Tips For Tackling That Dreaded Interview Question

During job and internship interviews, hiring managers may ask about your greatest weakness to determine whether you are fit for the position. This is a tough question, but luckily you can come prepared to an interview with a solution. When you think about your weaknesses, keep in mind not to indicate any qualities that make you seem incapable for the job. You want to present yourself positively and effectively when you answer the question.

1.Know your weaknesses and pick the best one.

Everyone has his or her own strengths and weaknesses; be honest with yourself! Delve into those ideas and tasks that make you feel uneasy or nervous. It is important to recognize these concerns, and acknowledge them so you can confidently say you will perform the job properly. It is important to get the point across that this weakness does not negatively impact your work.

2.Don’t say you work too hard.

Employers do not want to hear that you are a perfectionist and that you work too hard.  This is a common and generic response that is dismissed by hiring managers.

This question is an opportunity to share a professional challenge you have experienced in your previous positions, and can prove you are skilled in problem solving. People want to know what mistakes you have encountered and how you handled those situations.

3. Follow-up the weakness with how you conquered it.

After you provided the employer with the answer, you can demonstrate that you are constantly working on this weakness. A great candidate for any position is one that is always discovering new ways to learn and grow.  You can explain to the employer what initiatives you have taken to improve yourself. You can present your answer with the motivation to prove you can be the best at the job. This is how you can emphasize the positive when following-up the weakness.  

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Randi Nemeth.

#FeminismFad

According to Time Magazine, Twitter data reveals that the feminism conversation has grown over 300% within the past 3 years. The question is, will it keep the pace or die out like many social movements tend to do?

I hope that this phenomenon is around to stay. Why? This movement for gender equality affects not only me as a woman, but it also affects the 60% of undergraduate degree earners of which only 14.7% will take executive office in business;  also known as, you guessed it, women.

After years of completing classes surrounding public relations at Temple, it is no secret that women make up a majority of the field with men consistently taking over higher CEO and leadership positions. A study published by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in 2013 reveals that as of 2011, women in PR are only paid 87 cents to every man’s dollar. This information is concerning to me as a female undergrad who has worked just as hard as her male colleagues for the past 2 and a half years.

Social advocacy campaigns for gender equality need a longer lifespan. On September 22, 2014, Emma Watson proposed the “He for She” campaign to the UN advocating for men to embrace the definitional idea behind feminism. Her speech went viral receiving over 1 million views seemingly over night. Many of you probably retweeted, favorited, or shared some of her insightful words through social media around the time of its popularity, but have you recently? Have you seen any social movements for gender equality recently?

Negative repercussions from the word “feminism” seem to turn many men and women off to campaigns for equal opportunity, which is perhaps why social movements for gender equality never quite seem to stick. Too often is “feminism” paired with “man-hating” and it is difficult to change a mentality after it has been implemented in our culture since the late 1800s.

With the new age of social media, it has become easier to voice opinions through trending hashtags and Twitter Q&As. Social movement campaigns seem to sprout from time to time, but die out before they fully blossom. Like a flower, social movements need some TLC before they reach full maturity. To prevent feminism from remaining just an occasional fad in our society, it takes a special group of people that can strategically place the right message in the right hands.

So what can we as PR people do about gender equality? Simple, do what we do best: keep the conversation going.  Questions or opinions?  Let us know in the comments! 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Olivia Noble.

Consumer Engagement According to Beyoncé

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It seems the battle for winner of the internet has a new victor, and unsurprisingly, it's Beyoncé, yet again. After snippets of new tracks from her recently released Platnium Edition Box set of the self-titled album (which she surprised released last winter), Beyoncé surprised us again with her music video, 7/11.

Showcasing the star dancing around a hotel, mainly in her underwear, the video and song show off the upbeat, silly side of Beyoncé that we don't often encounter. While Queen Bey's high powered, fully loaded style and diva attitude are admired and coveted by her fans, this video stops and shows that she, just like us, sometimes just needs to stop what she's doing and dance in her underwear.

What does this new video release say about best practices for consumer engagement? Everything, in my opinion. 

