Getting That First PR Job

These are tough economic times for everyone, but what is the specific prognosis for PR graduates? I decided to take a look at what the experts are saying.

“Culpwrit: Guiding the Career in Public Relations” quotes a report by the National Association of Colleges & Employers, an organization of career counselors and HR professionals. The report “estimates there will be 22% fewer jobs filled by ‘09 college graduates than last year. Just last August, the estimate called for a 6% increase in new jobs being created for this year’s graduates. And for those lucky enough to land jobs, NACE confirms salaries will be flat in 2009 compared to the 7% increase in last year’s average starting salaries.”

Here is the “Overview for Public Relations Specialists Jobs,” as downloaded from www.careerplanner.com [boldface and italics are mine]:

● “Although employment is projected to grow faster than average, keen competition is expected for entry-level jobs.” [My note: “Keen competition” means there are more qualified applicants than there are jobs available.]
● “Opportunities should be best for college graduates who combine a degree in public relations, journalism, or another communications-related field with a public relations internship or other related work experience.”
● “The ability to communicate effectively is essential.”

PRNewswire.com reports that with so many media professionals losing their jobs because newspapers are closing and media are consolidating, competition for PR jobs has increased.

How Much Can You Expect to Earn?
The “Salary Wizard” report suggests that the median (or average) salary for a “typical Public Relations Specialist I” in the United States is $43,665. This is an entry-level position requiring a college degrees and 0-2 years experience.

But according to www.careers-in-marketing.com, starting salaries for positions might look like this:

Job / Pay / Typical Experience
Corporate Director / $62K / More than 6 years
Agency PR Manager / $38-51K / 5 to 7 years
PR Account Executive / $24-42K / 2 to 6 years
Freelance PR Agents / $17K and up / Entry level

Once you work at a PR job for awhile, you can negotiate for a higher salary at your next job.

10 Hints for Landing that First Job
1. Clean up your resumé and cover letter. Make sure they are clear, accurate and letter-perfect. Proofread them multiple times, and find a wordsmith to proofread your work as well. One of our graduates working at a local firm forwarded an e-mail message she had received from one of our students. The message reads: “I was referred to this sight by one of my professor. I was interested in a possible internship for the summer with you department.” Not only did this student not get an interview, but she has become the laughing stock of the agency – and an embarrassment to our school. Don’t let this be you.

2. Highlight your talents and how you can help the company achieve its goals. Emphasize your special skills in writing, speaking, planning, researching, designing, using social media and so on. The more talents you have, the more valuable you would be.

3. Beef up your skills. If writing is your weakness, study grammar. Read good writing. Write often. If you don’t know how to create a well-designed Web site or how to use graphics software, learn on your own or take courses to improve your skills.

4. Start looking for jobs now. Research tells us that most people get jobs from someone they know who knows someone who knows about job openings. It’s called the law of “weak connections.” You can always start online by typing in “PR jobs.” You’ll be sent to sites such as PRSA.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, craigslist.org and so on. If you know the company or industry for which you’d like to work, go to those specific Web sites (e.g., hospital PR jobs). Look at government sites – all levels of government and all types of offices (e.g., agriculture, forestry, transportation, energy, health and human services, etc.). Look in the phone book under “associations” or “PR agencies.” Look at city home pages (e.g., Phoenix PR jobs). Ask your friends and classmates. Ask your professors. Check with the Office of Internship and Placement.

5. Get active in local PR organizations. Join the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) or any number of other professional communication groups. This will help you network with people who might have jobs or who might know people who do.

6. Get another internship. Often companies will hire students right out of college for internships. Such internships add to your resumé and might just land you a job.

7. Volunteer if you can’t find a job. Keep active in the profession, especially if you can’t land a PR job right away. Volunteer to work for a company, nonprofit, organization or agency. This will not only help you improve your skills, but it will also introduce you to potential employers.

8. Go where the jobs are. Some people would argue that you should first pick where you want to live and then find a job. That may work. But if it doesn’t, be flexible. Be willing to move wherever the jobs are – at least to start your career. Once you’ve got some experience on your resumé, it will be easier to land that next job.

9. Expand your options and take chances. Too often students narrow their options or don’t take chances on jobs that may not fit their ideal career. Think of your career as a tree. Every branch (or experience) can provide nourishment (or build your skills) that can help you reach for the stars (or achieve your ultimate goal).

