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Ugh – some of the things that people do online I just do not understand. Things that absolutely would not be socially acceptable in real life. Just this past weekend, I was witness to one of the rudest ones I’ve seen to date…
I received a DM from an individual I shall call John, changing his name to protect the, um, anti-social. John apparently had recently been conducting a job search and had been using Twitter as a resource to do so. Good job! Twitter I believe is a great resource when you’re job hunting – it’s not the ONLY thing you should use, but I think there are definitely some benefits. Well, John got himself a new job – good for him! But his next action was pretty rude, from my viewpoint. I, along with several others I would imagine, received this DM from John:
“The purpose of this account has changed. I started a new job. As such, I have un-followed you and ask that you do the same. Thank you.”
As well, in the bio section of his profile -
“The purpose of this account has changed. I will be un-following job search related accounts and asking them by DM to do the same. Please see @<otheraccount>”
Translate to the real-life version and it would go something like this: John attends a networking event for job search professionals and makes friends with several people who offer to help him with his own job search. John eventually finds himself a job, and promptly calls over his new friends to inform them that as he has no further use for their friendship, would they please delete his number from their cell and forget they ever met him. Rude, no?
I realize that people have every right to use Twitter for whatever purpose they desire. All John apparently wanted to do with Twitter was use it to help him find a job, as evident in the number of tweets on his page and their subject. No problems there. But I believe in this particular situation John COMPLETELY missed the concept of “social” media. There are several other things he could have done to be less abrupt, crass, rude, etc. He could have sent a DM saying something like “I’ve found a job! I’ll be tweeting from here on out at @<otheraccount>”, or he could have simply deleted the account and started over again. But his words were rather harsh and carried the message “now that I have no further use for you, be gone!” Not the idea of social media at all.
Use social media – yes. Use people – no.
Alright – I admit it, I do occasionally drop an S*** bomb or call someone an a$$hole. And a good friend of mine told me that you know a person is trustworthy if they swear freely in front of you (I agree – but only to a certain extent). However, nothing makes my skin crawl more than the F-word, or using G/D. ESPECIALLY when I see this on social networks where the whole world can see, and search.
My focus lately with AT&T has been supporting our college recruiting efforts, so I have been lurking around and checking out where students are hanging out on social media. What I’ve found on Twitter has surprised me a little bit – both for the good and the bad.
The good – students DO in fact use Twitter, contrary to prior popular belief. There is even a new community called CampusTweet where you can opt-in to be included in your university ‘directory’, either as a student or an alumni. This is a rapidly growing and self-nominated community and has proven to be a great resource for my search efforts.
The bad – I still haven’t quite figured out what the general use of Twitter is for students. Some have told me it’s to take a break from studying and break up the boredom of the day. OK – that’s what a lot of us professionals use it for as well. Some use it to follow sports or celebrities. Again, par for the course with the rest of the Twitterverse. However, a couple of things I’m seeing are quite disturbing to me – take a look:
These are from college student accounts (the names have been fuzzed out to protect the foul-mouthed)
Students: how many times must you be told that THIS STUFF IS ALL ARCHIVED AND SEARCHABLE. We have created our own fishbowl here – there is always someone looking and reading, and when employers see stuff like this, we can’t help but cringe. We all get frustrated and spew forth some 4-letter words from time to time, but doing so on social media, on the Internet, for the whole world to see, is generally not a good idea.
From an employer’s perspective, I cannot stress ENOUGH how bad this looks. Two of the most important lessons that should be learned from this:
- The younger you are, the harder you’re going to have to work to be taken seriously. It sucks, but it’s true students. Being young is both a blessing and a curse. If you want to be taken seriously in the professional realm, you’re going to have to work that much harder to portray yourself as such. That includes refraining from profanity on all of your social networks. **This also includes having an appropriate avatar.** Ladies, looking like a hoochie-mama in your pics is going to get you treated like one – by both guys and gals. Guys, looking like a slob who just rolled out of bed and can’t seem find his belt to hold up his ripped-up jeans is not going to get you a job. Sorry.
- Someone is always watching. Whether you like it or not, social media search is happening every day. It’s my job, and it’s the job of thousands more out there. You may say “I’m not looking for a job, leave me alone and let me do my thing!” Fair enough – you have every right to express yourself. However – situations can change on a dime. Would you seriously jeopardize your chances at employment for the sake of “expressing yourself” by dropping an F-bomb? Just filter things through a brain cell before posting, updating, or blurting out.
