There are variations on these themes to be found, but these are the basic kinds of jobs in writing that a new person entering the field or the job market should expect to come across.
If you are trying to become a writer straight out of college or if you are looking at a writing job opportunity but you have very little previous professional writing experience, you will need to have a college degree to be considered for the job. Your degree usually doesn't need to be any higher than a B.A., but it needs to be in journalism, communications arts, or English literature (and the first two are better than that last).
If you wish to find better writing jobs to choose from for your first writing job, especially if you are looking to switch careers and go into writing, you can get them if you have previous professional work experience in another field or industry and also happen to possess very good writing skills. For instance, if you have previously worked at a computer software development or sales company, or have worked in a company that deals with chemicals or pharmaceuticals, you could get a better-paying tech writing job right from the start. Your technical background informs your writing style and capability. You would then be judged by your previous work experience and your writing samples, which you would likely have to create from scratch to then present to the potential employer. In these instances, it helps you to have a degree in a writing-related major but it's not required.
However, much better entry level writing jobs for those who want to become writers soon after leaving university or college can be found by accepting freelance writing work. With the rise of the Internet, this freelance work has taken on some new forms and new doors have been opened up in the profession.
As a freelance writer, you would be bound to produce. If you failed to produce what the client or per-assignment-employer wanted, either you would wind up not getting paid or you would not be re-hired (that is, given any more work from them). For this reason, many companies and firms see freelance writers as better deals: they are less costly to hire up-front, they don't require and won't demand any benefits, they very likely don't require any office space that the company needs to provide, they can be "fired" with great ease and little fear of lawsuits, and they only get paid if they actually produce and produce immediately. On the flip-side of this coin, however, this makes it far easier for the beginning writer to get hired. Employers are far more willing to take a chance on someone based on their demonstrated capability alone if they are a freelance who costs them little overhead.
If a freelance writer establishes himself as an excellent worker who produces great quality consistently, this can open up many doors, starting from within a company or one of the companies the freelance writes for, to very good paying and permanent writing jobs. This can happen within just a few years or even less than one year.
The Internet makes it possible for those who seek entry level writing jobs to establish their own writing business. There are content sites always looking for new quality writing on just about any subject matter that will pay writers based on page-views brought in by their pieces, and some of these sites also make it possible for the writer to sell a piece of writing at a flat fee depending on how much of the rights are bought by the customer. These fees might be a couple hundred dollars per piece in some instances. Someone's first writing job business might also include blogging and/or keeping a writing-based website and earning PPC or PPP ad revenues. There are also very good Internet-based writing opportunities for ghost writers (people who create works for others who then buy all publishing rights and put their own names on them in exchange for up-front money to the ghost writer). Ghost writers are always hired on a fee basis; they may work through a web-based agency or they might bid on projects through an agency that takes a percentage of their fee as a commission.
