PRowl's Seniors

PRowl is so PRoud of our seniors!

Doug Bennett (Account Executive &

Director of Finance)

Doug is currently interviewing for corporate communications positions and is now an intern at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. During the summer, Doug will begin studying for the LSATs and then apply to law schools.

Emily Ascani (Assistant Firm Director)

Emily will be continuing to intern full time this summer as a Public & Media Relations intern at Morgan Lewis, a law firm in Center City. She is looking for an entry-level public relations position in the Philadelphia area, concentrating in hospitality, tourism & corporate or agency public relations. She is interested in utilizing her skills in social media, editing, writing and blogging.

Steve Jacobs (Staff Member)



Steven Jacobs will graduate this May with a bachelor of the arts degree in strategic communication, public relations concentration. He is currently in the interviewing stages of his job search, while finishing up his internship at Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. He hopes to stay in Philadelphia and land a job doing public relations for the City.

Kurie Fitzgerald (Staff Member)

After graduation Kurie will have a paid internship/PR coordinator training position with Van Eperen & Company in Rockville, Md. VE&Co's mainly focus is strategic communications consulting. Kurie plans on visiting Chicago the week after graduation and Canada during the summer. 



Frank Kunkle (Staff Member)

Frank will be continuing his internship at University of the Sciences while looking for a career in higher education. Whether corporate or nonprofit, Frank envisions working in a PR/marketing role. He would like to stay in Philadelphia for at least a few more years before thinking about moving to another city. 

Alex Crispino (Account Executive)

Alex Crispino will be graduating Magna Cum Laude and staying in the Philadelphia area. She is hoping to start her career at a Philadelphia agency and plans to eventually return to graduate school. Feel free to reach Alex on Twitter: @alexcharli.

Niki Ianni (Firm Director)

Niki Ianni is proud to be a May 2012 Temple Graduate with a degree in Strategic Communication and a concentration in Public Relations. With her sights set on nonprofit public relations, she is packing up her bags and moving to Washington, D.C., to pursue exciting career opportunities. With a passion for animal welfare and advocacy and a love for her two cats, Niki hopes to work in an organization that makes large strides and impacts in the animal world. She is incredibly excited about the adventures to come living in the nation's capitol.

We wish you all the best!

Reflections on the job seminar, “Launching Your Career 101”

I recently had the opportunity to attend “Launching Your Career 101,” a career search seminar for college seniors and recent graduates. Before attending the event, I was skeptical as to what would be discussed during the course of the program that I did not already know. Below are some takeaways I would like to share.

What are you trying to sell?

In order to land a career, you must have a unique positioning; something that differentiates you from all of the other candidates. Simply having a college diploma doesn’t cut it because so does everyone else who will be applying. You must sell yourself as bringing a distinctive offering that employers cannot overlook.

Who will be your target buyer/market?

After you have created your “brand” you must narrow down potential employers. Perform a self assessment to see where your strengths and weaknesses are, and match up your unique “brand” with a company or organization who could utilize your skills. Identifying a “priority focus” of your top companies, as well as key decision makers within those companies can be very beneficial.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be extremely advantageous when searching for jobs, if used effectively. You should use this social media outlet to connect with professionals who work in the field you want to get involved in. I learned that seeking out individuals who graduated from the same university as you can help get your foot in the door of a company. If you can make a connection with someone who has been in your shoes, that person is more likely to give you a push in the right direction.
30 Second Commercial

Create a 30 second pitch for potential employers that incorporate who you are, your skills, experience, and what you want to do in the field. Practice this pitch and be ready to deliver it to employers. Being able to talk about yourself in a confident manner is important and something employers recognize.


Are you in the market for a job? What steps have you taken to insure a successful job process? Let us know!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Steve Jacobs.

Before & After: My Experiences with the “Start Your Career Seminar”

This is part one of a two-part blog entry about my feelings and experiences regarding the conventional “get your career started” type-seminar. You know the type. College kids awkwardly filter into a huge conference room filled with chairs and round tables; uncomfortably mingling with each other until the keynote speaker approaches the podium to begin the program. They break you up into groups and teach you how to build your resume, do well in interviews, and network with professionals. All things that are important, don’t get me wrong, but not overwhelmingly helpful when it comes to starting your ideal career.

However, later this month I will have the opportunity to attend another one of these seminars in Blue Bell, PA. This seminar, titled “Launching Your Career 101”, is invitation-only and for graduating or post-graduate college seniors. Taking into effect the exclusiveness of the invitees, I was immediately interested in attending.

I feel as though this seminar will be more beneficial than others because it is reserved for students who are eager to enter the working world. Here is what I anticipate going in:

1. Everyone should have a well-put together resume: There shouldn’t be any need for getting a resume set up, rather the workshop should be reserved for making adjustments in order to make your resume compelling and stand out from others.
2. Personal branding should be a focal point: Differentiating yourself from the masses and landing the opportunity that will launch your career should be heavily discussed.
3. In-Depth Interview Prep: Because most of the participants should have significant interview experience, I would expect more in-depth interview prep with regards to “pitching yourself” to a prospective employer. Many young professionals know how to answer questions, but cannot give a quality pitch for themselves.
4. Creating a List of potential employers: Most of us obviously want to pursue a career in our field and may even know of businesses that are hiring, however finding the ideal employer is the difficult part. A workshop detailing how to narrow down this search would be extremely helpful for future young professionals.

From looking at the agenda, it appears as though there will be a lot of useful information and guidance from successful recruiters who have extensive experience in this field. Stay tuned for part two of this blog where I will be recapping the seminar and providing several key takeaways I learned from attending.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Steve Jacobs.

Effective Strategic Communication-The Basis of all Human Interaction

Being the rather indecisive person that I am, it came as no shock that I hadn’t the slightest idea of what I wanted to study coming into college. So naturally, I took the easy road, and like so many other freshman, enrolled myself as an undeclared. During my first year at Temple I took the typical GenEd classes, sprinkled in with some advertising and education classes, hoping that I would find my niche. Upon completing my freshman year, I thought I had a better understanding of what I wanted to do with my life; I had no idea.

After an untypical chain of events occurred over the next year, including transferring out of the university only to find myself re-enrolling at Temple the following year, I finally had some guidance in my life. This guidance came during Summer 2010, as I was perusing the Temple website looking for perspective majors. There are only so many of those personality strength tests you can take before you finally have to stop and ask yourself: What do I want to do? Surprisingly enough, once the communications light was shed on me, I was hooked. I wanted to study strategic communication. I knew that if done effectively, strategic communication is the basis of all human interaction.

Unlike other majors in the university, strategic communication teaches you how to express your needs and desires in a way that gets others to stop what they’re doing, and listen to what you’re saying. Oppositely, it promotes attentive listening so you can comprehend and understand exactly what messages are being relayed. Without effective two-way communication, nothing would ever get accomplished in the world. Strategic communication is ever-present in our daily routines, though we may not even realize it. It is what separates us from other species, what drives production; it is the basis of all human interaction.

Extraordinary communicators can change the world. If you can talk the talk, you better believe people will be on your side, listening to what you have to say. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan; all phenomenal masters of communication who let their words and rhetoric bring about change. It is no secret as to why they had so many supporters. People believed in the messages they were delivering. Whether all of these messages were actually truthful and sincere is a whole different matter. The point is this: their words were empowering.

I could not be happier knowing that I will be graduating this spring with a degree in strategic communication. Learning how to become an effective communicator in this fast-pace world, where messages often get lost or convoluted, is a skill that is uncompromising to any other.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Steve Jacobs.