10. Keep your eyes on the prize. Remember why you chose to pursue a career in public relations to begin with. Keep your skills active. If you must take another job to pay the bills, do so. But volunteer in the meantime. If you think it will help, consider going to graduate school – but not just any school. Pick one that has an excellent placement rate for its graduates and that, preferably, is in a community where you want to live.

I wish you all the best of luck. You have a lot of talent to offer the world.

Taking College Seriously

My fellow professors and I have been bemoaning the fact that our students don't pay attention to what's going on in the world around them, don't read assignments, don't do homework -- and thus are not able to participate in any meaningful way in class discussions -- and don't seem to learn from their mistakes and the feedback they are given.

Why, then, should we spend 2 to 10 (or more) hours preparing a lecture/class exercise, plus another 30 to 60 minutes per assignment when grading papers? It would certainly be a lot easier on us to lower our expectations of you by not assigning any readings or projects. We could just talk in class, and then you could take a midterm and final exam. Voila! You've passed the course!

But I'm not willing -- yet -- to go there. I still expect you to be as competitive and knowledgeable as any student graduating from other PR programs across the country.

If student papers were well-written to begin with, then faculty grading time would be cut at least in half and sometimes to one-tenth of what it currently takes us. I carefully review for grammar, spelling, punctuation, AP style and content. And yet, I keep seeing the same mistakes over and over and over on your blog posts.

We just completed the "Use of Social Media" survey, and some of the findings had to do with how much time SJGC PR students spend -- each day -- using social media. Of the 47 respondents who answered these questions, 39 said they spend 3 or more hours per day on the Internet, 35 said they watch TV 3 or more hours per day, and 35 said they spend 3 or more hours per day on their cell phones.

We also found out that 40 said they were likely or very likely to go online while watching TV, 40 (of 48) were likely or very likely to talk on the phone while watching TV, 37 (of 48) were likely or very likely to have the TV on while doing homework, and 45 (of 48) were likely or very likely to check their social networking sites while doing homework. So it's likely some of these "3 or more hours" overlap -- which may be the problem.

Multi-(media)-tasking is one of the hallmarks of the Net Generation. I (a member of the Baby Boom generation) often multi-(media)-task as well. But I find that whenever I do more than one thing at a time, my attention is split and my concentration suffers. So, too, does my output. For example, it takes me MUCH longer to grade papers if I have the news on TV at the same time.

You've heard the guideline that you should spend at least three hours studying outside of class for each credit hour of a course. This means, on average, that you should be spending at least nine hours each week on this course.

Here's what your weekly workload might be:
-- Reading assigned chapter(s) and taking notes: 1 1/2 hours
-- Researching and writing blog entry: 1 1/2 hours
-- Reading and responding to two classmates' blog entries and to my blog: 30 minutes

If so, this leaves you with 5 1/2 hours per week to work on team projects, such as doing your survey analysis, making sure your team blog is consistent, or preparing for your final presentation. You also have time to review graded papers and identify your mistakes in grammar, spelling, punctuation, AP style and content.

Does this sound about right?

I suspect part of the problem is time management. You need to keep a datebook and schedule time to study and complete homework assignments, just as you plan to spend time with friends, work at a job, work at an internship, participate in extra-curricular activities and so on. Some of you have very full schedules. Don't let your coursework become your lowest priority.

I also suspect that part of the problem is that you haven't been taught how to study, so you don't use your time wisely. You wait until the last minute to work on projects. And then when problems arise (such as printers not working, Web sites being down or articles not being available at the SJGC Resource Center), you can't complete assignments on time and then complain that the problem isn't your fault. Rather than spending 5 1/2 hours a week on "other" assignments for this course (such as your team project), you find yourself having to spend 20 hours one week just to catch up.

And I also suspect that you just don't appreciate how hard some of your competition (that is, other students looking for the same jobs you want) are willing to work to master the skills that will get them hired.

When I wrote the entry on being a keeper of the language, you all responded that grammar, indeed, is important to your success. And yet, if you look closely at your comments to my entry -- and at your own blog entries since that time -- you'll find them laden with grammatical mistakes. Why is that? Are my written comments on your blog entries not clear? Do you even bother to read my comments -- and to learn from them? How much time do you spend mastering the basics of your craft of communication?

