There are endless tips out there from pros helping recent PR Grads take-off on their professional endeavors. Although I’ve done most everything the pros suggest, I still find myself jobless. Some say that if you haven’t landed a position within the first month after graduation, then it takes an average of eight months to find your first post-college position.

Well, I graduated two months ago, and have followed to the “T” every piece advice given to me from various sources in my efforts to put theory into practice. Thus far I have gained several contacts, secured a few interviews, even was a top ten finalist of the MS&L Worldwide Chicago Internship Challenge of 2009, but no full-time job. All (or at least most) of my efforts started back when I first set foot on my college campus; indeed, I’ve done everything from paid and unpaid internships to workshops on interviewing. But my efforts were put into high gear three months before graduation. Here are more details of what I’ve done.

1. Get involved: Over and over career services, employers and professors will argue that “practice makes perfect.” I’m not perfect but practice has helped me decipher where I want to be in the future. My collegiate involvement and employment background have given me the opportunity to perform various PR activities, presentations—and most importantly—I have worked as a team leader as well as a team member. I completed a B.S. in Public Relations and Broadcasting, but when I declared them as my majors I was unsure what each profession really entailed. Getting involved and networking led me to my first internship in radio allowing me to learn, hands-on, what each was all about. My first internship was during the summer of my sophomore year at a local radio station. I was exposed to every department, including sales, promotions, productions account and even engineering. This hands-on experience started the ball rolling—and I’ve done a total of five internships in both PR and Broadcasting; only 2 were paid. These positions include: Promotions Intern at a radio station; Program Coordinator for a YMCA branch; Public Relations Intern for the Communication Department at NWMSU; Creative Promotions Intern for a television station and Firm Director for a Student-run Firm.

   These internships have helped me narrow down what I want to do. I’ve learned much about the industry, found some of the greatest people and advisers, networked and received stellar recommendations during my internships, but I have not found the position that I want to pursue.

2. Build Bridges: Ever heard of “make sure to always leave a good first impression?” More than just making a good impression with the people you meet and/or work for, it is extremely important to keep in touch with them—they can be your ticket to a better job. This becomes especially important with the media’s rapid change because it not only shows you stay current with the media but it allows you stay connected to those who you are no longer working for but would like their support and, hopefully, their recommendation.

   I have created several profiles on online networks like LinkedIn, Monster, Experience and Facebook, which I regularly update and make sure they look very professional. I have a couple recommendations on my LinkedIn profile, some are from internships I did and the others of supervisors from the University (Northwest Missouri State University) I recently graduated from. I spend an average of 20 hours a week exploring twitter, LinkedIn, and other network links. Having said that, I think it’s actually knowing who I “follow”, contacting them, and the type of content I post on twitter that has generated such opportunities (including this one! I found PRChannel on Twitter) Through Twitter I have found and applied for a total of ten positions.

3. Clean and Revamp: Speaking of updating and looking professional, I have reviewed my resume around fifty times within the last two months. I have cleaned it up so that it looks well-organized and, most importantly, so it shows results. I think of it as a cheat sheet for employers; they can see the results of my projects while I was an intern, or as an employee. I also had several contacts, who are all part of the workforce, take a second look. In addition, I subscribe to several different newsletters where I read about how I can bolster my presence online.
4. Word of Mouth: Talking to everyone you meet and know is the key to networking. I’ve kept in touch with friends who graduated last year for their advice and/or leads as to who is hiring. Through this I found two different companies that I was really interested in and as a result I applied. I’ve found this process to be more efficient due to my friend’s influence and recommendations.I normally request to know more about the position available and who exactly to contact before I submit a cover letter and my resume—if it is through their website. In the case of the positions where I had a contact I will wait to see which method works best for the human resource office, which usually is through their direct email. This is always better than just emailing a generic company email address.

In my research I have also been very flexible about the location of where I apply. I do not mind moving to another state for a job position and I’ve made it very clear in my cover letters and emails when requesting more information.

A professor once told me that in order to be successful in your job search you must make it “a full time job to find a job.” His words remain in the back of my mind, making me restless as I’ve had to get a part time job in order to pay bills and stay afloat—sadly I’m still a “college student” in that sense.

This post was written by Alejandra Alvarez, a recent grad from Northwest Missouri State University with a double major in Public Relations and Broadcasting. She lives in the very center of the U.S. but hasn’t always; indeed, before moving to Kansas City she lived in California for a few years. However, her story starts in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Fluent in Spanish and English, she’s still looking for a full-time position where she can exercise them both. Want to give Allie a job? Get in touch with her using Twitter (@alliealvarez) or visit her LinkedIn profile.

Best of all, tip sheets are easy to write and can be pulled together relatively quickly.  Everyone has seen a form of a Tip Sheet in traditional media: “8 Ways to Lose Weight Fast”, “Top 10 Biggest PR Blunders of All Time”, “6 Proven Tactics to Lower Your Energy Bills”, the list goes on.

