in a format you can readily use and manipulate.
Performing a search on the internet on ''radio host jobs'' or ''radio jobs'' or whatever variation you are using, is simply going to produce thousands and thousands of web sites claiming to offer the very best resources, the most comprehensive vacancy listings and the provide the best opportunity for you to gain the position you are looking for. The reality is obviously very different from that claimed by the vast majority of these web sites so you need to exercise some basic common sense and think about which web resources you will use in your job search.
First of all, let's deal with the issue of ''comprehensive vacancy listings'' and who is paying for the service. There are many web sites out there which provide a listings service absolutely free of charge to individual job seekers and make money by charging employers who advertise their vacancies. Ask yourself whether you think you are getting to see the entire jobs market in such circumstances? What about the listings from employers who refuse to advertise the vacancy with a particular web site – users of that web site will never get to see those positions. It is axiomatic that any web service which charges employers for advertising a vacancy cannot be comprehensive and you should look for an alternative model for your job search.
There are web sites which charge individual job seekers for access to the vacancy listings however there are a couple of serious issues which must be addressed in using these sites too. Firstly, there are unfortunately many web sites which are doing nothing more than harvesting resumes from registering candidates and which then scatter the resume across their marketing list of employers whether they want them or not. In some instances, resumes are sold on to the third parties for use as they see fit and you can immediately appreciate that this may not be a good thing for you personally – just think of all the personal information included in your resume and what an identity thief would be able to do with it!
In addition, many web sites are simply charging for a service that in truth is not substantiated. You need to ensure that you are not caught by these sites and you can avoid most of them quite simply by checking that they have a free trial for users; a physical mailing address; a landline telephone number; and if a service is good, you will find plenty of forums and message boards on the web that will be discussing them with both the pro's and the con's.
So why would you consider paying to use a web service?
Simply consider the situation with employers paying to list their vacancies – many will simply not list them with a particular service so they will not be comprehensive. Now consider a web service which charges you as an individual job seeker to access the information but does not charge the employer – first of all, there is no barrier to an employer listing their vacancies and indeed, even better a web service which actively collects and collates vacancy listings from a wide range of online and offline media sources is certainly going to be comprehensive. Now consider that most job seekers are NOT willing to pay for accessing a listing service – this means that those job seekers who do subscribe to a service are achieving a degree of exclusivity in the market and thus are able to act more quickly and effectively than the bulk of the competition. By using a service that charges the individual user, you gain a competitive advantage compared to other candidates and you gain access to much more comprehensive vacancy information.
