PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day – Building Momentum Part 2
If you’ve read my first post about PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day, you already know that I’ll be speaking on the young professional panel tomorrow. (Actually, I spoke earlier today because I’m going to schedule this post to publish just after the panel discussion, but I’m writing this the night before.)
Our moderator, Nicole Halpin, sent out a preview of some of the questions we will use to get the discussion started tomorrow. While preparing tonight, I decided I should summarize my answers to a few questions. Not only will writing my answers out help me think through them more thoroughly, but sharing them may help someone else out as well.
#PRSASTLCD
“I myself worked through my senior year and graduated without relevant internship experience. What would you suggest for those in this room that have never had an internship?”
Work on developing your portfolio. Find a way to create your internship, take on small freelance projects. The experience you gain from developing your leads, pitching your ideas and managing client projects will be valuable no matter what direction your career takes you. Make sure you track as much data as possible and create case studies to include with your resume as work samples.
“How did you personally stand out in the resume pool?”
I included as many numbers as I could. I talked about doubling the number of social media followers, increasing click-through rates by X percent or even better, revenue generated by my tactics.
“When applying for your first job, how do you pitch yourself when you lack the 3-5 years industry experience that we typically see in job postings?”
I completely ignored it and focused on the quantifiable results. In my opinion, real proven results mean more than the number of months or years spent sitting in an office, and I did my best to talk about results instead of how long I’ve worked where, etc.
“As a PRSSA graduate that quickly became involved in the St. Louis PRSA chapter, I understand networking is key in growing as a young professional. How can students utilize networking to its fullest extent without seeming desperate for a job?”
The best networking isn’t the typical networking. It isn’t chamber of commerce meetups or grabbing coffee with other industry professionals. The best networking is volunteering. Pick an organization you believe in and start donating your time and knowledge. You’ll meet a lot of people, prove you know what you’re doing and add some interesting projects to your portfolio. Always track the data and write up case study summaries. Those results will be the best additions you can add to future job applications.
“I heard at my first Career Development Day that HTML is a great asset to have in your portfolio so I took online introductory courses to make myself stand out when applying. Are there other skills you would suggest to our audience to learn and add to their personal portfolio?”
HTML for sure. I’d learn everything you can about Excel, not just the basics, everything. I’d also learn as much as you can about writing for search engine optimization. Once you know how to write for search engines, you’ll be able to start optimizing everything – especially your LinkedIn profile. Once I optimized my LinkedIn profile, the number of times my profile was viewed doubled and I began receiving messages from recruiters wanting to discuss potential career opportunities. It only took me a few hours to optimize my profile, and I ended up getting a job offer when I wasn’t even searching for one because of it.
I’d also look for as many free certification courses as you can; such as Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Certification, Google Adwords Certification and Google Analytics certification.
