Starting, nurturing and developing a career (or even a series of careers) is a lifelong process.
What we'll be talking about in the five chapters that together form our Job Search Process are those basic steps to take, assumptions to make, things to think about if you want a job especially a first job in public relations. But when these steps this process are applied and expanded over a lifetime, most if not all of them are the same procedures, carried out over and over again, that are necessary to develop a successful, lifelong, professional career.
What does all this have to do with putting together a resume, writing a cover letter, heading off for interviews and the other "traditional" steps necessary to get a job? Whether your college graduation is just around the corner or a far distant memory, you will continuously need to focus, evaluate and re evaluate your response to the ever changing challenge of your future: Just what do you want to do with the rest of your life? Whether you like it or not, you're all looking for that "entry level opportunity."
You're already one or two steps ahead of the competition you're sure (pretty sure?) you want to pursue a career in public relations.
The actual process of finding the right company, right career path and most importantly, the right first job, begins long before you start mailing out resumes to potential employers. The choices and decisions you make now are not irrevocable, but this first job will have a definite impact on the career options you leave yourself. To help you make some of the right decisions and choices along the way (and avoid the most notable traps and pitfalls), the following chapters will lead you through a series of organized steps. If the entire job search process we are recommending here is properly executed, it will undoubtedly help you land exactly the job you want.
If you're currently in high school and hope, after college, to land a job in public relations, then attending the right college, choosing the right major, and getting the summer work experience many PR agencies or corporate departments look for are all important steps.
The Concept of A Job Search Process
These are the key steps in the detailed job search process we will cover in this and the following four chapters:
- Evaluating yourself'. Know thyself. What skills and abilities can you offer a prospective employer? What do you enjoy doing? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you want to do?
- Establishing your career objectives'. Where do you want to be next year, three years, five years from now? What do you ultimately want to accomplish in your career and your life?
- Creating a company target list: How to prepare a "Hit List" of potential employers researching them, matching their needs with your skills, and starting your job search assault, preparing company information sheets and evaluating your chances.
- Networking for success: Learning how to utilize every contact, every friend, every relative, and anyone else you can think of to break down the barriers facing any would be PR professional, How to organize your home office to keep track of your communications and stay on top of your job campaign.
- Preparing your resume: How to encapsulate years of school and little actual work experience into a professional, selling resume, learning when and how to use it.
- Preparing cover letters: The many ordinary and the all too few extraordinary cover letters, the kind that land interviews and jobs.
- Interviewing: How to make the interview process work for you from the first "hello" to the first day on the job.
So if you're in college, the end of your junior year is the right time to begin your research and preparations. That should give you enough time during summer vacation to set up your files and begin your library research.
Whether you're in college or graduate school, one item may need to be planned even earlier allowing enough free time in your schedule of classes for interview preparations and appointments. Waiting until your senior year to "make some time" is already too late. Searching for a full time job is itself a full time job! Though you're naturally restricted by your schedule, it's not difficult to plan ahead and prepare for your upcoming job search. Try to leave at least a couple of free mornings or afternoons a week. A day or even two without classes is even better.
Otherwise, you'll find yourself, crazed and distracted, trying to prepare for an interview in the ten minute period between your Crisis Communications lecture and your Press Release Writing seminar. Not the best way to make a first impression and certainly not the way you want to approach an important meeting.
The Self Evaluation Process
Learning about who you are, what you want to be, what you can be, are critical first steps in the job search process and, unfortunately, the ones most often ignored by job seekers everywhere, especially students eager to leave the ivy behind and plunge into the "real world." But avoiding this crucial self evaluation can hinder your progress and even damage some decent prospects.
Why? Because in order to land a job with a company at which you'll actually be happy, you need to be able to identify those companies and/or job descriptions that best match your own skills, likes and strengths. The more you know about yourself, the more you'll bring to this process and the more accurate the "match ups." You'll be able to structure your presentation (resume, cover letter, interviews) to stress your most marketable skills and talents (and, dare we say it, conveniently avoid your weaknesses?). Later, you'll be able to evaluate potential employers and job offers on the basis of your own needs and desires. This spells the difference between waking up in the morning ready to enthusiastically tackle a new day of challenges and shutting off the alarm in the hopes the day (and your job) will just disappear.
Creating Your Self Evaluation Form
Take a sheet of lined notebook paper. Set up eight columns across the top Strengths, Weaknesses, Skills, Hobbies, Courses, Experience, Likes, Dislikes.
