This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Raise your hand if you took up a career in PR because you believed math was irrelevant to public relations? Oh good – we’re all in the same boat. Initially, I thought a career in public relations would mean I’d spend my time writing, planning events, connecting with audiences and stakeholders and sharing information far and wide. How silly of me to think that numbers wouldn’t play a part in any of that work! Of course numbers and a bit of math are important to PR. How would you know what efforts were working, where to focus your time…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” ― Julia Child There really isn’t a better way for me to describe my career, especially since Julia Child’s passion was food. I, too, love food and that’s where my passion for PR started. First, a little about me. I currently live in Columbia, SC, with my boyfriend and our tail-less cat Izzy and where I work for the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness, a nonpartisan, business-led nonprofit that works to advance South Carolina’s long-term economic competitiveness. I grew up on a farm in Southern New Jersey and…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Spring is just around the corner and now is a perfect time to spring clean your social media. Twitter, Facebook and the like are for sure a treasure trove of cat videos, gifs and other humorous bits to procrastinate your day away, but social media – Twitter in particular – can be a powerhouse career tool if done correctly.  Here are five things you can do today to harness the magic of social media to build your personal brand and boost your job search. 1. Give your LinkedIn a make-over. If you’re on the job prowl, the first…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Diversity is one of the biggest employer buzzwords out there right now, but the truth is that PR has a big diversity problem. One of the main problems with workplace diversity is that it’s sometimes viewed as a top-down initiative meant to make the company look good, not to improve the workplace or services offered. New Pros, with their differing outlooks and definitions of what “diversity” is, can help solve PR’s lingering issue. Original plans for diversity included hiring people of different races, backgrounds, genders, etc., and to have those groups equally represented within the workplace to create a…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Brands aren’t just for businesses anymore. As a new pro, it’s important to establish your own personal brand and voice out in the professional world to set yourself apart from the crowd. Here are five steps to creating a personal brand that accurately reflects who you are. 1. Define who you are First step to creating a strong personal brand is knowing who you are. Take some time to think about how you want people to see you and what you want to be known for. Make a list of what you do and don’t want to be known…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. I’ll admit – when I picked up Mastering the New Media Landscape, I was a little skeptical. I’m generally skeptical of any book or article that claims to help its readers master anything. We know that Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule isn’t exactly accurate, but can you really master a skill in 200 pages or less? The answer is almost unequivocally no, but with a caveat in this case. Mastering the New Media Landscape’s subtitle “Embrace the Micromedia Mindset” is a more accurate description than its actual title. Authors Barbara Cave Hendricks and Rusty Shelton outline the key principles, define the…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. You’ve put in the work, your finals are in and graduation is finally right around the corner. You’re making your post-grad to-do list and checking it twice. Joining PRSA as an Associate Member should also be at the top of your to-dos. Why Join PRSA? As a graduating PRSSA member you likely already know that being a member of PRSA is a step you should take to further your career. You probably also know that joining the world’s largest public relations professional organization gives you unlimited opportunities to connect with and learn from more than 21,000 other public relations…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Continuing education should be a focal point of every professional’s long-term career plan, but especially for PR pros. Working in an industry that is constantly changing requires lifelong dedication to learning, professional development and adapting. It’s not enough to graduate from college with a degree and to have done well in your coursework; continuing your education past graduation is necessary to be a successful PR professional. There are plenty of ways to keep appraised of new trends, tools, practices and theories within the industry. Many websites and professional organizations, like Hubspot, PRSA, Skillshare, the American Marketing Association, and Ragan…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. Juggling your many responsibilities as a new PR pro probably leaves you wanting to curl up on the couch with your Seamless and Netflix to recharge before you face another day. Set that remote down though, because research has found that engaging in a hobby is a much better way to decompress and re-energize yourself. According to a 2013 study by Concordia University, people who have hobbies are generally healthier and have a lower risk of depression and dementia as they age. Similar research by a team at San Francisco State University noted that professionals who engage in hobbies,…

This post previously appeared on PRSA’s New Professionals Section’s blog, The Edge. When most of us think of a mentor-mentee relationship, images of a seasoned expert offering sage wisdom and experiences to an aspiring pro probably come to mind. We tend to think that a mentor needs to have many years of experience and the mentor-mentee is an exclusive, hard-to-find relationship that helps to guide the mentee’s career. Some of these assumptions may be partly true, but it’s past time that we redefine our definition of what a mentor-mentee relationship should look like. A mentorship doesn’t typically begin by seeking someone out and asking “Will you be my mentor?” It’s usually…