Lately I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do after I graduate and I really just can't seem to figure out what or where that is. My original thought was to pick a place to live and then just go there and apply for a ton of different jobs, but I find myself wondering if that is the best idea. I do a lot of random job hunting and I think a better idea may be just looking for the job that I can see myself in the best and then go after it.
The problem with this is what my good friend's hippie boyfriend told me -- go to a place that makes you happy and it will all fall into place. He said that if you follow a job you end up somewhere that you may not like that much and you'll just be there for the job. I see his thinking, but my problem is that I don't know where I even want to go. I swear I have a different place in mind every week! This week it is Portland, OR, last week Toronto and the week before it was San Francisco so.... what to do??
I think probably the best bet is a combination of the two. Follow a great job, but make sure it is in a city that I can enjoy. The real world is coming fast and I'm excited, but all of these decisions are making my head spin!!!!!!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Career Fair
I recently attended a day at the career fair on campus and found myself to be severely disappointed. Before I went I looked at the website and looked for potential employers in need of newly graduated PR people. And what did I find? Not a whole lot...
I went ahead and trekked over to Bramlage (mostly on the encouragement of my boss) and walked around checking out the booths. I made one trip around to see if anything looked interesting and basically felt pretty awkward. Employers kept making eye contact with me, but it felt really weird and I just kept going. I mentally noted places that looked mildly interesting, intending to come back on my second trip around. I felt on the verge of stupid with my little name tag reading Public Relations when everyone else was Engineering or Chemistry. I saw one employer that caught my eye and got up the nerve to talk to him. I had no idea what they were about, but their visuals looked interesting and I at least wanted a little more information. The man looked at my name tag, saw Public Relations and went "eee... hmmmm.... uhhhh... Yeah, not sure we have anything for you." He didn't even know what PR was! I stumbled around looking for an explanation, but I was already nervous and felt silly approaching this engineering firm, so I didn't get anything to intelligent out. Turns out the company has a marketing section which he said "told us to get new colors because our old ones gave the a boring impression. So they revamped the marketing so that it is more pleasing to look at." Which is aka creating a brand identity. So as he explained this I chimed in "oh yeah, well that is one of the things that PR technicians do -- working with branding and brand identity." But of course, he was sent to the career fair to recruit engineers and therefore knew nothing about the marketing division. I got a piece of paper and was sent on my way.
And after this whole experience, I was pretty irked that the university makes such a big deal about helping students find jobs after graduation with great things like career fairs. It seems to me that they are forgetting some majors entirely. So all in all -- not very happy with that experience and have come to the conclusion that I may be better off just fending for myself when it comes to my future career.
I went ahead and trekked over to Bramlage (mostly on the encouragement of my boss) and walked around checking out the booths. I made one trip around to see if anything looked interesting and basically felt pretty awkward. Employers kept making eye contact with me, but it felt really weird and I just kept going. I mentally noted places that looked mildly interesting, intending to come back on my second trip around. I felt on the verge of stupid with my little name tag reading Public Relations when everyone else was Engineering or Chemistry. I saw one employer that caught my eye and got up the nerve to talk to him. I had no idea what they were about, but their visuals looked interesting and I at least wanted a little more information. The man looked at my name tag, saw Public Relations and went "eee... hmmmm.... uhhhh... Yeah, not sure we have anything for you." He didn't even know what PR was! I stumbled around looking for an explanation, but I was already nervous and felt silly approaching this engineering firm, so I didn't get anything to intelligent out. Turns out the company has a marketing section which he said "told us to get new colors because our old ones gave the a boring impression. So they revamped the marketing so that it is more pleasing to look at." Which is aka creating a brand identity. So as he explained this I chimed in "oh yeah, well that is one of the things that PR technicians do -- working with branding and brand identity." But of course, he was sent to the career fair to recruit engineers and therefore knew nothing about the marketing division. I got a piece of paper and was sent on my way.
And after this whole experience, I was pretty irked that the university makes such a big deal about helping students find jobs after graduation with great things like career fairs. It seems to me that they are forgetting some majors entirely. So all in all -- not very happy with that experience and have come to the conclusion that I may be better off just fending for myself when it comes to my future career.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Creating and Maintaining Press Lists
One thing that I found very beneficial this summer at my internship, was the way the company managed their press lists. They had a program that allowed every employee to enter new contact information for new press people. There was also an option to add notes about these particular contacts. Our main boss was very, very strict about making us write something for every time that we spoke to someone; whether it was on the phone, in the showroom, or at a random fashion party, we had to write it down.