For those of you who spend time on, or are at least familiar with, the various online social networks (as any modern PR person should be) those types of titles should look familiar.  Go to the first page of Digg.com and at least two or three of the top posts will have titles similarly structured.

The ‘tip sheet’ tactic has crossed from traditional PR to new online mediums, except the online marketers and SEO types coined a new term for it: Link Bait.

Hey, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”…

5 Great Tips for Putting Together a Great Tip Sheet/Link Bait Title Article

1. Use numbers in the title and try to work in words like ‘Best’ or ‘Top’ – the whole idea is to make it exciting and easy to digest.
2. Be Concise.  The first sentence should give the instructions, the second sentence should explain them – that’s it.
3. Avoid promoting yourself or your client too much.  The temptation is there, but people will not trust your advice if they feel they’ve been pitched to.
4. Use ‘action language’.  The tips should read like well-written instructions, start off with a verb whenever its possible.
5. Make it short and sweet.  Limit the whole thing to a page; you want there to be enough information to  actually be of use, but people will not read through a huge laundry list: 5 to 12 tips is a good guideline.

Its generating a lot of buzz – and prompted everyone on twitter to try to get onto the skittles homepage by tweeting something about skittles.  Pretty brave when you think about it, with apparently no means of moderating the tweets Skittles has opened the door for open communication on their company homepage.

We like the idea…its a great PR stunt – get people talking about your brand in a completely new, trendy and different way.  However there is real potential for this plan to backfire.  First of all, Skittles isn’t active on Twitter, neither is its parent company Mars.  For a social media strategy to work long-term it’s got to be a 2-way conversation, which isn’t happening at all here.  What they’ve done is pull up a stream of anyone using the word ‘Skittles’ in their tweet.  Because of this there have been a few incredibly inappropriate tweets showing up – including offensive language and links to ‘adult’ sites.  Furthermore, what happens when the initial “wow” factor wears off and people aren’t tweeting about skittles every second?

Skittles also should have thought about the Fail Whale a bit before launching this.  Twitter, although getting better on this front, is notorious for not being able to support the amount of traffic it draws on a regular basis.  Especially with all the buzz surrounding this…is it worth relying on Twitter to keep your homepage up and running?

It’s a great PR stunt, but is it a good social marketing strategy?  We’re not sure…

The gold standard for a PR person is landing your client an on-air TV appearance or interview.

When trying to land a TV interview it’s important to remember the visuals – they need to grab the viewer’s attention.  A lot of PR firms seem to forget to plan for visual content before they approach the producers/execs.  In a multi-media world PR people can’t expect to be able to rely on a well-written press release – audio and visual elements have become standard tools of the trade.

Producers across the board say that when deciding whether to give an on-air interview its a bonus when a firm includes a list of available audio or visual elements in their press kit and mention the visual strengths of each.

Think of it as a grown-up version of show and tell.  As a kid, you were way more likely to pay attention if a classmate brought in something really cool for you to look at while he talked.  PR firms would do well to remember this, because not much has changed – people still like to be presented with something visual.  Watching two talking heads is incredibly boring, and you should coach your clients on how to ’show’ while they spread their message.  Here are a few tips we’ve come across for making sure the interview is a success.

• Have something the interviewer can actually see and touch. This is a big plus, as it ads a realistic element that audiences will appreciate.  If you aren’t sure what to bring, bring everything you’ve got and ask the producers what you should include-they’ll have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t.  Just stay away from signs or brochures, its a little cliche and the audience won’t be able to read them anyway.

• Don’t get too promotional – its fair game to bring your products, but don’t wear a company shirt and constantly mention your web address etc.  If you want current promotions/issues mentioned make sure the host or interviewer brings them up, same goes with your contact information.  Audiences don’t respond well to sales pitches.

• Keep moving.  If appropriate do a demonstration,  have ’stations’ set up, have your visual elements nearby and ready etc.  Try to avoid just sitting there with nothing to do but talk.

• Know your facts.  Its part your job as a PR person to make sure your client knows the correct stats and sources to back up their statements.  The last thing you want is your client to get stumped on a question about one of their visual elements.

Despite blog posts from Mark Zuckerberg and co. attempting to explain why the switch was made the outrage continued.  The posts actually made very logical points.  The problem: It’s our guess that the majority of those people so angry about the changes didn’t bother to read them.

Well, yesterday Facebook went back to their old Terms of Service…at least for now.  They are still planning a change, but this time they are asking for input from users, using the newly created Facebook Bill of Rights (currently at 42,210 members and growing rapidly).  A much smarter strategy from a public relations standpoint.  If there was anyone left doubting the importance of social media and it’s role in public relations this should serve as their cue to embrace it.