Now, fill in each of these columns according to these guidelines:
Strengths: Describe personality traits you consider your strengths (and try to look at them as an employer would) e.g., persistence, organization, ambition, intelligence, logic, assertiveness, aggression, leadership, etc.
Weaknesses: The traits you consider glaring weaknesses e.g., impatience, conceit, etc. (And remember: Look at these as a potential employer would. Don't assume that the personal traits you consider weaknesses will necessarily be considered negatives in the business world. You may be "easily bored," a trait that led to lousy grades early on because teachers couldn't keep you interested in the subjects they taught. Well, many entrepreneurs need ever changing challenges, Strength or weakness?)
Skills: Any skill you have, whether you think it's marketable or not. Everything from basic business skills like typing, word processing and stenography to computer, accounting or teaching experience and foreign language literacy. Don't forget possibly obscure but marketable skills like "good telephone voice."
Hobbies: The things you enjoy doing that, more than likely, have no overt connection to career objectives. These should be distinct from the skills listed above, and may include activities such as reading, games, travel, sports and the like. While these may not be marketable in any general sense, they may well be useful in specific circumstances. (If you love travel, you may be perfect for that entry level account executive job working with the Irish Tourist Board. And your "hobbies" and the knowledge and expertise they've given you may just get it for you!)
Courses: All the general subject areas (history, literature, etc.) and/or specific courses you've taken which may be marketable, you really enjoyed, or both.
Experience: Just the specific functions you performed at any part time (school year) or full time (summer) jobs. Entries may include "General Office" (typing, filing, answering phones, etc.), "Creative Writing," "Communications 302," "Graphic Design," etc.
Likes: List all your "likes" those important considerations that you haven't listed anywhere else yet. These might include the types of people you like to be with, the kind of environment you prefer (city, country, large places, small places, quiet, loud, fast paced, slow paced), and anything else which hasn't shown up somewhere on this form. However, try not to include entries which refer to specific jobs or companies. We'll list those on another form.
Dislikes: All the people, places and things you can easily live without
Now assess the "marketability" of each item you've listed. In other words, are some of your likes, skills or courses easier to match to a specific job description, or do they have little to do with a specific job or company? Mark highly marketable skills with an "H." Use "M" to characterize those skills which may be marketable in a particular set of circumstances, "L" for those with minimal potential application to any job.
Referring back to the same list, decide if you'd enjoy using your marketable skills or talents as part of your everyday job "Y" for yes, "N" for no. You may type 80 words a minute but truly despise typing or worry that stressing it too much will land you on the permanent clerical staff. If so, mark typing with an "N." (Keep one thing in mind just because you dislike typing shouldn't mean you absolutely won't accept a job that requires it. Many do.)
Now, go over the entire form carefully and look for inconsistencies.
The Value of A Second Opinion
There is a familiar misconception about the self evaluation process that gets in the way of many new job applicants the belief that it is a process which must be accomplished in isolation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just because the family doctor tells you you need an operation doesn't mean you run right off to the hospital. Prudence dictates that you check out the opinion with another physician. Getting such a "second opinion" someone else's, not just your own is a valuable practice throughout the job search process, as well.
So after you've completed the various exercises in this chapter, review them with a friend, relative or parent. These second opinions may reveal some aspects of your self description on which you and the rest of the world differ. If so, discuss them, learn from them, and, if necessary, change some conclusions. Should everyone concur with your self evaluation, you will be reassured that your choices are on target.
Establishing Your Career Objectives
For better or worse, you now know something more of whom and what you are. But we've yet to establish and evaluate another important area your overall needs, desires and goals. Where are you going? What do you want to accomplish?
If you're getting ready to graduate from college or graduate school, the next five years are the most critical period of your whole career. You need to make the initial transition from college to the workplace, establish yourself in a new and completely unfamiliar company environment, and begin to build the professional credentials necessary to achieve your career goals.
If that strikes you as a pretty tall order, well, it is. Unless you've narrowly prepared yourself for a specific profession, you're probably most /// prepared for any real job. Instead, you've (hopefully) learned some basic principles research and analytical skills that are necessary for success at almost any level and, more or less, how to think. Maybe how to write a little or draw a little less. Or type.
