new professionals

Intro to Agency PR

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

Upon graduation from college almost five years ago, I noticed a common trend among entry-level job descriptions for which I was applying: public relations agency experience was preferred and sometimes even required. I had held a number of jobs and internships in the industry throughout my college career, but none were with an agency. I didn’t understand why working at an agency was put on a pedestal, but I knew that getting that experience would be an important step in my career.

After working in marketing for a couple of years, I decided to make the switch to agency PR. I found that agency life posed its own unique challenges, and new professionals should learn to expect a few commonalities among agencies when attaining the gold standard of PR experience.

Learn to juggle

The ability to multitask is not only crucial, but it is at the crux of your job. While some larger agencies may have individuals working on just one client account, many agencies will have a team dedicated to a handful of clients. These clients may all be in the same industry, such as consumer products or health care, or they may run the gamut of industries. New professionals in agencies will have to quickly learn their clients’ businesses, products and services inside and out. You must become an expert in each of these industries so you can communicate effectively and in an educated way.

One of the biggest differences between agency and corporate communications is how you prioritize. At an agency, you can’t prioritize one client over another. They all need equal attention, and if your five clients each have a last-minute project at 5 p.m. on a Friday, the work needs to get done for all five clients. At a corporation, you may have the flexibility to prioritize one project over another—not so at an agency. Be prepared for long hours, but great client relationships and invaluable experience as a result.

Learn to accept every opportunity

I now realize why agency experience is preferred by many employers, having lived agency life. New professionals will gain experience in almost every PR task—building media lists, media monitoring, pitching reporters, drafting press releases, managing social media accounts and creating PR plans. Nothing is off limits for an entry-level PR professional.

Take advantage of this opportunity. While it might seem overwhelming at first to try to master everything an agency has to offer, doing is the best way of learning. When I first started, I would volunteer to tag along on a Saturday morning to a radio station to observe a client interview or come up with pitch ideas from breaking news. In a year and a half, there aren’t many skills I haven’t attempted to master. Not only do you build your skill set, but you become the go-to person on the team when questions arise—no longer just a worker bee, but an invaluable member of the team.

Learn to speak up

When I first started at my agency, I was apprehensive to speak up. Not only did I feel like the new kid in a room of PR experts, but I wasn’t sure how the hierarchy would play out in an agency. I learned that not only was sharing ideas encouraged, it was expected! Don’t expect to be making copies forever. Agencies want to see their staff grow into strategic thinkers and creative minds. Senior leaders like new professionals who take initiative and share their ideas, whether it’s for a client project or proposing a more efficient way to get the work done.

It’s also extremely important to keep your career goals in mind. Don’t keep it a secret if there is a specific project on which you want to work. Not only does asking for specific projects show passion, but it allows you to share your unique interests and skills. Just because you are a new professional doesn’t mean you have nothing to bring to the table. Since my prior position was in marketing, I had experience in redesigning websites. When one of our clients was looking to redesign their website, I jumped at the chance to not only use my past experience, but also lead a project I really enjoyed. I now have two company website redesigns under my belt and a happy client.

Maybe you are a passionate Pinner and can launch a client Pinterest page, or maybe you love to write and a press release needs to be prepared. Don’t be shy in asking for what you want!

 

While switching to an agency was overwhelming at first, the experience has had so much to offer. If you take advantage of the wealth of opportunities agencies offer, you can build an amazing foundation for the rest of your PR career. What other advice would you give new pros heading for agency life? What was the biggest lesson you learned?

 

Heather SliwinskiHeather Sliwinski is an account executive at KemperLesnik, a Chicago-based public relations agency, providing media relations and social media services to a variety of B2B clients. Previously, she held positions in marketing and event planning for corporations, nonprofits and higher education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications with an emphasis in strategic communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sliwinski is the blog co-chair and chair-elect for the PRSA New Professionals Section. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

 

Why the New Professional is the Face of Diversity

Heather Sliwinski 5 Comments

Over the years, diversity has had an identity crisis. It has experienced its fair share of definitions and ups and downs among fragmented industries and advocacy groups. Many wanted to claim diversity as part of their entity yet didn’t fully comprehend what it even meant.

That’s all about to change, and here’s why: the new public relations professional defines everything that diversity is and is poised to set the tone for organic diversity for generations to come. The younger demographic of communications professionals has grown up in a culture of inclusivity almost unbeknownst to them. To this generation, diversity has come naturally.

We owe this in large part to those advocates before us who have laid the foundation for this innate receptiveness towards diversity. We also witnessed right before our eyes the transformation of America’s population – watched as its minority population became a majority and how large and small companies alike began recognizing them as consumers. Moreover, perhaps it was also our parents or our government who early on instilled in us that everyone is created equal.

For whatever reason, our generation is different, and new professionals are at the forefront of this change. So what does this mean for PR professionals? It means that we are charged with carrying on this diversity torch throughout the entire course of our careers. To do that, we must think of diversity in a different light than what we’ve been accustomed to thinking.