I think this is very helpful when creating relationships with other people in the business. We wrote down the date that we spoke to them, what we talked about and any other pertinent information. I wrote down things like "So and so told me about the new dog she just got and how it was keeping her up at nights." Although this didn't pertain exactly to our business relationship, these types of things were recorded because it helped us build a more personal relationship with them. The next time we talked to that person we made an effort to ask if their dog was still keeping them up at night -- this way they know that you are paying attention to what they are saying, even if it is something trivial.
PR is all about networking and creating/maintaining relationships with other people in the business. By taking a little extra time to jot down notes about your last conversation, you can help build those relationships into something that is beneficial to both of you.
I think this is very helpful when creating relationships with other people in the business. We wrote down the date that we spoke to them, what we talked about and any other pertinent information. I wrote down things like "So and so told me about the new dog she just got and how it was keeping her up at nights." Although this didn't pertain exactly to our business relationship, these types of things were recorded because it helped us build a more personal relationship with them. The next time we talked to that person we made an effort to ask if their dog was still keeping them up at night -- this way they know that you are paying attention to what they are saying, even if it is something trivial.
PR is all about networking and creating/maintaining relationships with other people in the business. By taking a little extra time to jot down notes about your last conversation, you can help build those relationships into something that is beneficial to both of you.
Friday, September 7, 2007
YouTube
One of the big things that I got to help participate in was creating a short video to use on youtube. Our main objective was to get my main boss more into the public eye. We wanted her to become a host on a show on QVC and in order to get the job, you have to send in a two-minute clip of you to show your on-air quality. We decided that we could hit two birds with one stone by just creating a video for both the QVC application and to post on youtube, which was our latest idea.
Youtube is a place that anyone can put anything. It is free and it gets tons of hits everyday, so promoting our business on the site seemed very logical. In order to cut costs we enlisted the help of a student at a nearby film school (and of course we didn't pay her -- interns don't get paid. period. I'll get into that rant in a later blog...). So we shot the video with the idea to create a short version to send to QVC and a longer 8-9 minute video to be aired on youtube. We had the idea that we could create a bi-monthly segment that we would air on the website.
The summer was spent planning for this and towards the end we finally got the finished QVC video. It looked really good, and I was really excited to see it posted on youtube and to hopefully see my boss someday on QVC. But alas, I searched for the company on youtube just the other day and found nothing... maybe they are still working on it, but I'm guessing that along with many other great ideas, it got shoved to the back-burner so they could focus on another great idea.
But I thought posting on youtube was an inexpensive, ingenious idea and I would suggest people think of that as an alternative way to reach the public. But beware -- you must be original and creative when making your video or you will be left in the dust. People go to the site to be entertained, so you must find a way to keep your audience's attention.
Think about that, and if you know of any aspiring filmmakers, perhaps you can get them to do a little something for you before they become great :) It could happen.
Youtube is a place that anyone can put anything. It is free and it gets tons of hits everyday, so promoting our business on the site seemed very logical. In order to cut costs we enlisted the help of a student at a nearby film school (and of course we didn't pay her -- interns don't get paid. period. I'll get into that rant in a later blog...). So we shot the video with the idea to create a short version to send to QVC and a longer 8-9 minute video to be aired on youtube. We had the idea that we could create a bi-monthly segment that we would air on the website.
The summer was spent planning for this and towards the end we finally got the finished QVC video. It looked really good, and I was really excited to see it posted on youtube and to hopefully see my boss someday on QVC. But alas, I searched for the company on youtube just the other day and found nothing... maybe they are still working on it, but I'm guessing that along with many other great ideas, it got shoved to the back-burner so they could focus on another great idea.
But I thought posting on youtube was an inexpensive, ingenious idea and I would suggest people think of that as an alternative way to reach the public. But beware -- you must be original and creative when making your video or you will be left in the dust. People go to the site to be entertained, so you must find a way to keep your audience's attention.
Think about that, and if you know of any aspiring filmmakers, perhaps you can get them to do a little something for you before they become great :) It could happen.
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