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In our Building the Agency – Part I
How are today’s agencies building, or rebuilding, their services? How are they staffing for these new services? Siloed or integrated programs? Standalone teams or cross-practice groups? We’ll examine these questions in a series of upcoming posts and I’d love to hear from those in the trenches, rather cubes, as well as those in the corner offices.
Ten years ago most PR professionals would learn everything they needed to simply by working. There may have been some silos or skills that most people didn’t touch, but those were for specialized areas. Continue reading
Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
Determining the next move in your career path is a tough decision especially when changing from agency to in-house communications. While yes it is all PR and based on the same principles, strategies and tactics the daily work style, skill set and environment can be drastically different.
Often times the attraction to an agency is the multiple clients, the variety of industries, the camaraderie of other communications professionals and even the swank office. Agency PR pros are talking to media daily and don’t typically have politics to deal with since they don’t directly work for the companies they represent.
If you are considering leaving time sheets in the past, for stability, security and routine make sure the switch it is a fit for you and an answer to what you are trying to leave behind. The pros of working in-house does typically include better health benefits, more opportunity for advancement and fewer barriers to implement new PR programs. Continue reading
An Agency Perspective: Five Tips to Keep in Mind When Job Hunting
So you have your degree. You’ve graduated summa cum laude and your resume is polished into tip-top-AP- style shape. But now what? How do you take the tools that everyone has at graduation – a resume, letters of recommendation and a diploma – and turn it into something that sets you apart in the job hunt?
While there isn’t one golden rule to mastering the job hunt, there are certain things that can help put you at the top of your potential employer’s list. Here are five tips to keep in mind: Continue reading
How Do You Use Facebook Lists?
Going back to an earlier post of mine, at “another” blog 😉 the issue will certainly begin to arise for the recently hired (or anyone really) who may have the pleasure of administering Facebook pages on behalf of clients, or your own firms – “How do I separate work (client), work (colleagues and bosses), and friends on Facebook?”
After all, for the last n number of years Facebook has been your playground and you’d like to keep it that way – at least a little bit. Further, for the “older” folks who have a larger outside-of-work life they’re now dealing with the question of friending clients on Facebook. Continue reading
Stop, Drop and Roll
I sit here today a recently unemployed public relations professional who is giving serious consideration to a career change. I graduated college in 2005 and immediately entered the biz. I had high hopes for myself and took every experience for what it was worth, learning every moment and dedicating myself and my career to the agency and clients at hand. I loved it and have loved working in this field for over five years.
Recently I’ve made a few career moves to learn more, give myself more opportunities and resources, and also to make more money. I’ve gone from a small agency of two, to a mid-sized agency of 25+ and I’ve noticed a few things along the way that I thought I’d share from my perspective.
I want to make more money, we all do. But, I don’t want to make more money and love my job less. Sounds like a simple statement that we can probably all share and support but in the public relations business, I’m not sure at my ripe age of 28, that I can see this as a reality. With every agency move, I have indeed made more money. But I also see things happening within the larger agencies that I strongly disapprove of and disagree with. Continue reading
Does your firm work as a team?
When I had my first interview with Co-Communications, Account Manager Danielle Cyr, looked me straight in the eye with an icy glare and said: “We are not competitive here. Are you competitive?”
After I almost wet myself out of sheer fear of Danielle (we are best buds now, don’t worry!), I thought “yeah, I am competitive! I used to dance, horseback ride, play the violin, compete in pageants. I love competition.”
Danielle went on to further explain. She had seen the ugly-side of competitive at other jobs. She had seen cutthroat, death-stare, whispering behind backs competition. Continue reading