Grad PR Job Hunt Cont'd

As I mentioned in my previous post my job hunt has started. In the search for the perfect 2010 PR Grad Scheme I decided to do something slightly unusual – visit the Autumn Graduate Fair sponsored by The Independent. It was quite hard to find it to start with, particularly if you go with friends and you are not in charge of the map –thnx Howie :) The venue for this event was located in between Victoria and St James' Park in the beautiful Royal Horticultural Halls.


I must say that I found it slightly disappointing. Since I am passionate about Public Relations and all that comes with it, I really don’t want to apply for IT Consulting, HR or Finance Business Placement. I may consider Management Consulting or the fancy Bloomberg Summer Internship programme but I am a PR girl...
 
I wish there was more of these Grad Job Fairs available in London before Christmas. I should perhaps consider organising one that will serve the need of us, PR & Events Management & Marketing & Advertising & Marketing Communications & Journalism & Sociology etc. graduates. I don’t want to sound like a person that moans about everything, but honestly there was nothing for me on the Show. I received this interesting email prior to the event with a list of matched companies, based on my profile and preferred sectors. One of them: ‘Cisco Systems - Associate Sales Representative’ – seriously? What a joke! I hate sales.
 
There is one good outcome of this. I finally found the time to sit down and update my C.V. and start working on my online PR Portfolio. The latter still needs some polishing since I want to include my student assignments too. At the end of the day I am a PR student and what else can represent what I am capable of better than examples of my hard work at Uni?

I noticed this poll at LinkedIn: ‘When hiring a public relations employee, what area is most important?



A Education
B Current media Contacts
C Writing ability
D Previous agency experience
E Spokesperson experience’


What would you pick? Only one answer counts. Isn’t it fantastic?

I always thought that a person comes in a package. We all have culture background that affects our life choice, ethics and many other things. I will have BA in PR but does it mean I have great writing skills? I have done very relevant PR internship but is it enough? I have worked on a large media contact database but is it what you expect? I don’t have experience as a spokesperson but can’t I learn it? I wonder what will be the result of this poll. Here is the link. So feel free to vote. Don't forget to let me know what you picked. I am curious.

Overall, this week wasn’t very successful in terms of finding one great looking PR Grad Scheme. Hope that the next week will be better. I’m staying optimistic.

How Not To Get a Job in Public Relations

As a PR student I am constantly looking for an opportunity to boost my C.V. by doing work experience or internship in a London based company or a consultancy. I have updated my CV, worked on a personalised covering emails/letters and then I just wait for the phone call. The part when I get invited to come for an interview can be the most scary one. Therefore, I always try to prepare myself for the type of questions that might come up. This doesn’t work all the time and I sometimes find myself thinking how to answer a question like “What is your biggest weakness?” in a positive way.

I have recently come across “How Not to Get a Job in Public Relations” post by Newman PR and I was shocked. It is a well-written real-life story about a fresh Uni graduate who was looking for a summer part-time internship in PR. She was one of the lucky ones to be selected for an interview but unfortunately she didn’t impress and when asked to write a most press release, she failed immediately. This is not as shocking as what came after. The interviewer offered her a constructive criticism about her press release, which was intended to help her in her future job applications. This is a good thing, right? Usually the potential employers don’t even bother to get back to you if you haven’t been selected for the job position. She should have thanked for it but instead she got offended and replied in a very angry, selfish and completely inappropriate matter attacking the consultancy’s culture and employees. She went as far as contacting the two co-founders claiming that the interviewer harassed her!!!! Hello?

I would be more than happy if after unsuccessful interview I (receiver) received an email explaining why and giving me some constructive criticism. Why, you may ask. Well, nobody is perfect and we learn as we go and having the knowledge about what did I do wrong would help me to learn from my mistakes.

This post by Newman PR actually gave me some great advice what can I expect from an interview. I didn’t know that I could be asked to undertake a writing test to prove my skills. I was also unaware that I could create a PR portfolio of mock press releases, etc. This is a good tip to all of us wannabe PR practitioners. Did you for example know that the way we communicate via emails can say a lot about our character? I know that now…