Students – please please please be cognizant of your online actions. The world we live in today is transparent, and everything you do is going to be watched and scrutinized whether you like it or not. Don’t give people more ammunition than is already available. Think about the things that you type and post. It could come back to bite you in the A** if you’re not careful.
I’m excited to share this news on my blog! We just launched a new Facebook Fan Page for AT&T’s college recruiting efforts. And just in time for school to start again in the fall…
AT&T Jobs: College Connection – check it out!
Our page details some of the Internship and Development Program opportunities that are offered for soon-to-be and recently graduated college students. We also have some photos, videos, a fun contest or two, a brand-new campus mobile campaign you can register for, and interactive polls. Also – if you want to check us out on your mobile, Facebook’s new 3.0 app upgrade makes it easy to find us and keep updated on the Wall posts.
Please come check this page out – ‘Fan’ it if you’d like, and please feel free to share with your friends as well!
I’ll frequently be interacting with fans on the Wall as well, so I encourage you to engage in conversation on the Wall – ask any questions you’ve got about our College Outreach or anything else. Look forward to seeing you there!
Disclaimer: Yes, I work with AT&T. However, I am not being additionally compensated or incentivized in any way to write this post, outside of being proud of the Fan Page 
Be prepared for my rant!
A lot of you have seen this – the case of the Monroe College student who is suing – yes SUING – the college because she hasn’t found a job yet. It’s August, and the girl graduated in April.
Come ON….
What has this world come to? Why are we suing educational institutions for not getting us a job? It’s not their responsibility to find us a job – college is supposed to prepare us for entry into what many refer to as the “real world”, which means we have to take off our diapers and do things for ourselves. I’ve NEVER heard of a college that promises employment – ESPECIALLY these days. They don’t even promise an education – know why? Because it is up to YOU to go to your classes and learn something. Professors in college are not going to hold your hand and baby you. At the beginning of the semester, they’ll give you a syllabus, tell you when your assignments are due, and you’ll be expected to put that to memory and be responsible for getting your stuff done. At least, that’s how I remember it…
My first two semesters in college were rough – and I started as a sophomore because I had so many credits coming out of high school! I think my cumulative GPA my first two semesters was something around 2.9. This is because I had to make some serious adjustments to 1) keeping track of when my assignments were due, and 2) making sure I had a good balance of school, work, and fun. Sometimes the fun was way out of balance, which is what happens to a lot of students in the first year. The difference is between those who learn to be responsible, and those who whine and complain that ‘teacher didn’t tell me when this or that was due’, and blame everyone else for their lack of ability to manage a calendar.
I had an academic scholarship to the University of Florida, but to keep it that meant I had to maintain a 3.0 GPA. As a result, following the end of my 2nd semester I was in danger of losing my scholarship. But instead of whining and complaining, I figured out what needed to be done in order for me to keep my scholarship. I buckled down, studied more, became diligent in managing my schedule, and by the time I graduated (in 3 1/2 years), I had a 3.53 cumulative GPA, which mean I graduated with honors. And by the way, I did this while working at least 30 hours a week at the Olive Garden my junior and senior years.
I graduated in December of 2000. Guess when I got my first “real job”: August of 2001. 8 months after graduating – imagine that! In the meantime, since I couldn’t afford to live on my own, I had to move back in with my mom, something I never wanted to do. So, to change my own situation (learning point there) I worked 2 jobs to save up enough money so I could move out. I worked during the day as a lifeguard and water safety instructor, and after that job was over, I went to wait tables 5 days a week. I did this for 8 months until I had enough to move out and enough for covering my living expenses for a couple of months until I could find another job. Which I did – paying $7/hour working in sales at a fitness club. I hated this job, even though it was utilizing my education (Exercise and Sports Sciences), so I ended up going back to waiting tables for….another 10 months. Only after that did I got my first job working in recruiting, and the rest is history. So if you really want to get down to it, it took me 18 months to find my career. And it wasn’t even related to what I had studied in college.
So when I hear stories like this, a girl who is suing her college because she hasn’t found a job it hasn’t found her a job in 3 months, it makes me want to go insane! 3 months??? Try 18, or longer in some cases! And I’d really be interested in how much time this young lady has invested in her own job search, or if she’s leaned back and expected other people to do all of the work for her.
