My quest to get hired at the BBC: Conversation with Crumbs

"It's not easy, what you've chosen." 

Those words from Claire McDonald, one of the two sisters behind Crumbs Food, a blog and YouTube channel that focuses on eating well and finding a balance between working, enjoying life, and being moms. 

Claire and Lucy McDonald are journalists
who blog and vlog about food and life.
Photo courtesy of Facebook

Before I landed in London, I knew that the only way to get an idea of what exactly I needed to do to get my dream job at the BBC was to get to London and talk to journalists. 

I didn't have an exact plan of attack, and my original plan of spending every day in front of the BBC headquarters and approaching all the people who went in or out seemed a sure-fire way to get me permanently banned from the area, and maybe even the country. Clearly, I needed a Plan B. 

I decided to use the one method that always seems to work when I'm trying to find sources for a news story; I reached out to people. I sent a few e-mails to London journalists, hoping they'd be willing to help me on my quest. 

That's how I ended up meeting with Claire in central London on an unseasonably warm Wednesday evening. 

As we walked along a street parallel to the River Thames, Claire told me she still considers herself a journalist, but is currently working in the marketing and advertising field. Journalism in general is not an easy career to pursue, she said, and it gets even more difficult to be great at your job when you start to grow your family. 

Claire worked as a writer and editor at The Times of London for more than a decade. But after having her second child, she knew it was time to find something else. That's how her blog started up, which was followed by a YouTube channel. 

Unfortunately, according to Claire, blogging alone does not generate a livable income, which is how she ended up in her current role. The good news is that it allows her to use her journalism-based skills, as well as the ones she’s picked up as a blogger and vlogger, a little more creatively. One of the major projects she’s worked on is a Christmas ad campaign for one of the biggest grocery store chains in the UK. Not a bad thing to add to a resume.

Along with the low probability of getting a full-time gig at the BBC, Claire expressed concern about the cost of living in the city. When I asked about possible salaries, she told me that just like in Canada, journalism doesn’t pay well in the UK. And when I asked if I could realistically make enough to cover the basics, she had some uncertainty in her voice.

This lead to both of us trying to do math. We got off to a rough start with the multiplication (we’re journalists for a reason – very little math required) but eventually determine it is in fact possible to rent a flat (with others… none of this “living on my own” business), buy groceries, and lead a very basic life being paid minimum wage in London. (I know we don’t make much in news, but I’m really hoping I would be getting more than minimum wage.) 

It’s another factor that won’t make achieving my goal easy – something that seems to be a constant in this plan of mine.

Despite the difficulties, Claire is full of hope. Maybe, she said, I could document the trials and tribulations I face while trying to chase my dream in a podcast or vlog. The idea was genius, so obviously I stole it. To try and make it seem slightly original, I kept it in simple blog form.

She didn’t stop there. As well as offering me a brilliant way to keep a public record of my trip, she promised to try and contact the few people in the industry who she’s still in touch to see if they could share advice on how to work my way into the BBC.

Now all I have to do is hope she makes me sound like a stellar journalist who must be hired at all costs so they get back to her and agree to meet with me. And then impress them myself. Minor details.

For photos and more timely updates on my trip, check out my Instagram and Twitter accounts. 

My quest to get hired at the BBC: A not-so-successful (journalistic) start

London, England.

Buckingham Palace.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

The London Bridge.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

View of the Shard from the Tower of London.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

It’s the city where, according to my mom, “All it ever does is rain.”

It’s also home to the British Broadcasting Corporation, known more commonly as the BBC, my dream employer.

So what does a journalism grad with only a few years of post-grad experience do to turn that dream into a reality?

I’m hoping my 28 day trip to London will help me figure that out.

I’ve put a lot of planning into this trip. Almost a year before I even got on the eight hour and 50 minute flight, I had to sit down and make a budget. Considering the exchange rate at the time, the plummeting loonie, dropping oil prices and an overall poor economic outlook, budgeting was not the most fun of tasks.

After crunching the numbers, it was clear. I had to work… a lot. Between two part-time jobs and freelancing, I earned enough money to buy a round-trip ticket, rent a flat, and buy groceries and other basic necessities for the month.

You’d think someone with my Type A personality would be set for smooth sailing the day of my flight. Maybe, if real life weren’t a thing. I was a stress case the night before, worried I’d forget something important, or that something would come up that would put my plans to an abrupt halt. Instead, I just woke up with the typical symptoms of the common cold.

Despite immediately and diligently taking medicine, including Emergen-C, Cold-FX Extra and DayQuil, nothing helped, and at 6:30 p.m. I boarded the plane feeling a lot less than stellar, despite the fact that I’d very soon be in the city where my dreams could potentially come true.

After surviving the very full, very cramped, very-little-legroom-available flight, I landed in Gatwick, made it through almost 45 minutes of waiting in a line to prove I wasn’t a threat to the country, and got into the cab to my flat.

I managed to only fall asleep twice on the drive there, and stayed awake for the entire tour and quick run-through of basic London living. Then I went to sleep, around 2 p.m. local time, and I didn’t wake up feeling any better that evening, so I went back to bed.

The next day I tried to start my first full day in the city off by going big, but I just ended up getting very dizzy and returning home after about 15 minutes. My second and final trip outside that day was to the grocery store, to stock up on all the cold fighting essentials possible. It was also the first time I’d been asked for ID when buying over-the-counter drugs. According to my good friend Google, some medicines have ingredients that are used to make methamphetamines, so stores have to keep track of who buys how much here. The more you know…

Some basic supplies picked up to battle the cold.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

After two days of being almost completely useless, I decided I was sick of being sick, and it was time to suck it up and start doing things.

I managed to have a packed first week, which started off with a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral, included making friends with a couple of lovely Austrians while waiting in line to meet a local band, visiting a few different green spaces in central London, checking out multiple museums, and, in pure tourist fashion, heading to Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

St. Paul's Cathedral.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

St. James Park.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

Big Ben.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

Gates at Buckingham Palace.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

And as it turns out, my mom was actually wrong (that never happens, like, ever, so I was pretty shocked). The first five days of my visit were abnormally warm, with temperatures sticking in the high 20s and low 30s, and the sun constantly shining. It only "rained" in my area once all week, and even that was almost too light to count. 

Despite fighting a cold for the past 10 days, my first week was overall quite successful from a tourist point of view. When it comes to getting any closer to the dream job though, I have some (okay, lots) of work to do. I might have to revert back to my original plan of sitting outside BBC headquarters for hours every day and talking to everyone who goes in and out of the building until someone finally gives me an interview. The only downside with that plan is instead of an interview I might get kicked off the premises by security... for good. 

For now, let's just hope the next post is more fruitful in terms of my journalistic endeavours.

If you want even more from my trip, be sure to follow my Instagram and Twitter accounts.