“So, You’ve Got the Job. Now What? My First Podcast
I’ve been blogging a lot about interviewing for the PR job you want, but let’s flash forward a couple of months. You got the job. But after all the preparation for applying and landing your dream job, what do you do now?
While offering more information on keeping your new job in PR, I’ve begun to stretch my social media legs by venturing into the frightening exciting world of podcasting. Check out my first podcast, “So, You’ve Got the Job. Now What?”. It covers everything about your new job, from things you should know about your PR career, to communicating with your boss to outsmarting office politics.
The information came from three great blog posts.
Five Things All PR Students Should Know About Their Choice of Career by Steven Silvers, author of Scatterbox.
Conversation with the Boss by Lauren Vargas, author of Communicators Anonymous.
Office Politics 101 by Colin McKay, author of Canuckflack.
image from busylifeproducts.com
Interview Transparency is Crystal Clear.
Transparency in public relations is essential. Regardless of the situation, being honest and forthright with information is your only option. And your job interview is no exception.
You will encounter an array of interview questions in your search for a job, but odds are you will always be asked to state your greatest weakness. This is perhaps the most challenging inquest you will confront, and it is important to face it well-prepared.
How to Communicate Your Weaknesses offers up ten steps to identify, understand and reveal your flaws and still come out on top. The article also offers additional tips and possible pitfalls, which are helpful. Here are some of the highlights.
1. Understand the question. When an employer asks about your weaknesses, the faults are not the most important thing. What they are looking for is self awareness about your weaknesses, and what you do about the challenges.
2. Avoid the most common mistake. “My biggest weakness is that I tend to do everything right all the time.” Ok, so you would never really say that, but coming up with a fake negative will probably just irritate the interviewer. You’ll also come across as lacking self awareness.
3. Be clear and concise. Try not to overstate or ramble. You have advanced warning about this interview obstacle. Know your answer before you go in there and answer succinctly.
Interviewing for jobs is a stressful experience for literally everyone. And honestly airing your weaknesses to your potential boss seems shockingly counterintuitive. However, if we can learn to present our own challenges with poise and fidelity now, we will be perfectly prepared to communicate the issues of a company with even greater skill and transparency in the future.
image from artist Jim Daly
Obama’s My Friend on Facebook. Jealous?
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are the new frontier in media, marketing and communications. From Facebook’s sponsorship of presidential debates to Obama’s nearly immediate efforts via Facebook, MySpace and several fully-loaded websites, it seems that even the most archaic practices of our nation are turning to social media to get the race won.
Facebook and MySpace are giving candidates the platform to introduce themselves, their qualifications and their ideas, so why aren’t soon-to-be college graduates treating their public blogs, Facebook and MySpace pages the same way?
We all know that today companies have access to even the most heavily guarded online information. We’ve heard the stories of graduating seniors who were denied the job because the company found not-so flattering subject matter associated with the potential employee. We know the deal. We hear the stories. Yet, we fail to act.
If candidates from Obama to McCain are successfully marketing themselves on Facebook, why aren’t we?
It’s a sad fact, and one that I would like to forget, but we are getting older and will soon be graduating from college and childhood. But instead of packing up your Harry Potter books and old teddy bear to mark this transition, why not clean up the junk on your Facebook profile? Take the lead from the politicians whose job it is to successfully sell themselves: put your best profile forward. You won’t regret it.
Employee Blogs: Friend or Farce?
Could a bad cup of coffee land you in hot water?
It seems that many organizations are venturing in to the world of employee blogging. From Microsoft employees to restaurant chefs, companies are looking to employees to blog agreeably about their job and the company they work for.
The most interesting example I could find was the Goodwill Ambassablog written by Goodwill Ambassadors and operated by Goodwill Ambassadors of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Part promotion and part personal journal, each day the three authors blog about their experiences and interactions at the San Diego Airport.
Employee blogs seem to be successful and offer a unique glimpse into the work days of employees. But as more and more companies capitalize on the free promotion and employee-reader interaction that employee blogs provide, I begin to wonder if employee associated blogging is really as good as it sometimes seems.
Google Inc. may agree with me. In January 2005,Google removed some personal blog posts from a new Google employee because of content that criticized the company.
In the future, if employees are required to blog about certain topics and with provided viewpoints, will the blogosphere become a restricted forum? Will companies be allowed to control all employee content, even on personal blogs?
As the number of random affiliations between companies increases with the concentration of corporate ownership, where will the rational limits on employee content stop and the crazy company expectations begin?
If, for example, you are doing PR for a large agency who represents hundreds of clients. One day, while blogging on your personal blog after work, you offhandedly mention that the morning coffee you got from the cafe down the street was terrible. You go on to say that luckily you had such an amazing day at your amazing job that the bad coffee just didn’t matter. You find out later, however, that your firm represents that coffee shop in some distant division or has some obscure partnership and that top execs are angered by the negative publicity for the shop in your blog post. They insist you remove it.
Should a company have control over an employee’s freedom to express her opinions? Eventually, as more people begin to blog, will companies strive to monitor even personal blogs for content that could negatively impact the company, its clients or its affiliated organizations? Who knows?
image from whatscookingamerica.net
Your Most Important PR Client: Yourself
PReparing for an interview can be a stressful and taxing process. From your shoes to skirt to blouse to blush, dressing for an interview leaves many job seekers, like myself, more than a little nervous.
There are a lot of websites, books and articles that offer advice on this all important day (or days). Almost all of them provide the same information, but wetfeet.com’s “Dressing for Success in Interviews” is the best I’ve found.
Some of the basic rules for women are a well-tailored, neutral suit, minimal makeup, understated jewelry and pumps.
But one of my biggest concerns about interviewing for a job in PR is how to
look polished in a basic suit while also showing some personal style. And wetfeet.com agrees that you’re less likely to make a distinctive impression if you stick to a simple, sapless suit.
How do you look stylish and chic while also following the basic rules of interview attire? Most articles agree that the level of acceptable personal style varies based on the company, but that expressing who you are within the guidelines of basic interview style is important.
As a future PR practitioner, it is important to cultivate your personal image, performing PR for your most important client: yourself.
photo from jcrew.com
What “They” Want You to Know
You have the PR job of your dreams, but what now? Take a look at Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications’ personal list of t
hings he wished his new PR hires would know. “What I Wish My New Employee Knew” provides an often overlooked perspective on success in the PR workplace.
In “The ‘X Factor’” post from January 30, the advice from Cori McKeever to new PR hires was to burn the midnight oil. Defren disagrees, however, writing that working late, rather than impressing the big wigs, could make your boss question your efficiency.
They may disagree on some things, but both McKeever and Defren agree that slaving late or not, having enthusiasm, self motivation and a willingness to work is the best way to demonstrate your worth.
photo from pr-squared.com
