Q. I’m a young journalist currently working in the print medium at a mid-sized daily. What advice would you have for young reporters who want to work for a large national paper on the Web desk? What skills should I acquire or work toward acquiring to make myself more marketable for a Web position? How did you start out in the industry?

— Kelly Reynolds, Watertown, N.Y.

A. Great question. A big part of my job involves hiring, so this topic is important to me.

I ended up in this industry by accident. I studied public policy in college and particularly loved my classes relating to the media and journalism. During the summers, I worked as a writer and producer at the Web site for the Wimbledon tennis championships, where I picked up a basic understanding of how a Web site comes together. So when I heard about an opening for an internship at NYTimes.com, I jumped at the opportunity.

Web journalism has changed a lot since I joined The Times in 1999. I often joke that I would never hire me today.

Our Web newsroom is closely integrated with the print newsroom, so I am looking for people who can flourish in both worlds and who I could see fitting into many different jobs at The Times. Among other things, producers are responsible for packaging the news online and for creating original multimedia. As a result, they need to have solid journalism credentials and strong technical skills.

On the technical side, we want people to walk in the door with a proficiency in Photoshop, HTML and blogging software, and an understanding of Web publishing systems. Experience in the production of multimedia — including the use of audio and video editing tools — is strongly desirable. For our more specialized multimedia positions, we expect to see an extensive knowledge of Flash and an understanding of how to integrate databases into multimedia presentations.