Life is not fair. This may sound harsh, but once you learn that lesson, you’ll get along much better in life. Take the following items as words of advice from the voice of experience:
- The days of going to school, getting a degree, and that guaranteeing you a good job are over. You must learn how to network in today’s world – it’s probably going to be the most important skill you can learn to be successful at any endeavor you pursue. I believe this is a skill that should be taught in a mandatory course in college – or better yet, something taught at the high school level.
- People are not going to hold your hand your whole life. You have to take responsibility for yourself. The best place to learn this is in college, because you will be chewed up and spit out in the corporate world with this mindset.
- People will be willing to help you, but only if you’re helping yourself in the meantime. Do not expect other people to do your heavy lifting for you.
- You must learn to find balance in your life – party too hard in college, your education will suffer. Study too much, and you’ll make yourself crazy (and the others around you too). Well-balanced individuals often find great success because they know when it’s time to get down to business, but they also know how to kick back and relax.
- Most importantly, make and maintain a good name for yourself. Think about this – what employer do you think is going to pursue this girl now, after they have seen this news splashed across the headlines? Whether she realizes it or not, she just made her situation that much worse because the perception is now that she has an entitlement complex. I don’t know if this assumption is the actual case, but that is the perception of most people who hear this story at this point.
Students, your reputation is one of the few things you can control in your life. Take extreme care in maintaining a good one. Suing your college for not finding you a job will severely hurt your reputation and your chances of being hired anywhere. Companies are looking for individuals who can handle the hiccups that occur in life in stride, not people who throw themselves on the ground and have a hissy fit when things aren’t always peaches and cream. Listen – bad things happen to everyone – what separates the successful people from the unsuccessful people is the ability to deal with life’s issues maturely, realizing that the tough times are learning opportunities, and what makes us stronger in the long run.
Best wishes to you as you are earning your education, and please let me know if I can help you in your job search (no guarantees, of course! )
When most people notify their Twitter networks that they’ve been laid off or are looking for work, they’re not very specific:
This obviously doesn’t help much in the job search. You must be specific about what you’re looking for if others are going to be able to help you. In the same breath, it’s good to have a strategy when you are using a social media communication tool to assist in your job search. The trouble is that most people just simply don’t know where to start. This post should offer some hope!
My friend Colin is an IT professional. He’s not really big on social media, because he works with technology all day long and wants to take a break from it when he is through with work. He was laid off from his job several months ago and has been applying for positions and attending local networking events, trying to meet as many people in the IT field and in the recruiting industry as he possibly can. He surprised me about a month ago when he told me he’d signed up for a Twitter account.
After I caught my breath and mentioned something about hell and frozen, I began thinking about how he could use this to assist in his job search, and at the same time how I could prove to him that he hadn’t ‘crossed over to the dark side’ by registering. I started formulating a strategy in my head, and when I shared it with him, he said ‘Let’s give it a shot!’
The following is a sort of case study of what we did to get Colin prepared for using his Twitter account appropriately, and exclusively, for a job search.
- Choosing a Username: as Colin was a brand new user, he was a blank slate. We tried to come up with a username that would help him to achieve the objective he had for signing up in the first place, which was to help him find work. We chose Colin4Hire. Colin admitted that he thought it was a little cheesy, but there is little doubt as to what his purpose in being on Twitter is. Besides, you’re allowed to change your username without losing your followers, so he will be able to change this if he chooses to continue twittering once he’s found work.
- Uploading an online resume: we decided to use the Website line on Colin’s Twitter profile to display a link to an online resume. A couple of great options for doing this include VisualCV and Emurse. We chose to go with Emurse because of the ease of tracking traffic to the resume.
- Tracking: I told Colin we should track as much traffic as possible, since he was going to Twitter with the sole purpose of trying to find work. Here are the things we chose to track:
- Resume: we selected Emurse as the resume-hosting site in order to track resume views and downloads.
- URL: We chose to track the actual resume link using cli.gs. This allowed us to monitor at an extra level.
- Email: Colin signed up for a new Google email address that was used exclusively for this study. That way we could also observe who was reading his Twitter profile and following the contact instructions we outlined in his tweets.
