Jennifer,

Thank you for leading the discussion this week. As both a teacher and employer, I'll share some perceptions that might help students find a good match with employers in public relations.

A few years back, I helped a company build an online public relations department. They put a seasoned PR pro in charge and hired four new staff. I wrote the job descriptions, trained the staff, and went through a trial campaign with them. When the new staff was hired, I interviewed each of them about their Internet skills. The results were a shock:

Have you ever participated in an online chat? No. Do you know waht a Usenet Newsgroup is? No. Have you ever joined an online discussion group? No. What do the letters FTP stand for? No clue. Have you ever made a web page? No. What software do you use for e-mail? Don't know. What web browser do you use? No clue. All four of the new hires had virtually no experience in online communications beyond putting their resumes on Monster.com.

Being hired into a PR position, employers will expect you to be knowledgeable about the Internet. Senior PR people tend to write the marketing message and deal with sales, management, and crises. New hires should know how to distribute messages, track results, and prepare reports. Most of those activities now involve using the Internet and related software (file transfer, bulk e-mail, blogs, RSS, search, etc.).

Most college students today spend an enormous amount of time online. They need to be able to describe that experience so that an employer can appreciate the value of the skills they have acquired. Do you have a MySpace page? Then you know how to "install content on social networking sites." Are you good at using Google? Then you understand "how search engines work and how to use them to gather intelligence or monitor campaigns." Have you used Instant Messenger software? Then you know "how to use new messaging technology to supplement phone and e-mail communications."

Many times students have the skills employers are looking for -- they just don't recognize them as skills. They don't articulate how these skills translate to the world of PR. In many interviews, I have had to coach job applicants to describe how they use the Internet. One applicant told me he hadn't participated in online discussion groups; digging deeper, I uncovered that he had built and managed a Yahoo group. He just didn't realize the connection.

So my advice for today: Learn to talk about what you do online. If you shop online, if you blog or I.M. or upload photos to Flickr, you have learned skills employers need. The video you made on your cell phone and uploaded to YouTube last week may be the key to opening a career in public relations.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC

Steve,
Thanks the the excellent advice. If you ever tire of online book promotion, you've got a great future as an online media headhunter. Or a career counselor.Take your choice.
Don Dunnington

Forgive me if this is my second comment with extremely similar thoughts in a row - I swear I just posted a response, but it didn't show... Maybe a problem with new media...

Anyways, in the past four years - the search for direction in my life - I have worked in all types of sports PR. From camps and clinics, to professional sports - from an institution to a conference, the best PR tool I have found is simply personability.

One wise man :) told me that when employers are interviewing, they are looking for one main thing: to see if they can work with you day-in and day-out.

The area of sports PR is extremely competitve. It is competitive to simply get an interview. I do agree that new media training can give your resume a great jump start; however, you need the necessary skills to communicate your own strengths.

An open mind and a willingness to learn is extremely important in what we like to call this "rat-race" of employement.

Finding a job is a stressful, yet exciting part of our young lives. Having experience in new media will benefit us only in the fact that it will boost our confidence. But if you do not have that confidence within yourself anyways - good luck selling yourself to an employer.

If companies today are expecting new employees to have certain technological skills, they should inform local colleges and universities of these expectations. The schools could therefore supplement their educational requirements for their students so they are more prepared. In the least, the schools could notify their students of these expected requirements early enough in their quest for a degree so they could supplement their own education with perhaps a course in building websites.

Companies sometimes expect potential employees to have certain computer skills but when are students supposed to build these skills on top of trying to receive their degree? I think public relations has a lot to do with personality and people and being able to talk and be friendly. I understand that today the computer has a large impact on everything we do but maybe companies need to take some responsibility in training these new graduates with the skills they need.

I think if potential employees show excitement and willingness to learn, then most companies should recognize that and take the time and energy to teach that new employee what they need to know.

I must agree with Kristy. If potential employees show a certain level of willingness to learn about new technology, I too hope that companies will invest the resources necessary to develop these skills in new employees.

But more important than our enthusiasm is our capability. With a little guidance many of us have the capacity to utilize existing technology previously unfamiliar to us. I hope I’m not too bold in saying that I think recent graduates with a working knowledge of the Internet and computer applications also posses the potential to find new uses and opportunities that our interviewers may not have even considered a possibility.

The thing is, we (most of the people in my graduating class at Rowan) can do everything from look up scholarly journals to have dvds delivered to our homes with just a few clicks of the mouse. We can communicate with multiple people on several topics at once or locate a particular special interest group on another continent in seconds.

We’re in the unique position of having grown up with computers. Whether we were entertaining ourselves with Oregon Trail or learning to type with Typing Tutor, many of us have been developing computer skills since the time we started school. Even with a lack of formal computer training, our technological skills often impress those who haven’t had technology invade each aspect of their everyday lives like we have.

Saying you’re a quick learner when asked if you can do something that you can’t sounds a little cliché. But in this case, I think many of us have demonstrated that is really the case. We’ve learned to pay our bills electronically, seek out the news we want to hear and even network via the Internet.

Steve O’Keefe brings up a very important point. We must learn how to communicate this experience in a way that conveys its value to potential employers. If we can find a way to do this effectively, I hope employers will realize that we can bridge the gap between the particular applications we know and the specific ones they use rather quickly.