The Real Canary in the Coal Mine Isn’t Recruiting. It’s Gen Z. For decades, local television was untouchable. Massive reach. Political cash. Network affiliation power. Monopoly-level local news dominance. If you owned a local TV station, you owned attention in your market. Then the internet happened. Then streaming happened. Then mobile happened. Then social media […]
Local Television’s Expiration Date? Read More »
Are Non-Competes Breaking the Media Industry—or Just Exposing It? It’s Time to Talk About It. Let’s stop pretending this isn’t an uncomfortable question. Are non-competes and restrictive employment contracts helping the media industry… or slowly strangling it? Depending on who you ask, they’re either: So which is it? The honest answer is: it depends on
Non-Competes Are Costing You Talent. Change My Mind. Read More »
If you’ve spent any time scrolling LinkedIn lately (or read my blog posts), you’ve probably seen the headlines. Ownership changes. Consolidation. Budget cuts. Hiring freezes. Restructuring. Additional responsibilities piled onto already overloaded teams. It’s enough to make even the most accomplished television professional wonder what’s next. Let’s start with some good news. Despite all the
A Survival Guide from Carver Talent Congratulations. You graduated college. You survived finals, group projects, professors who still use PowerPoint templates from 2004, and enough ramen noodles to qualify as a sodium-based life form. Now comes the easy part. Just kidding. Now you have to find a job. And if you’re reading this because you
Dear College Graduate: So You Want to Work in Local Television? Read More »
Every recruiter has “the email.” The one you screenshot.The one you forward to a trusted industry friend with zero context except:“Read this. I’m speechless.” Here is mine. And I’m sharing this only to educate, not to embarrass this candidate. I pinky promise — and pinky promises are golden with my daughter. I’ve waited an appropriate
A Peek Into My Media Recruiting World: The $10 Million TV Sales Candidate Read More »
By Carver Talent The local television business is changing faster than many executives want to admit. Consolidation. Acquisitions. Budget compression. Corporate layering. Centralization. Hiring freezes disguised as “strategic pauses.” Department heads managing two stations, three platforms, four new revenue expectations, and five additional job responsibilities — often without meaningful increases in compensation. And yet, despite
The local television industry just made several very strategic leadership moves. And the timing is difficult to ignore. First, Nexstar Media Group announced Elizabeth Ryder as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary to the Board of Directors — notably, an executive deeply tied to major acquisition and regulatory strategy during Nexstar’s biggest expansion years.
After 30 years in human resources and recruiting — including running recruiting for a large broadcast group and now spending the last 7 years owning my own media recruiting firm, Carver Talent — I’ve come to one undeniable conclusion: Recruiting is less of a profession and more of a front-row seat to the greatest reality
The media industry loves to talk about urgency. Breaking news. Quarterly revenue. Ratings books. FCC deadlines. Digital growth. Talent wars. But when it comes to hiring? Some media companies move like it’s 1997. Post a job. Wait. Pray. Interview the same recycled applicants their competitors already passed on. Drag the process out for 6-8 weeks.
Yes, I’m old enough to remember when resumes showed up in the mail. And get this, we posted job ads only in the local newspaper. Yikes… Actual newspapers and snail mail. Resumes delivered by the United States Postal Service. To an office. In an envelope. On expensive “executive” resume paper that could double as a
Recruiting Used to Be a Profession. Now It’s a Software Filter. Read More »
