PRSSA Guest Speaker

At yesterday's PRSSA meeting Tina Breslow, of Breslow Partners, came and spoke to our group. She talked about being a single mom in the 1970s, and how she broke out of the stereotypical housewife role and broke into the PR scene. She has witnessed many economical recessions, but none have been as bad as this. Here are some tips she gave us, so we can be successful and find jobs after we graduate, no matter what the economy looks like:

• INTERNSHIPS! It seems like everyone is saying this, but it's true. When you go in for your first job interview and you don't have any experience, that's not a good thing. When you send someone your resume and it doesn't show experience, you might not even be asked to come in for an interview.
• Personalize. When you're sending a cover letter and resume to someone, know what they're like. Know what they do. If something isn't personalized, they might not look at it. Send your information directly to the person that you want to see it.
  
• Specialization. It's good to focus on one area of PR, but not yet! Save that for when you're older. Now is the time to experiment and get your feet wet in all different kinds of PR. It looks good on you resume and shows that you're familiar with most everything. When you're jumping from internship to internship, don't stick with the same area. Try an agency, then non-profit, then corporate, etc.

Here are some other tips she gave us about PR in general:

• The press release is almost dead. Now it's all about pitching the media. Sell them the idea, but keep it short and simple. Nobody is going to read a long e-mail about what you have to say. A paragraph or two of copy will do just fine.
  
• The fax machine isn't dead. Tina Breslow uses it a lot, especially when pitching news stations.
• Personalize it. This doesn't just go for finding an employer, it goes for pitching the media too.
  

Does anyone else have something to add or comment on?