It is great to hear that growing up in a social media world will help level the playing field. I have heard of individuals recently getting jobs through social media sites, especially when an agency or organization is looking to expand into social media.

One area we have been learning about in school is personal branding and developing your brand through the resume, interview, portfolio and other contact with potential employers. Online branding within PR groups and social media such as Twitter is becoming increasingly important to new professionals.

Many of us about to graduate from PR programs are concerned about the economic crisis and the likelihood that we will find jobs. All of the advice from this post and the others in the series have been excellent and informative.

I really like the docstoc.com idea and I will be sharing it with other students in my program. We are all creating portfolios and they can be difficult to compile. Other advice I have read included posting a portfolio on a blog (from web2dotwhat.com), and I am unsure of whether this would leave a positive or a negative impression in the eyes of PR professionals. What do people think about this?

Thanks again for the career advice!

http://web2dotwhat.com/2008/11/24/5-tactics-to-use-social-media-to-land-a-job-plus-tips-to-do-it-right/

- If you need a job, tell people. People want to help, ask for it
- If you want to be in PR but don’t have a PR job, contact a local non-profit or small business and volunteer your time. This allows you to build a PR resume after hours
- Create a resume kit! Including a resume (minus personal contact info!), examples of your work, recommendations and more and upload it to a highly optimized database like http://www.docstoc.com. This database is free and has such high natural SEO, that your information will appear top in search results within a matter of days. This helps you control your online reputation as well as provides you another place, other than your own blog, to promote yourself and your accomplishments
- Set google search results up for terms like “PR or Marcomm in (city name)”
- Network! Get out of the house and attend as many free local events as you can. Eventbrite is a great service to search for networking events in your city
- YoungPrPros is a Yahoo group where old timers provide newbies with advice and assistance.