- Planning the message: As you saw above, many people using Twitter to search for work don’t really plan out how they’re going to share that message with others. We chose to make six simple tweets with basic information about Colin’s work skills and most recent employment, ending with his email and the URL to his resume (offering two ways for Colin to be reached). We also decided to control this study by not having Colin tweet out any other messages other than the ones we pre-planned. We chose to use keywords describing his abilities to make his profile more searchable, and we also used two popular job-seeker phrases (“new job” and “new opportunities”) which many recruiters have set up as search agents to find potential candidates.
- Planning for responses: I would normally never advise someone to auto-DM new followers, but as Colin had a very specific objective for his use of Twitter, I suggested that he set up an auto-DM using Twitterfeed to respond to anyone who decided to follow him. The reason for this is because Colin did not plan to monitor or use Twitter for anything other than trying to help him find a new job, and he wanted to make sure any followers knew this. His DM said something to the effect of “Tnx for the connection! I am using Twitter to find work, so plz check out my resume: [link]”
- Planning the promotion: At the time of this study, I personally had about 2,900 followers, many of whom are recruiters. I decided to leverage my network to get the message out for Colin. I requested several local recruiters and recruiters across the country to help re-tweet my message:
My friend @colin4hire is new 2 Twitter. He’s using Twitter just 2 find a new job – check out his profile & plz RT this note 2 help him out!
Once we’d registered for all of the appropriate services and got Colin’s actual profile taken care of, I had Colin tweet his messages:
Then we settled upon a good time for me to begin promoting. We chose to tweet on a Tuesday at approximately 1pm EDT. The reason for this time selection is that many folks working on the East Coast would be coming back from lunch, while others across other US time zones would be at least at work and possibly monitoring their Twitter accounts. Starting too early in Eastern time would have prevented some of the West Coast folks from seeing the message. Once I sent out my initial promo tweet, I DM’ed approximately 20 of my colleagues and asked them if they would kindly re-tweet my message.
I set up a search on my own TweetDeck to monitor the re-tweets of my message, and others who were reaching out to Colin. My original message introducing Colin to Twitter was re-tweeted 44 times, and within the first 24 hours, Colin had about 23 followers – all earned through word-of-mouth and not through any obligatory follow-back services.
Below are the stats and some screen shots with which Colin provided me – the information is current as of the publishing of this post:
- 30 Twitter Followers
- 266 Resume Views
- 2 E-mails on G-Mail
- 1 Meeting with Erin Schreyer on May 1st 2009
- 1 Interview with Ray Attiyah on May 4th 2009
- 2 Potential Job Leads with one of Ray’s companies
Cli.gs stats:
Emurse stats:
ANALYSIS:
- Colin was a great subject for this – I have been warming him up to the business use of social media for the past few months and trying to convince him that it’s not just for play. Having seen such immediate results of this little study, he admitted to me that he was pleasantly surprised at what he saw happening and might be changing his tune on what he thinks of social media. (score!!!)
- We tried to set up a SiteMeter account to monitor the actual views of Colin’s Twitter account but were unsuccessful in being able to do so before we ran this experiment. This data would have provided some insight as to a profile view:resume view ratio.
- The ratio of resume views:downloads is approximately 44:1. At first glance this doesn’t seem significant but if you consider the fact that he has two job opportunities in the works as a result of 24 hours of real activity, that’s not too shabby.
- The percentage of humans vs. the percentage of bots to hit the cli.gs link to Colin’s resume is remarkable.
- There were no hate-filled messages regarding Colin’s auto-DM to new followers. This might suggest that people are OK with it when you’re honest about your intentions of being on Twitter. It’s important to note here that Colin did NOT auto-follow anyone.
- The promotional power of the re-tweets was quite evident. Over 2x the number of people I originally DM’ed and requested to re-tweet my message actually helped to promote this message.
CONCLUSIONS:
This type of a case study won’t work in every situation. You must individually evaluate your use of Twitter and if this is the right place for you to be looking for work. But one of the big take-aways here I think is planning. If you have a specific objective you’re trying to achieve in using a social media communication tool such as Twitter, it pays to put some strategic thought into the message you want to send. Otherwise, you really are just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. Think about what kind of an outcome you want, and then backtrack from there to craft your message. Be specific in your message and don’t leave any guess-work for your audience. Especially when you are looking for a job, a simple “I’m looking for a job” doesn’t give anyone any idea of what you’re looking for – what job functions are you interested in, where are you located, would you be willing to move, how many years’ experience do you have, etc.
