Archive for December, 2009

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5 Career Placement Strategies for Your Future in PR


2009
12.30

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Church of England has stated that it is against the idea of product placement. What could be useful is career placement instead. Here are my five career placement strategies that you could implement in PR.

1) Recruitment agencies

Profilescreative does source PR recruitment in London. PR roles they recruit for include junior account executives and PR coordinators. This may be a good  idea to have a look at if you are looking for a permanent career, as opposed to just a job.

2) Surround yourself with like-minded individuals

Are your friends as career-ambitious as you? I think it may be a good idea to have ‘career chats’ once a week with a friend who wants to thrive in PR as good as you do. It could be a short 10 minute conversation where you both update each other on how well you are doing in both of your quests. This is good for morale and motivation.

3) Investing time on LinkedIn

I really think LinkedIn is going to continue playing a huge role in how people network online. Try encouraging your friends to encourage their co-workers to join. This gives you the potential to link and connect to a wider pool of contacts.

4) Emailing PR contacts…every now and then

I think emailing your contacts you met on work experience every now and then is a good idea. This is an ideal way of building relationships because you are showing how interested you in keeping in touch. I think as long as this is done genuinely it works. I have done it when I am emailing journalists and I think it helps to keep you on your contacts radar.  

5) Improving your PR experience

With this strategy, I don’t necessarily mean doing another internship. You could start your own blog about PR. From this blog, you could then try and market it to niche publications in other to get more exposure. Or you could conduct an experiment where you use Twitter to see how many followers you can get in one month and to make it even more competitive, do this with the friend you have career chats with. Anything that keeps you working, whether or not it is DIY is a good thing in my eyes.

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Job of the week: Marketing & Communications Assistant at KPMG


2009
12.29

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Jobs like this don’t come along frequently. KPMG is looking for a marketing & communications assistant to do the work on a 3 month contract.

This job would suit PRs who like to write as copywriting is one of the key responsibilities. For more info on the responsibilities, read more here.

Don’t sleep on this opportunity because heavy hitters like KPMG mean serious business.

No word on the salary yet but I would imagine it is competitive for the right candidate.

Closing date: 11 January 2009

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What do you want to achieve in PR in 2010?


2009
12.24

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As we are now wrapping up 2009, what would you say are your main things you want to achieve in your PR career?

Here is what I would love to achieve in 2010

1) Make vox-pop.co.uk a premier destination for PR career information.

2) Work on vox-pop.co.uk part-time.

Tell me in your comments about what your dreams are for your PR career.

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4 Ways To Avoid Job-Seeking Burn Out


2009
12.19

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Looking for a job is one of the most stressful things that is around. What kinds of things do you do to try and not get too stressed?

Here are some of my tips that I have been using. I found a temporary position in an administration role, while I continue my hunt for a media role.

1. Not relying on online too much: I think this is really important. The internet means we can communicate well, but that also means we cannot rest on our laurels and do online applications all the time. Keep it varied and mix it up.

2. Loot: Pop down to the jobcentre every Tuesday for the new issue of Loot recruit. There are lots of 0845 numbers to call on there, which are annoying but it is a fantastic resource with general jobs to keep you fed. You can do these while you are looking for your full time PR role.

3. Budgeting: As much as I would love to spend a lot of my weekly budget reading magazines, you can spend some money on buying stationery for job applications if you like to send postal ones. Allocate another segment of your cash to buying smart clothes for job interviews in case you don’t have any.

4. Target: To me, this is the most efficient way of avoiding burn out. Target exactly who you want to apply for jobs with or send general emails/phone calls to. For example, on you can create a job-seeking application schedule where on Monday, you apply for 10 position online, telephone 5 people for networking opportunities and so on. By targeting, this gives you a sense of accomplishment.

What tips do you have for avoiding being burnt out? Email me or share them in our forum!

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News: Sunday Times Business editor quits journalism for PR


2009
12.17

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Is this a sign of a bigger exodus to come?

Press Gazette is reporting that John Waples is leaving the ST to join a financial PR company called Financial Dynamics.

He worked at the ST for 15 years before deciding to try things on the other side.

What do you think of more journalists joining the PR world — does this make it crowded or more diverse?

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News: University of Ulster student reveals research on how women in PR are perceived


2009
12.16

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An Ulster University student, Emma Catterall, did research which used ‘chick lit’ novels as a way of discovering how women in PR are portrayed.

Emma Catterall discovered a type of flighty image was created by authors which included female PRs as only caring about shopping, boys and sex. You can read more about Emma’s research here.

What do you think of this? Are women in PR only interested in the superficial or does Emma’s research highlight a worse problem with how authors portray female PRs? Tell us in the vox-pop forum!

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7 Questions: Mavis Amankwah of Rich Visions


2009
12.11

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MA Headshots

1.       Do you think graduates have it harder this year to land a job in PR?

I do not think it is any harder this year than any other. The PR industry has always
been a highly competitive one and takes a great deal of resilience and determination
to break through. (more…)

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4 Potential changes in online PR that career-driven graduates should look at


2009
12.08

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Twitter is the sexiest social network around. Companies are falling over themselves to have it on their sites. Graduates for new media jobs and PR jobs are presumably expected to know about the American-bred media company.

Web Pro News have a small piece on the future of online PR which you can read here. The article talks about how people who are social online (via networks) may change their patterns. When this happens, PRs will also have to change how they look at online PR.

4 Potential changes in online PR that graduates need to look out for include:

1. New start ups and technologies: Swedish-born music site Spotify is taking the music industry by storm. Its’ early success could signal a growing market for promoting music online for artists and presenting record labels with a way to touch their consumer markets.

2. Video: Video is growing online. Web Pro News highlights that continued growth is likely. PRs could align their work with sites like YouTube and Daily Motion to a greater degree. Graduates could incorporate slick campaigns on YouTube to broadcast their ideas further. Hulu.com in the US is a household name in the online video market.

3. Going where the audience is: Audience is key in order for a campaign to be heard. Aspiring music PRs should not forget forums or messageboards, where opinions are shared. For example, music PRs could sign up to the forums of an official artist’s website, liaise with the record label to create a competition available exclusively to meet the artist. This idea would be a way to mix online PR with the artist’s target market, therefore engaging them better.

4. Making email more sophisticated: What kind of things can PRs do to make email more engaging in PR terms? That is a huge question to answer, but this could be an area that graduates could make a niche for themselves in online PR. A successful email PR campaign is that of Martin Lewis’ Moneysavingexpert.com. The financial expert has a frequent email newsletter with the latest personal finance deals. This is a clever way of promoting his website.

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Potential PR Career Trend: Rise of IT/Mobile Use in Emerging Markets


2009
12.07

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PC World have reported that emerging markets will be one of the defining factors in the financial success of IT products in 2010.

Lexton Snol of PC World writes:

Emerging markets will drive more than half the new IT industry growth in 2010, with IT spending up 8-13 percent in the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

This highligts the potential PR opportunity for PR work for products such as laptops and mobiles. Graduates could exploit this rise in IT usage and growth by targeting PR companies in places like Brazil and looking for work there.

Furthermore, mobile usage is outdoing the internet on the African continent. This is particularly fascinating news, because it stops the idea that the Internet has been fully saturated in Africa. This could potentially present two types of opportunities:

1. Online: Graduate PRs could align themselves with upcoming Internet services to further promote the Internet to African consumers.

2. Mobile: PRs could look at the big African mobile companies such as Celtel and Vodacom and position themselves to work for them.

This is not an exhaustive list of possible career trends, but it could be an option for aspiring PRs who want to see what other parts of the world have to offer for career progression.

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