Diversity is defined as being of a different kind, form, character, etc. So, in a way, aren’t we all diverse? Our race, ethnicity, age and gender are only a small and superficial portion of what make us unique. The true value of diversity lies not in identifying, isolating or targeting the diverse, but in aiming towards total inclusivity of everyone’s ideas.

Diversity is a proven success factor across a wide range of industries. In a recent article on The Atlantic, an executive from Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, said that their efforts to attract more women to the company resulted in overall more tight-knit and vocal team.

“The men who come into our organization who are excited about the fact that we have diversity as a goal are generally the people who are better at listening, they’re better at group learning, they’re better at collaboration, they’re better at communication,” said Kellan Elliott-McCrea, chief technology officer, Etsy.

Imagine what such a thing does for PR professionals – to not just boast diversity in our strategic outreach plans, but to embody it from within our organizations. This trend will ensure that all the publics with whom we communicate are heard. It’s up to new professionals to create the PR campaign that once and for all ends the identity crisis that has plagued diversity in the past.

 

Carolina MadridCarolina Madrid is vice president of diversity for PRSA and director of programs for PRSA San Francisco Chapter. She works in the Corporate/Financial Practice of Burson-Marsteller in San Francisco, where she advises clients on mainstream and Hispanic market media strategy.

PRSA New Professionals Brown Bag: Get Your Dream Career

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

In our November New Professionals Section tweetchat, we discovered that many of our new professionals are eagerly searching for up-to-date relevant information on getting a job. Should you include social networks and a QR code on your resume? How can you bump up your interview strategy? We’re fortunate to have our very own part of PRSA dedicated to answering all of our questions – the PRSA Jobcenter.

In our upcoming Brown Bag, Richard Spector of PRSA Jobcenter, will share with us all of the basics, but also all of the new and creative ways to enhance your resume with QR codes and social media. Then, once you catch an employer’s attention with your resume, he’ll discuss how to “wow” them with your interview skills. In addition to interviews and resumes, he will review the job seeking tools PRSA has to offer.

Regardless of what stage of your career you’re in, this is always valuable information to have!

This New Pros Brown Bag will be held on Thursday, Jan. 17 from 12 to 1 p.m. EST. Remember, it’s free for New Pros members! Register here.

Richard Spector, manager of client services and sales support at PRSA, has been working with PRSA Jobcenter for five years. Spector guides public relations professionals of all levels in their job search, resume writing, networking and interview follow-up skills.

Intro to Crisis Communications

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

Almost 17 years ago, I started my career in public relations after a five-year stint as a trade journalist.  Since I have a social butterfly/people-person personality, I thought PR was all about mingling with the celebrities, traveling and promoting great news journalists were sure to write about.  After I took off my rose-colored glasses, I realized PR wasn’t always peaches and cream and often involved using skill sets like crisis communications to protect my company’s image and brand.

I started my career in technology PR and quickly discovered strategic crisis communications were must-have skills to survive in one of the most stressful jobs in the professional landscape. Why do you ask?  At most of the companies I worked for in the telecommunications segment in the 1990s, acquisitions, restructurings, layoffs and management upheavals were commonplace. Therefore, it was essential for me to develop crisis communications skills early on in my career to prepare my company for the worst.  Thinking on my feet, developing strategic counseling and planning skills were drilled into my DNA as a PR professional early on.

Fast forward to the last few years. What’s been the big trend in PR?  Whether you are a new PR or veteran PR professional, no one can forget the crises that have affected big companies like Chick-fil-A, BP, News Corp., Penn State, Netflix and HP. The common theme in many of these crises is that the PR and marketing teams didn’t develop solid communications plans to react to the media quickly enough and preserve their brand’s image.  Whether your company is in the technology, healthcare or travel and tourism field, you always need to be prepared for potential situations involving lawsuits, accusations of impropriety, sudden changes in management and other volatile situations on which your stakeholders — and the media that serves them — often focus.

Crisis communications is at the heart of my current job today.  My company provides essential information that helps customers across all industries and government predict, assess and manage risk. We provide products and services that address evolving client needs in the risk sector, while upholding the highest standards of security and privacy.  To that end, upholding my company’s standards of compliance in a highly-regulated industry is a natural extension of why crisis communications is so important.

For me, every day is different.  I have to stay on top of what’s happening with my company in the media landscape by reading and studying trends, including privacy and security changes, regulatory and compliance issues, to name a few.  In addition, I avidly monitor the news and potential crises through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.  In a highly-regulated business like mine, it’s essential to respond appropriately to media inquiries as well.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job is helping our spokespeople and marketing teams develop strategic messages that help protect, preserve and raise our brand in key markets like financial services, government and insurance – ultimately so we can influence the key influencers – the media and analyst community.

Therefore, developing an issues or crisis communications playbook is the way our small communications team prepares for a potential crisis that could involve a technology issue, an executive appointment, a natural disaster or on-site employee issue.  This is our guide or instruction book for communicating quickly and decisivively to our key publics, including the media, the industry analysts, partners and customers, charities and investors.