I’ll end with three things:
- Please still feel free to reach out to Colin if you’re interested in his skillset. His resume can be found here, and you can also take a look at his Twitter profile.
- Searching for a job using social media isn’t a haphazard task. It’s obvious that planning ahead pays off in the end. Take some time to consider what you want to achieve before you dive in head-first, and track your results.
- Your network is your ally. It’s always good to have others who will support your endeavors and help you accomplish something. Never take your network for granted. Special thanks to everyone who assisted in this experiment!
I hope this has provided some of you with some pointers on how to begin a job search using Twitter. For your convenience, I’ve made a PDF document of the case study available for you to download and save for future reference. If this was helpful for you, please let me know by leaving a comment below!
I recently read an article from The Economist titled “You’re hired—next year“. The article takes a look at some of the new direction recruiters and their companies are starting to move in when it comes to hiring during the recession period.
I’m so glad others have taken notice of this! About a month ago I was having a conversation with a colleague about this very topic, having noticed that lots of companies seem more interested in hiring contractors than permanent employees right now. My guess was that this is a sort of “test drive” option as well as not having the funds for full-time benefits and such. The article states:
“Most obviously, the hiring of freelancers and consultants has become more common, allowing companies to avoid spending on employee benefits and delay hiring decisions until the economy picks up.”
In addition, the article goes on to say that companies are marketing to candidates with different incentives than the usual sign-on bonuses and extra perks: “Their new selling points are sandwiches with the boss, opportunities for advancement, flexible working hours and more holiday time.” This sounds very much like companies are starting to understand the desires of the up-and-coming millennial generation, who tend to prefer incentives like more flexible work conditions and opportunity to further themselves.
The article also briefly touches on the fact that many companies are developing a social media presence as a low-cost way to reach potential new hires. This is apparently a topic in which companies are very interested and want to learn more about, as there are many who are offering webinars and training sessions on using these tools in a recruitment capacity. Even I’ve jumped on the bandwagon; I’ll be giving a presentation in June at the Fordyce Forum on incorporating social media tools into your recruitment strategy.
Please take the time to read the entire article here.
(hat-tip to Deborah Maggart for alerting me to this article, as well as David Simonds for the awesome illustration)
“By the time they reach an age to think about what they’d like to do, most kids have been thoroughly misled about the idea of loving one’s work. School has trained them to regard work as an unpleasant duty. Having a job is said to be even more onerous than schoolwork. And yet all the adults claim to like what they do. You can’t blame kids for thinking ‘I am not like these people; I am not suited to this world.’”
This wonderful post by Paul Graham takes a very insightful look into why we pursue certain careers and why we avoid others. Loving what you do is not something that many people have the luxury of saying, or doing. I’ve always believed that a true test of career love is if you’d do it for free. Graham says,
“To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that’s pretty cool.”
Graham goes on to say that many people tend to select professions not based on what they love deep down inside, but based on a direction in which their parents steer them, or worse yet, based on the prestige of a particular career. He says,
“Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.”
Loving what you do comes from keep yourself disciplined. Do well at whatever it is that you’re doing, even if you’re not ‘in love’ with it yet. Always be a producer, and understand that knowing what you like to work on doesn’t always mean that you’ll get to work on it. Know proper timing for working on pet projects and working on things that are required. You’ll respect yourself, and your peers will respect you. The love will come eventually.
Graham described two routes that will lead to loving what you do:
- The organic route, which is essentially gaining experience and gradually increasing the amount of time you spend in your job on the elements you enjoy vs. those things you don’t, and
- The two-job route, which is working a ‘day job’ to pay the bills and pursuing your love in your spare time.
He says more people tend to work the organic route, because the two-job route requires a deliberate choice. However, my personal feeling is that with the state of the job market today, we will see an uptick in the number of people working a job that simply pays the bills in the daylight hours while pursuing a hobby, or another degree, in the evenings or in their spare time, with the ultimate goal of doing something they love.
A tip to college students: you don’t need to know exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life! From Graham:
“A friend of mine who is a quite successful doctor complains constantly about her job. When people applying to medical school ask her for advice, she wants to shake them and yell ‘Don’t do it!’ (But she never does.) How did she get into this fix? In high school she already wanted to be a doctor. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way—including, unfortunately, not liking it. Now she has a life chosen for her by a high-school kid.”
