Aim high but don’t be too picky. When I was in Chile, I remember being taken on by a US business magazine to write about business issues in the country.

I was not keen on the idea of writing business pieces but the money from the monthly 1,500-word article paid my rent for the month and the experience was invaluable (and regular).

It freed me up to spend the rest of my time hunting for other stories that were not such easy money.

One of the great aspects of starting out abroad is that when you pitch your story to the international editor of a paper back in London, New York, Sydney or wherever, he or she is not asking themselves whether you are a 22-year-old, fresh-faced graduate or a seasoned pro.

All they want to know is what the story is about and in as few sentences as possible. Ideally that pitch email should be less than 200 words.

This set-up is a great leveller. As long as your ideas are good (and yes, there is a certain amount of confidence needed to stick by these and shop around with them a bit) you have a head start.

Just dropping everything and going abroad may seem scary, but if you don’t like the idea of further study or being placed within the structured, rigorous confines of a grad scheme then starting your journalism career away from home may be the perfect move.

Graduating with absolutely no idea of what you want to do can be daunting. I intended to put off all of those ‘serious career decisions’ by taking a post-uni gap year to South America.

I had been a reporter and editor for a couple of my university newspapers but I still was not convinced I wanted to be a journalist.