Change continues to be the only constant in my job.  However, here are five for new professionals looking to add crisis communications skills into their careers:

  1. Take courses on crisis communications through PRSA and other outlets like PR News.  The only way to effectively learn how to become an effect crisis communications pro is by learning from the experts who have years of experience managing them the right way.
  2. Ask your key spokespeople what the five biggest risks would be to your organization’s business.  Asking the hard questions and preparing the answers to potential risks your organization faces, will help you prepare your talking points, Q&As and issues management playbook in the event a crisis happens.
  3. Study what has happened with some of the biggest PR crises over the last few years and learn from their mistakes.  Mistakes are bound to happen in the PR profession because communications aren’t always effectively managed or rolled out. But you can magnify those mistakes by a magnitude of 10 when a crisis is mishandled. So you can learn from what other companies or organizations have done to repair or resurrect their images and brands in the wake of disasters that will help you in the long run.
  4. Put your crisis communications skills into practice.  Start small by simulating a crisis communications drill.  Once your crisis playbook is developed, set up a war room and temporary phone lines and prepare your spokespeople to be trained to take questions from the media.  Practice makes perfect and drills help to make sure you are properly prepared if a true disaster happens.

Crisis communications is far and away one of the most difficult PR skill sets to master, but you need to learn to be prepared in case your company has to deal with a crisis.

 

Stephen LoudermilkStephen Loudermilk is global media and analyst relations director at LexisNexis, where he heads communications for the company’s Business Services and Screening practices.  In his spare time, he is actively involved in PRSA, where he serves as chairman of the Technology Section and treasurer of the PRSA Southeast District.

Millennials vs. Boomers: the Imaginary Division

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

According to the National Center on Citizenship, there are 77 million baby boomers and 82 million millennials. Chances are you are among the wave of 82 million millennials who are now employed or are looking for employment, or are a member of the boomer era who is phasing out of the workplace. Our personal, professional, societal and structural values are changing and along with them, the workplace.

Unfortunately, the generations have been framed as feuding—one generation up against the other. Baby boomer vs. millennial.

Many stigmas are associated with both baby boomers and millennials to further this imaginary division. Millennials whine and feel entitled. They are lazy, immature, sloppy and in constant need of attention. Boomers are resistant to change, stuffy, impersonal, greedy and slow. These stereotypes come from one point of view misjudging the other. Boomers and millennials have much more in common than credit is given.

These differing values are ironically due to the boomers who have raised the millennials. An MTV study called “No Collar Workers” highlights the very different views that millennials and baby boomers have about professional life as a whole. This different mindset on how to approach the workplace seems to be the overwhelming variance between the two. Boomers and millennials differ on how the workplace should be run, where one fits into the overall structure, how teams are comprised, when and why meetings are scheduled and how to effectively collaborate on a team project, to name a few.

Boomers have values centered on structural and individual responsibility vs. collective responsibility. Boomers are hardworking, devoted to their position within the workplace and feel that the traditional office environment and the traditional workday is the best way to get the job done. “Face time” is equally important, as is the actual labor. Boomers prefer to have a specifically structured system where feedback is given at a specific time of year (six months review/annual review). This structure is based upon objectives and goals. Boomers are content with being a cog in a machine, not necessarily knowing or caring where they fit into the big picture. This expectancy and rigid hierarchy places each person in their “lane.” The hierarchy provides a chain of command that allows decisions and what work is to be done and by whom and what direction the company heads in delegated to appropriate areas.

Millennials would rather have no job than a job they hate. Millennials attach meaning to doing what they love not just doing. Millennials are hardworking and want to work where their creativity is appreciated and valued. Within the internal structure, millennials want to see where and how their work fits in the overall picture. Millennials crave mentorship and responses from their management and hierarchal team. Their view is a more flexible approach to the job. For millennials, as long as the work gets done, the amount of time spent in the office shouldn’t matter. Transparency is a mainstay of the millennials, which translates to openness and honesty.     

These stigmas, values and opinions about the other group cause both sects to get a bad rap. Boomers feel overworked and unappreciated, and millennials often feel the same way. Both sects face age discrimination and are having a tough time landing jobs in the current market. Boomers have been forced by financial necessity to delay retirement and continue working, while the millennials enter a more intense job market with fewer opportunities. Both groups need each other. They need each other for different reasons and are having a hard time understanding each other’s perspectives, values, motivations and intentions. Among the clash of ideological difference, personal difference and professional difference, an accord must be reached. Both groups can teach, grow and learn from the other.

As the retirement ages continue to rise and the evolution of the workplace continues, maybe we will see a transformation and the revocation of any idea of a generational rift. The millennials are a huge and beneficial entity as are the older and more experienced boomers. Hopefully by focusing on the common goal of finding meaning work, the environment will be one of collaborative nurturing, leading and learning.

 

JR RochesterJR Rochester is a recent graduate of East Carolina University with a degree in public relations and interpersonal organizational communication, with a passion for digital communication, interpersonal communication and international relations. He has experience in social media, community building digitally and locally, in-depth experience planning, implementing digital product marketing strategies, grass roots efforts, client and brand reputation management, event planning and marketing. He is a member of PRSA Charlotte, PRSA New Professionals Section and Toastmasters International. He is a proud veteran, drummer, avid cook and self-professed geek.