I just recorded how many of you have responded to the class blog and to one another's blogs. There were too many zeros. And I also recorded your grades for the quiz on the Friedman reading about "The World is Flat." Come on, folks. Those are "gimmee" assignments. On the quiz, I asked you to tell me "anything you learned from the reading." How easy is that? Of course, it's incredibly difficult if you didn't do the reading.

And how easy is it to respond to one another's blogs? Or to mine? For the most part, I enjoy reading your blogs. But it frustrates me when I notice that you clearly did no research to back up your statements and that your blogs are filled with grammatical or factual errors.

Remember when we spoke in class about branding and how your reputation is the most-important asset you have?

If I were your boss and you approached work assignments with the same level of attentiveness that you approach your coursework, I'd fire you.

You need to take your college coursework more seriously. This is a career you're preparing for. And so are your competitors.

Dr. D

On Changing the PR Curriculum

As you know, the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication is working on a major overhaul of our curriculum -- both on the journalism and graphic communication sides. The goal has been to reflect the changes in the media business, specifically the blending of print, video, audio and online. Dean Hawkins also wanted us to change the names of some of our courses to include key terms such as multimedia.

So the Curriculum Committee, for which I'm filling in as chair this year in Professor Ritchie's absence, came up with a plan to collapse the newspaper and magazine sequences into one -- giving the students several options depending upon their interests. And we kept separate broadcast journalism and PR sequences. This is what we presented to the students.

However, within the past two weeks, the faculty have been re-evaluating this proposal, and an earlier idea to offer ONE multimedia curriculum -- with several options -- is again on the table.

Essentially, students earning a degree in multimedia would take the same core courses and then could choose from a variety of print, broadcast, multimedia and online courses. For example, a student might take TV News I, Public Affairs Reporting and Radio Practicum.

The question arises, where should PR fit in all of this? Would it make sense to eliminate the separate PR degree and allow our students the opportunity to take, say, TV News I instead of PR Research & Strategies, or for multimedia students to take Introduction to Public Relations or PR Communication? If we create, as proposed, a course titled PR and Social Media, shouldn't we open it up to other SJGC students as well?

What do you think about this idea of creating just one major -- multimedia -- in the Division of Journalism and allowing students to pick and choose from among all of the courses we offer?

Be a Keeper of the Language

If you took Language Skills for Journalists from me, you know that I offer a series of "Grammar Hints of the Week," the first of which is "Be a keeper of the language."

By that, I mean that you, as a communication expert, need to protect the language we use to communicate with one another. You need to know the rules of grammar, apply them to your own work, and use them to teach others how to communicate better.

Last week I gave the students in my LSJ class the status of their grades. Most are failing. So I asked them to write a paper describing what they plan to do to improve their grades, learn the material and incorporate what they learn into their lives.

The students wrote of poor study habits, procrastination, not asking questions in class when they don't understand something and not taking the course seriously. Sound familiar?

The students promised to study grammar 30 minutes to 2 hours EVERY NIGHT (!), to read and study the textbook and AP stylebook, to complete online quizzes before the class in which we discuss the relevant material, and to pay more attention to the Grammar Hints of the Week. Sounds good. We'll see what happens on the next assignment.

Let me share a few of my grammar hints with you in hopes that they may help improve your writing as well.

"Identify the subject, and then make the verb agree."
Subject-verb agreement problems are some of the most common I find in student writing. Look at this sentence:

The bowl of cherries [is/are] on the table.

So, what is the subject? Cherries? No. Bowl? Yes. "The bowl ... is on the table."

How about this sentence:

Susan, as well as her neighbors, [love/loves] "Desperate Housewives."

What is the subject? Susan and her neighbors? No. Susan? Yes. "Susan ... loves 'Desperate Housewives.'"

Notice that there's a space before and after the ellipsis (...) and that the period ALWAYS is placed INSIDE the end quotation mark (commas are, too).

Use a comma between independent clauses in a compound sentence.
First of all, what do we mean by a "compound sentence"? Basically, it's two sentences (independent clauses) joined by a coordinating conjunction, one of the FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet or so). Here's what one looks like:

The best things in life are free, but some pretty nice things cost money.

Don't use apostrophes to create plurals.
Apostrophes are used primarily to show possession. For example, "Jean's book" means that the book belongs to Jean. And "Smith's house" means that the house belongs to one person named Smith.

But I often see mistakes such as "jean's" (meant to refer to the article of clothing) or "Smith's" (meant to refer to the Smith family).