Want to love what you do? Explore many options before making a definite decision. Don’t lock yourself into one niche before you’ve tested out a couple of others. In my own experience, I discovered within the last three months of college that I HATED what I had been pursuing. Thankfully I was able to find a career path shortly after graduating that I’ve fallen in love with.
Finally, don’t let money be the center of your decision-making. Taking care of your financial needs should certainly be a deciding factor for sure, but would you sell your soul for a price tag? “Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do. So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do with it may not be as good as it seems.” My advice – work hard at what you love to make yourself worthy of a higher salary. Pay your dues. You’ll appreciate what you earn more when you’ve had to work hard for it.
The takeaway here is this: take some time to figure out what you love. Don’t rush it! Sometimes it may show up nice and subtle, but it might just smack you in the face too. Be open to whatever it is – the old saying goes, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Be sure to read Paul Graham’s complete article, “How To Do What You Love”.
A colleague of mine in the PR world, Ben Matthews, recently wrote a post on his blog, Pudding Relations, listing out 3 top tips for those looking into a career in Public Relations. This meme was passed on to him by Adam Lewis over at Flawless Buzz. I will pass this along as I know lots of you out there are getting ready to graduate from your respective programs in college and want to know some of the in’s and out’s of life in PR.
Keep in mind, of course, that I work in a support capacity at Waggener Edstrom – I am not a PR account person, but I do touch account people daily because I work on the staffing team. I’ve learned over the last 15 or so months of being here some of what it takes to be successful in an account role in Public Relations. I’ve come to discover that there are a lot of similarities between what I do daily and what PR folks do daily, and this is probably why I’m having so much fun these days!
Back to Ben’s request: the meme has three questions to it, with the aim of helping people looking to get into PR:
- What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone entering the world of PR?
- The favorite part of your job?
- Why did you decide to go into PR?
Let me preface all of my responses with a simple explanation of what my role is at Waggener Edstrom. As I mentioned above, I do not work on the account side of things in the PR world. I am a Sourcing Strategist, and for those of you who follow me on Twitter, or have read my LinkedIn profile, the easiest way I can describe what I do is that I am a professional match-maker. I develop online profiles of individuals who might be a fit for our job openings at Waggener, and if they’re a fit I make connections for the recruiters with whom I work. I piece together bits of information I find scattered across the Internet to form a “person” – I find these info bites from your social networks, blogs, company websites, press releases, etc. I’ve been jokingly called a stalker before, but that’s totally not what I do – don’t worry, I never use my information for evil. I prefer to be referred to as the Magnum P.I. of the Internet. So, even though I don’t operate in an account capacity, I am mingling with PR account folks on a daily basis. Hope that puts some perspective on my responses to this meme.
- What is one piece of advice you would give to someone entering the world of PR? If I only had one piece of advice to offer someone who was just entering into the world of PR it would be this: respect wisdom and experience. When I first started at Waggener, I began asking my peers who in the company had been there for awhile, and who the best people in the industry were. I then set about to try to introduce myself to as many of my new coworkers as possible (which proved a difficult task at times, as I work remotely). I used LinkedIn and Facebook to accomplish this and was able to make connections with over 100 of my colleagues within the first month of my employment. In addition, Waggener has a formal Mentor/Mentee program set up, so I signed up for that within the first couple of months and got hooked up with one of our VPs who has been a tremendous source of knowledge for me. I also took a pulse-check of my networks to see where I should be looking for outside knowledge. I used LinkedIn Answers to pose a question to my network on what blogs and industry publications I should be reading, and with whom I should be connected. This helped me build a reading base which I set up in RSS and try to read on a daily basis to keep up. One of the most unfortunate things I see a lot of new young professionals doing today is thinking that they learned everything they need to know in college. College helps you build a good knowledge base, but I think every working professional would agree that the School of Life is where you learn the must useful stuff. Gleaning real-world wisdom from those who’ve walked the paths before you is the best way for you to get settled into PR when you first enter into it.
