This is a post from PR columnist, Alison Kenney.
Congratulations! You made it and now you’re about to start a brand new job, your first real job in PR.
Here’s what you can expect:
What seems impossible at first becomes the norm: whether it’s learning to differentiate the editors of the Times and the Journal, understand the pet peeves of multiple managers or simply use the phone at your desk, there are a lot of new things to get used to. But I guarantee that you will learn the ropes, it just takes time.
You’ve left your comfort zone behind: good-bye roommates – perhaps you’re saying hello to some new ones? – and adios to campus life where you’re surrounded by hundreds of students whose lives are similar to yours. Now you’re working with people of all levels of experience and backgrounds (who all have something different to offer).
Your dream job may seem like a nightmare at times: that’s why they call it a job, not a hobby. Industry veteran Todd Defren offers this advice on the benefits of sticking with it in his Open Letter to Millennials.
You will meet the people who will influence the rest of your career: in every kind of way the people you meet at your first job – your direct supervisor, the president of the company and everyone else will have an impact on you.
It’s not over now that you’ve got the job; in fact, it’s just begun: you probably don’t need to wear your interview suit to work every day now, but that doesn’t mean no one is watching. Keep cultivating your personal brand and continuing your personal growth.
PR is a service-oriented vocation (yeah, like waitressing): in-house PR departments are often required to serve the needs of the CEO and executive team, the sales force and HR department; PR agency employees serve the needs of their clients. Often that means working with frequent interruptions and changing priorities. Public relations offices are busy places where schedules are continually rearrange to meet deadlines, attend meetings and travel.
School may be over, but you’ll learn a lot in the next year — Although your internship and courses will give you a great start, PR is definitely a learn-on-the-job career that can’t be taught in the classroom, You’re learning not just how to do the best PR you can but also the ins and outs of the industry you serve. Whether you’re learning to write for new medium, messages and levels of urgency or brainstorming new pitch ideas, each day in PR brings new challenges and lessons.
Alison Kenney an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience. She is based on Boston’s North Shore and has worked with organizations in the technology, professional services and consumer industries. She writes a bi-monthly PR column on LindsayOlson.com. Learn more her here.
The economy has forced many people to get more creative to land a new position. Kevin Brown, now an Account Manager at Stage Two Consulting, shared with me a presentation he used that helped him transition from political consulting to technology public relations.
He developed a Prezi presentation to show off his talents. Without an existing relationship with a potential employer, making the switch from political consulting to tech PR is challenging, even in a strong job market. I love how Kevin showed off his sense of humor while relating his experience and even addressing some potential objections in this presentation.
Some good ideas here. And he’s a success story because he actually got the job!
What kind of creative examples have you seen or used to get a new job?
This is a post from guest columnist Alison Kenney.
Writing is an essential skill in a PR career. Writing under pressure is an essential-er skill.
PR people do more writing each day than they may realize — from the expected stuff, like press releases, contributed articles, bios, speaker proposals, award submissions, case studies and pitch letters to other forms of communication like blog responses and emails offering client counsel. Then there′s the way we represent ourselves with social media — the profile updates and community contributions or perhaps the blog posts we write. While it′s important that all of these written communications be sharp, smart and clear, many are done on the fly or with an expected tight turnaround.
From my experience, here are a few tips for writing well under pressure:
- Get rid of distractions — close down a few Windows on your screen, close the door to your office or settle into someone else′s office or a conference room. Tune out the buzz around you so that you can focus on getting the job done.
- Just do it — stuck on finding the perfect opening or headline? Sometimes it′s best to just start writing and get the juices flowing, then go back to edit later. One of my supervisors once told me that the key to writing in PR is to think about the news you are trying to communicate and imagine two old men sitting on a bench communicating it for you; the point was that if you could imagine their conversation you would have your headline, your sub-headline and your supporting arguments.
- Break it down — if the idea of writing an entire piece right now is overwhelming, create smaller, more do-able "homework" assignments. When I′m really stuck and not motivated to write something that really needs to get done, I set a schedule for myself. For instance, I′ll tell my lazy self that I must write for the next 30 minutes and then reward myself with another, more desirable activity.
- Start with the easy stuff —maybe thinking of a fresh way to write the CEO′s quote in a press release eludes you, but you can easily write the fact-filled introductory paragraph and company boilerplate paragraphs. Doing so makes it look like you′ve written more than you have and could be the inspiration you need.
- Imagine what the reader will think — every piece of communication you write has an intended audience. Put yourself in their shoes for a second and think about what they want to know, what their first question will be upon reading your headline or opening line or what their reaction will be to your news.
- Take a break — this kind of flies in the face of my first few tips where I suggest just focusing on the matter at hand, but honestly some of my best ideas come when I switch gears for a short time and get up from my desk to do something different.
- Keep a diary — a lot of writing experts recommend this because it gets you in the habit of writing, gets the ideas to appear on paper and is a fabulous way to get a sense of your writing style.
- Read — I recall a saying that good writers are good readers, probably because reading a variety of materials will expand your vocabulary, open you to new ideas and keep you current.
What are your tips for writing under pressure?
Alison Kenney an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience. She is based on Boston′s North Shore and has worked with organizations in the technology, professional services and consumer industries. She writes a bi-monthly PR column on LindsayOlson.com. Learn more her here.
PRNewser is running an interesting series about how to get a job in social media via interviews with public relations and interactive agencies. The agency answers ten questions aimed at giving readers a sense of what an agency looks for in a social media hire and how social media inititatives are integrated in the agency. Lots of great information here for those of you looking for a social media focus.
Check out the interviews posted so far from R/GA, Ketchum, and Porter Novelli.
Digital and social media is definitely on the rise in 2010. Most of the new positions we've been getting in the past few months at Paradigm Staffing have been exclusively digital focused. Currently, we have three open searches - a VP Digital for a PR agency in New York, a SVP for a PR agency in Washington D.C., and a Social Media Manager for a healthcare company in San Francisco
This blog is to share my recruiting experiences and discuss thoughts on the job market, PR industry and technology.
Alison Kenney is an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience.