There is one exception to this rule: Use an apostrophe to create plural letters (e.g., A's, B's and C's).

Did you notice the colon after "There is one exception to this rule," the capital letter in "Use," and the comma after "e.g."?

The first sentence is closely related to and introduces the next sentence. Therefore, use a colon to signal the reader that you're going to tell them the "exception to this rule." Because "Use" introduces a complete sentence, capitalize the "U."

But when the information that follows the colon is NOT a complete sentence, do not capitalize the first letter of the next word. Here's what I mean:

The answer is clear: plastics.

The abbreviation "e.g." means "for example." It means you are including SOME of the possible options. Here's what I mean:

Several of my students (e.g., Alyssa, Megan, Martice and Branden) went to Power Shift.

The abbreviation "i.e." means "that is." It means you are including ALL of the possible options. Here's an example:


My PR colleagues (i.e., Professor Kinchlow and Dr. Grable) were hired in August 2008.

I hope you decide to be a keeper of the language, and I hope these grammar hints help you achieve that goal.

Love-Hate Relationship with PR

I love the good that PR can do, and yet I hate its power to promote and support evil.

Jon Stewart has been in the news recently for taking on CNBC -- specifically investment "watchdog" Jim Cramer -- and other news programs for not asking the tough questions and providing the "real" information about investment scams, such as that by Bernie Madoff. Cramer and others, in effect, had fallen for the "evil PR message" from Wall Street.

Rachel Maddow, on her evening talk show on MSNBC, recently skewered the PR agency Burson-Marsteller for being the servant of evil. "When evil needs public relations," she said on her show, "evil has Burson-Marsteller on speed dial." She gave example after example of how B-M has been hired to handle "crisis communication" and "reputation management" issues for people, countries or groups such as AIG, which accepted a bailout from us, the U.S. public; Blackwater after some of its members killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad; Saudi Arabia three days after 9/11 (remember, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabians, not Iraqis or Afhanis); the military junta in Argentina in 1976 after it overthrew the legitimately elected government; Indonesia after the genocide of residents of East Timor a few years ago; and even the ironically named company "Spin Master," the maker of Aqua Dots, the bead craft toy that contained the chemical in the "date rate" drug and that made children sick when they chewed on the beads. Wouldn't you feel proud having that type of reputation for your PR agency?

Then there's Edelman, a PR agency I happen to admire for some of its work with social media and its annual "trust barometer" (a list of whom we tend to trust most for information). Edelman sponsors the annual New Media Academic Summit that I find so useful; in fact, attending the summits has helped me reshape our PR curriculum. And yet Edelman was responsible for violating part of the PRSA Code of Ethics when it created a blog supposedly written by people traveling in their RV from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart and writing about their adventures. What Edelman "forgot" to do, however, was to be transparent and admit to readers that all of the blogs were written by Edelman operatives, not "real folks" -- you know, the ones Edelman's trust barometer says "we" tend to believe more than "PR hacks."

This got me thinking about what we, in the PR education business, tell you about the "father" of PR, Edward Bernays. He's the one who first spoke of "counseling on public relations" rather than "doing propaganda" within society. Do you remember that Bernays taught the first course on PR? Do you remember the story of how he got women to start smoking in public during a march in an Easter parade in NYC? Now, this is a "funny" story. You see, Bernays was hired by George Hill, president of the American Tobacco Corporation, to find out what would make women overcome the taboo (reinforced by males) of smoking in public. Borrowing from his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas, Bernays hired psychoanalyst A.A. Brill to run a focus group and find out what smoking meant to women. His finding? Cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and of men's sexual power. So Bernays set about to persuade women that smoking would make them feel more powerful and independent. He got a group of young debutantes (he told the media they were "women's rights" marchers) to light up at a set time during the parade (just where Bernays had alerted the media they would be). Then framed the lit cigarettes as "torches of freedom" (which true Americans wouldn't support this?), and the media ate this up. Sales of cigarettes rose dramatically as women's health, eventually, began to deteriorate (but boy, were the women -- and the cigarette manufacturers -- happy!).

Bernays is recognized as playing a major role in changing us from a "need" society into a "desire" society. He believed humans should be looked upon as selfish, irresponsible "consumers" who needed to be controlled, rather than as rational "citizens" who could thrive under democracy.