- What is your favorite part of your job? This is hands-down the people and the communication. I have enjoyed working in the communication field so much for the past year and a half. I’ve been a researcher for nearly 7 years now, and I find that doing research in the PR world has allowed me to combine two things that I love – technology and communication. People who know me know that I can quite often be a terrible over-communicator. It must be the combination of working alone from home, and working behind 2 computer screens on a daily basis. I absolutely l-o-o-o-o-o-ve the fact that I get to “play” with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook every day to communicate with people. What’s more, I get to communicate great opportunities to people, and in these tough economic times, my outreach is usually music to people’s ears (eyes?). The fact that there’s a potential that I could improve upon someone’s work situation with each outreach makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. Now, my situation obviously is different, but for those who love the technology/communication combo, PR is a fantastic field to be in.
- Why did you decide to go into PR? Well, this is where my answer is probably not going to line up with an account person’s. I actually accidentally stumbled into PR, just as I had accidentally stumbled into internet research (which is a good story all its own). The story of how networking got me my job at Waggener is actually quite interesting and weaves a neat web of people – it’s posted on my friend Jim Stroud’s website here. Long story short though, my decision to join Waggener, and the world of PR, was because the opportunity to work with an innovative and highly respected company in a brand new field was intriguing and exciting. I was not feeling challenged in the right ways in my then-current situation and needed something more. Waggener has certainly provided that for me – I have been learning not only public relations, but social media strategy, client interaction, and corporate culture as well as staying connected within my recruiting and research community. It is overwhelming at times, but I’ve often said that if you’re not green and growing, you’re red and rotting.
Now, in keeping this meme alive, I am going to tag three additional people to spread the love: one PR student, one PR Young Gun, and one PR veteran:
- The PR Student: Paul Matson, The Social Media Institute
- The PR Young Gun: Paull Young, Young PR
- The PR Veteran: Kevin Dugan, The Bad Pich Blog and Strategic Public Relations
All throughout my research career, one of the things I’ve consistently had to do is to look for individuals who possess a certain title level for whatever job I happen to be researching. This is always interesting because depending on the size of the company, the titles change for various levels of experience. For example: an employee at a 5 person company with the title of “Vice President” would almost certainly not be suited for a “Vice President” position at a company employing 500 people. At the same time, a person who is a group manager at a 10,000 person company would most likely be well suited to be a managing director or a VP for a 100 person organization.
Having an elevated title can be both a blessing and a curse. Achieving the next level in your career quicker than normal can be exciting – but at the same time, it can also potentially hurt your hire-ability elsewhere. There is certainly something to be said for earning your promotion – but if you’ve gotten a title boost without having really earned it, you might be in a tough situation should you ever decide (or be forced) to leave your current place of employment.
Let’s take a look at this scenario: a PR professional with roughly 3 years’ experience joins a company and is given the title of Account Manager.
Now, let’s back up a second and take a look at the title system in the world of PR. Public Relations is an ideal industry to use as an example, particularly in the agency setting, because titles are pretty universal. Entry level positions are Account Coordinator (AC) and Assistant Account Executive (AAE). From there, you get promoted to Account Executive (AE), Senior Account Executive (SAE), and then to Account Supervisor (AS) or Account Manager (AM), both of which are around the same level depending on which company you are with. Then, it goes to Senior Account Manager (SAM), Account Director (AD), and on to the various levels of Vice Presidency and Executive titles. There is a natural progression from one level to the next which is pretty universally accepted.
Back to our scenario: at 3 years’ experience, it’s pretty certain that an individual would not in actuality be at an Account Manager level in their career. Nevertheless, this individual is excited about having this title and accepts it. However, if this person ever wants to switch companies, they are going to run into some problems:
- Once you have a title of Account Manager, it is highly unlikely that you are going to want to take a step back. (hey, I wouldn’t want to either!)
- Other companies will see 3 years’ experience and will almost certainly not be willing to compensate at the Account Manager level for that amount of experience.
Is it possible for you to earn experience and be promoted quickly? Absolutely – companies call this fast-tracking. But it’s not for everyone. Just keep this in mind as you do your career planning. You do have a career path mapped for yourself, right? If not, this is something you should begin immediately.
When you are progressing through your career, this is something to think about very seriously. It is especially important for folks who are just starting out their careers. Be wary of taking positions that offer elevated or inflated titles with no exchange of earned experience. Titles will not pay your bills. Earn your experience – and your promotion to higher levels.
A good friend of mine has a great saying that I think fits perfectly with this important topic: “You can feed your ego, or you can feed your family.” Titles are not going to feed your family, so make sure that you aren’t hurting your earning potential by taking an elevated title too early in your career simply for the aesthetic pleasure of it.