It's tough to face, but face it you must: No matter what your college, major or degree, all you represent right now is potential. How you package that potential and what you eventually make of it is completely up to you. And it's an unfortunate fact that many PR agencies will take a professional with barely a year or two experiences over any newcomer, no matter how promising. Smaller agencies or departments, especially, can rarely afford to hire someone who can't begin contributing immediately.
So you have to be prepared to take your comparatively modest skills and experience and package them in a way that will get you interviewed and hired. Quite a challenge
But Is Public Relations Right For You?
Presuming you now have a much better idea of yourself and where you'd like to be job , career and life wise in the foreseeable future let's make sure some of your basic assumptions are right. We presume you purchased this Career Directory because you're considering a career in some area of public relations. Are you sure? Do you know enough about the industry as a whole and the particular part you're heading for to decide whether it's right for you? Probably not, so start your research now learn as much about your potential career field as you now know about
In Appendix A, we've listed all the trade organizations associated with all areas of PR. Where possible, we've included details on educational information available from these associations, but you should certainly consider writing each of the pertinent ones, letting them know you're interested in a career in their area of specialization, and that you would appreciate whatever help and advice they're willing to impart. You'll find many sponsor seminars and conferences throughout the country, some of which you may be able to attend.
In Appendix B, we've listed the trade publications dedicated to the highly specific interests of the various areas of the PR community. These magazines are generally not available at newsstands (unless you live in or near New York City), but you may be able to obtain back issues at your local library (most major libraries have extensive collections of such journals) or by writing to the magazines' circulation/subscription departments.
You may also try writing to the publishers and/or editors of these publications. State in your cover letter what area of PR you're considering and ask them for whatever help and advice they can offer. But be specific. These are busy professionals and they do not have the time or the inclination to simply "tell me everything you can about PR."
If you can afford it now, we strongly suggest subscribing to whichever trade magazines are applicable to the specialty you're considering. If you can't subscribe to all of them, make it a point to regularly read the copies that arrive at your local public or college library.
These publications may well provide the most imaginative and far reaching information for your job search. Even a quick perusal of an issue or two will give you an excellent "feel" for the industry. After reading only a few articles, you'll already get a handle on what's happening in the field and some of the industry's peculiar and particular jargon. Later, more detailed study will aid you in your search for a specific job.
Authors of the articles themselves may well turn out to be important resources. If an article is directly related to your chosen specialty, why not call the author and ask some questions? You'd be amazed how willing many of these professionals will be to talk to you and answer your questions. They may even tell you about job openings at their companies! (But do use common sense authors will not always respond graciously to your invitation to "chat about the business." And don't be too aggressive here.)
You'll find such research to be a double edged sword. In addition to helping you get a handle on whether the area you've chosen is really right for you, you'll slowly learn enough about particular specialties, companies, the industry, etc., to actually sound like you know what you're talking about when you hit the pavement looking for your first job. And nothing is better than sounding like a pro...except being one.
Public Relations Is It. Now What?
After all this research, we're going to assume you've reached that final decision you really do want a career in PR. It is with this vague certainty that all too many of you will race off, hunting for any firm willing to give you a job. You'll manage to get interviews at a couple and, smiling brightly, tell everyone you meet, "I want a career in public relations." The interviewers, unfortunately, will all ask the same awkward question "What exactly do you want to do at our company?" and that will be the end of that.
It is simply not enough to narrow your job search to a specific industry or specialty. And so far, that's all you've done. You must now establish a specific career objective the job you want to start, the career you want to pursue. Just knowing that you "want to get into PR" doesn't mean anything to anybody. If that's all you can tell an interviewer, it demonstrates a lack of research into the industry itself and your failure to think ahead.
Interviewers will not welcome you with open arms if you're still vague about your career goals. If you've managed to get an "informational interview" with an executive whose company currently has no job openings, what is he supposed to do with your resume after you leave? Who should he send it to for future consideration? Since you don't seem to know exactly what you want to do, how's he going to figure it out? Worse, he'll probably resent your asking him to function as your personal career counselor.
Remember, the more specific your career objective, the better your chances of finding a job. It's that simple and that important. Naturally, before you declare your objective to the world, check once again to make sure your specific job target matches the skills and interests you defined in your self evaluation. Eventually, you may want to state such an objective on your resume and "To obtain an entry level position as an account executive at a public relations agency" is quite a bit better than "I want a career in PR." Do not consider this step final until you can summarize your job/career objective in a single, short, accurate sentence.
