If you want a journalism job you better have the journalism skills that employers wants.

That users want.

That means more than writing and reporting, because there are a lot of veteran journalists with those skills and many of them are looking for work. Those journalists also have better clips than you and a lot more experience. And frankly journalism is going to need less writers moving forward, not more.

So, if you want a job you better have the skills that people actually want.

Here are two thoughts from professionals over at Innovation in College Media:

Paul Connelly isn’t looking for people who only know how to write. He gets plenty of applications from people who know how to write and have experience.

The other thing I find really disappointing is the resume, the skill set. It’s not where I want it to be … They don’t have the skills that I want to see young people have because the older people I work with don’t have them.

Does it really make sense for j-school students to try to compete with veterans in an ever-shrinking market place? Of course not. There will always be a need for dedicated writers, but those will be the best writers — the ones with experience, established contacts and a unique flare for writing.

Most j-school students will never be that good at writing, but they know how to be reporters. All it takes is a willingness to adapt those reporting skills to new platforms and media types.

Andrew DeVigal wants you to embrace multimedia story telling.

For students who are reluctant to embrace multimedia, it sounds horrible to say, but there are going to be a lot of other students who are - who are going to be smart in the storytelling, who are comfortable with the technology.

He correctly points out that journalists need to figure out the best way to tell each story, which means being media and platform agnostic. Media companies aren’t looking for people who can only tell a story one way, regardless if that way makes sense. They need people with a diverse skill set.

Journalists can’t keep forcing people to consume content they way they want to give it to them. They need to give people the content they desire in the format they desire. We became journalists to serve the public, not to serve ourselves.

All j-school students need to know something beyond reporting. Maybe its video, maybe its Web design, maybe its Flash, but it better be something.

If you haven’t done it yet, I recommend you check out My summer reading list for j-school students and any journalist who wants to add new media skills.

You’re smart, you know how to research, find leads and work sources. You know how to be a reporter.

Now it’s time for you to learn how to be a reporter in a myriad of different formats that users want.

I have heard and seen so many stupid ideas with the Web that I realized that one thing most newspapers and editors lack is common sense.

That’s why every newspaper needs to go out right now and hire a Vice President of Common Sense (thanks Bill Simmons). The premise is simple: every time an editor, marketing director, publisher or whoever had a “great” idea for the Web, he or she would have to run it by the VP of Common Sense.

And usually that idea would be rejected within seconds.

Here are three ideas that have either been tried at my paper or suggested that defy common sense:

1. Let’s add a stock ticker and quotes to our site

What a great idea. Every reader of my 100,000 circulation paper has been thinking the coverage over at CBS Marketwatch, Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance!, Wall Street Journal, etc was sorely lacking. What better way to connect with readers than by offering an extremely limited financial tool on our site.

The best part is that it would cost a lot of money each money. Are you kidding? I have a free widget on my computer that is updated every few minutes with stock prices and keeps an eye on several indexes.

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