David Hencke - Westminster Correspondent, The Guardian

My job is a lobby correspondent in the House of Commons - with one big difference - I do not cover routine lobby briefings... Instead I spend a considerable amount of time investigating political stories- and following "off diary" tales from MPs and Whitehall.

I also cover a number of routine stories, reports by select committees, the National Audit Office, the Committee on Standards in Public Life and freedom of information issues. This is an essential mix- which allows me to keep in touch with people while carrying out long term investigations which can take weeks.

How I got to where I am is a mixture of chance and luck and some professional judgement (though the latter might be queried at times by colleagues). Probably the best way into journalism is still to start by working for a local newspaper.

It helps if you are at university to get involved with the student newspaper as this shows that you have some commitment to journalism. I ended up editing Warwick University's first student newspaper? though it was not as professional as its successors.

These days probably the best thing to do is to get on a good postgraduate journalism course - City University and Cardiff University are the among the best ( though Bournemouth University has a good media studies course) - and get a job from there.

My own experience is now rather dated. I was indentured as a probationary reporter - a form of trade apprenticeship - to the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph in the small market town of Wellingborough. The town at the time was also a London overspill estate.

Those three years were invaluable. I had to start from scratch covering parish councils, motoring courts, chasing ambulances and fire engines and reporting on petty crime. At the same time I was trained in basic law and got basic Pitman's shorthand. It was giant learning curve and most of my big mistakes were made then. I also learned a lot about human nature, who would leak documents and who wouldn't, and how to protect sources.

From there I got onto a bigger morning newspaper, the Western Mail in Cardiff and then a three year spell on a specialist paper, The Times Higher Education Supplement, before getting a job on the Guardian.

Today a regional or local paper still provides a good grounding for people leaving wanting to get experience in journalism. Once you have got your first job it is easier to move around simply because it is a small profession and most of the openings are for experienced journalists.

Getting on a national is difficult - I got first noticed by the Guardian because I helped out a leader writer on the paper who was a friend of the editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement. I then got to know about vacancies and applied for a reporter's job and faced three interviews before I got taken on.

Working in the lobby is a different matter, and you would need a background of general reporting. It is still like a big club with all the advantages and pitfalls of membership. You do get "inside" information, steers and leaks as well as official reporting - but you also have to be careful you don't get sucked in to such an extent that you lose objectivity and become prey to some very clever manipulators and spinmeisters. Nevertheless by keeping your ear to the ground sometimes the most amazing information turns up. By going to a Commons reception one evening I was taken aside by a source who first told me about Peter Mandelson's secret £373,000 home loan from fellow minister, Geoffrey Robinson, which later led to Peter's first resignation from the government. That doesn't happen every day - but when it does it makes the job magic.