Imagine what type of conversation George Lakoff (remember, he's the one who said that most of our thinking is unconscious and that we need to reframe our view of America to be more caring and responsive to people's needs) might have with Edward Bernays. Both believe in the power of the unconscious. But Bernays felt people needed -- and wanted -- to feel as if they were in control whereas they actually weren't. Lakoff, I propose, would argue people need -- and want -- to have those who are in control be responsive to the real needs of people.

This seems to me to be the true promise of PR: to help one another achieve a common good, to share the best we have with one another.

Lessons from Power Shift

Boy, did you miss a fantastic conference! Power Shift 2009 in Washington, D.C., has been a transformative event ... not just for me but also for the 12,000 college students who came to our nation's capital to learn and to hold our government officials accountable. The students are presenting a four-part plan, including capping carbon emissions, building a green economy, promoting clean energy and restoring the U.S. as a leader in the climate debate.

While attending sessions, I learned several lessons that apply to public relations, social media and framing. Many of the speakers, in fact, sounded as if they could have been delivering some of the lectures you hear in your PR courses when it comes to setting measurable objectives, knowing your audience, doing research, etc.

One story I heard was about how the Humane Society of the United States has used Facebook incredibly effectively. Many nonprofits think of their publics simply as names or addresses for donation checks. But the Humane Society has recognized the importance of allowing local chapters to reach out to their individual publics and pursue individualized causes. Thus, the Facebook community supports about 1,200 different local causes rather than just one dictated by the central organization. This is a many-to-one rather than a one-to-many, top-down approach.

One of the students on our bus (Alex) brought up the interesting way the word "alternative" is used: alternative families, alternative lifestyles, alternative energy. What an interesting frame!

One last word ... and then I have to get off this hotel computer. Preserving the environment is not a cause. It is a matter of life or death.

See you soon.

Understanding "The Tipping Point"

Malcolm Gladwell is a trend watcher. As a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, he connects with his audience through stories that draw upon research into social and historical trends.

In 2000, he published The Tipping Point, an amazing book that focuses on what he calls social epidemics. Why, for example, did Hush Puppies rise from the retail dead world to become a fashion trend in late 1994-1995? It was a confluence, he says of a few people doing something that became contagious, thus having a big effect in a short amount of time. A few young people bought Hush Puppies at resale shops in Greenwich Village in Soho. Then designers spotted the shoes and used them in photo shoots. Suddenly sales of the shoes hit the Tipping Point, jumping from 30,000 pairs a year to more than a million in less than two years.

Gladwell is instrumental in introducing the Tipping Point into our vocabulary. He identifies three rules that describe this phenomenon: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context.

Let's see how these apply to public relations.

The Law of the Few looks at the three kinds of people who are critical to spreading your message. First are the Connectors. They're the people who know lots and lots of people because they're involved in so many different activities involving different circles of people. Second are the Mavens. These are people who know a lot of information and share it willingly without expecting something in return. For example, they might know which restaurants are the best in town and can tell you what to order, how much to expect to pay, and what the service will be like. Finally, we have the Salesmen. These are the ones who can persuade you to buy, feel or do something and make you feel good (at least for a moment) about doing it.

The second rule is the Stickiness Factor. Why do we remember some messages but not others? The makers of "Sesame Street," for example, learned that preschoolers would stop paying attention when real people -- adults and children -- were doing things and talking on screen. But as soon as the Muppets showed up, the preschoolers got interested again. The Muppets helped make the message stick.

Think about TV commercials. Which company uses a gecko as its "spokes-animal"? And what does that company sell? If you can answer both questions, then the messaging was sticky. Of course, the crucial part is whether the message moves you to act.

Little things can help a message stick. For example, Gladwell tells of a research study at Yale on what motivated students to get tetanus shots. Some students got a brochure with general facts while others got a version with gruesome details and scary photos. The number of students from both groups who actually went to the campus health center to get inoculated was essential the same (3 percent). The researchers found that by simply including a map showing the health center and listing when the shots would be given, this increased the number of students who got the tetanus shots to 28 percent. A small change brought about big results.

And the third rule is the Power of Context. This refers to what is going on at the time and place when you are trying to disseminate your message. Gladwell talks about the Broken Windows theory, proposed by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, which says that "If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling ... are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes" (p. 141).

As a PR practitioner, you need to think about what the Tipping Point would be for your message. Who will deliver it? What will make it stick? And what else is going on that might help your people get ... and respond to ... your message?