How To: Move from a small town in Indiana and be hired to an awesome job at a leading public relations firm in Boston, MA when the economy is in a recession and no one will hire you. Or #HTMFASTIIAWIAAJALPRFIBMWTEIIRANOW
It’s a working title
Two weeks ago I moved from a small town in Indiana to Boston and began my career in PR. Currently I am an intern at Schneider Associates. In the near future I will finish my internship hours. This will complete my degree in PR from Indiana State University. Then I will secure a job in Social Media, with a salary and benefits and all those wonderful things. If you must know how I plan to do this, here’s how these said goals are achieved. (For all you skeptics)
1. Complete My Degree.
a. My final 3 credit hours at ISU will be achieved when I complete my hours with SA in early March. It is a necessity that while at SA I “kick ass”. I want to work as hard as I can for the 27 hours I am at SA each week. It is an un-paid internship. So it would be easier to be motivated if I was being rewarded monetarily, however, this is the last requirement of college and my first impression on the Boston PR world. I want to show everyone exactly how hard of a worker I am and reward SA for giving me my “in” in Boston PR.
b. While at SA I want to get as much out of the internship as possible. This means sticking my nose into projects, finding out how others started their career, offering to attend events outside of my hours, asking for introductions to people, letters of recommendation, you get the point.
c. Make friends and build relationships that I will have for the rest of my life.
2. Build my infrastructure. (You could call it personal branding but then you’re kind of a bozo)
a. Grow quality contacts on Twitter, Facebook and through my blog. By quality contacts I mean the “right” people. You can have a whole mess of followers but what does that count for if they have no interest in the information your trying to communicate?
b. Establish channels of communication for my messages through social media. I am figuring out what I want to say. When I do it would be nice to have a clear and honest method of communication that can reach the right people. These methods change so fast that you have to be reinventing how you talk to people.
c. Have Fun
d. Make friends and build relationships that I will have for the rest of my life.
3. Become a relevant member of the community.
a. I need to get involved and become relevant. I am actively looking for opportunities to become involved in projects that can help build my resume. It is a policy of mine that I am paid because I am a graduate and I don’t think anyone’s time is free (We could all always be doing something else). I work for cheap though and am in it for the experience and connections.
b. I work at SA 27 hours a week so I have give or take 30 hours that I would love to fill with PR/social media work.
c. While doing this I of course hope to make friends and build relationships that I will have for the rest of my life.
If you can want comment/help/chuckle or have any questions please contact me.
-Thanks
Marcus Andrews
mandrews33@gmail.com
@mandrews33