Getting your foot on the journalism ladder can be tricky. But certain skills and experiences help candidates stand out.

This Edit event – aimed at students, emerging journalists and anyone thinking about making a career move in the near future – explored navigating internships, the experiences emerging journalists do and don’t need on their resume, building contacts, planning your first few career moves and more.

Our industry guests

Jessica Lukjanow is a Supervising Producer with ABC’s News podcasting arm, working on products including Politics Now with Patricia Karvelas, The Party Room with Fran Kelly and PK, and ABC News Daily.

Alexander Darling has spent 10 years working across various mainstream media companies, including Southern Cross Austereo, Australian Community Media, Private Media, the ABC and most recently Nine’s metro newspapers.

Ally Hansen joined The Conversation in 2014 as Education Editor. She became Health and Medicine Editor in 2016, Chief of Staff in 2018 and Deputy Editor in 2020.

Lilly McCaffery is a reporter at The Australian’s Melbourne bureau where she covers a variety of topics including politics, courts and breaking news. She started her journalism career in 2023 with a News Corp cadetship. She previously worked as a lawyer.

Chester Ngan is a journalist and Chief of Staff at Nine News Melbourne. He has previously filled the CoS role in the Seven and 10 newsrooms.

Moderated by Rachael Ward, a reporter at AAP based in Melbourne. She was a producer at 7NEWS Melbourne for five years and was previously Vice President of community media organisation Student Youth Network (SYN).

Photos

The Edit is the Melbourne Press Club’s event series for young and early career journalists, and is supported by Guardian Australia