The purpose of consumer engagement is to connect consumers with one another and/or with a larger brand. It encourages consumers to share the experiences they have with your product or brand. When consumer engagement tactics are executed well, the consumer is able to better relate to the larger brand. It helps strengthen brand relationships and create loyalty with consumers. The brand in this case: Beyoncé and her ever-growing empire. 

While the Queen has no problem selling out tours or albums, the average fan tuning in is unlikely to easily see themselves reflected in the multi billion dollar brand. Fantasizing about the life is one thing, but creating a true and realistic tie is another challenge.

The 7/11 video shows Beyoncé in a way we are necessarily used to seeing her: acting like one of the girls. Everything from the candid outfits to the messy room and home-video shooting style makes this an incredibly beneficial consumer engagement tool. The video helps to humanize the brand, keeps the fans pleased with another great song and video and utilizes the incredible share power Beyoncé has on social media. In just four days, the video has received over 25 million views on YoutTube. Mission, accomplished.

How will Bey wow us next?

PR Hits the Big Screen

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Like many others this past weekend, I went to the movie theater to see the next installment of The Hunger Games movies, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part One.

As someone who has read the books many times, I knew what to expect. However, what I had forgotten was how large of a role PR plays in novel.

The plot follows the citizens of an impoverished, post-apocalyptic America (known as Panem) as they start a revolution against the Capitol, a sector of Panem that controls most of the wealth in the land and forces children to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.

One of the challenges faced by the revolting citizens is recruitment of other citizens throughout the country. Desperate to recruit more individuals to fight against the oppressive Capitol, leaders of the rebellion enlist a team of “directors” to lead the campaign in recruitment by shooting propaganda videos and broadcasting them to the entirety of Panem.

As an aspiring public relations professional, I was excited to see a representation of our field in a movie that isn't set in a glamorous environment.

Unfortunately, when most people think of PR, they think of Samantha Jones from Sex in the City. The glamorous, beautiful, and successful character is rarely featured in a work crisis throughout the entire series, and most of the references to her job are through the amazing opportunities she gets through clients (special parties, play premieres, etc.).

For real PR folk, it is apparent that our lives will never be that of Samantha Jones, but with this new representation in cinema, things are looking up.

Of course, there hasn't been a revolution as large as the one in The Hunger Games series in our lifetime, however, there are smaller revolutions that take place every day in our country that need leaders to promote.

Whether this is a non-profit organization rallying for the end of smoking or a political party advocating for taxes on junk food, there is always a need for a public relations specialist to lead the fight for a new value in our country.

Have you been inspired by a movie or TV show’s representation of PR? Let us know in the comments!

Misuse of Social Media Spells Trouble For PR

Although the use of social media has become a requirement in the public relations field, it can also have its downsides.  Not only does the rate at which information disseminates make a PR professional’s job even harder, but controlling public discourse has become nearly impossible. 

The recent GamerGate issue is a perfectly example of this. What started out as an attempt to expose a gaming journalist, Nathan Grayson, for supposedly giving a female game developer, Zoe Quinn, a positive review of her game simply because they were thought to be dating, snowballed into many women within the gaming industry coming out against the sexism within the industry and within the games themselves. The resulting hash tag, GamerGate, came about as a response to those women that were speaking out, sometimes harassing them via Twitter and even sending them death threats.

Among some of the people that spoke out about the gender issues in today’s games were Arthur Chu, a former Jeopardy contestant who has been published in many places online discussing the issue of sexism in games, and Ian Miles-Cheong, editor-in-chief of Gameranx, a popular gaming magazine.

A statement that Cheong made made him the target of GamerGate, however the people of the movement didn’t attack Cheong on twitter, but rather Arthur Chu, the completely wrong person.

This is where it get’s interesting for public relations professionals. How do you represent your client in a way that clears their name entirely when in order to do so you would have to find a way to address every single person that attacked your client on Twitter? That’s borderline impossible, especially when most people involved with GamerGate remain anonymous, using different usernames and e-mails to mask who they are. How can you change the audience’s view about incorrect facts when you don’t even know who your audience is?

The answer is, you can’t. Social media at its best is a way for public relations professionals to do their job, to interact with their audience and to present consistent branding. Social media at its worst means almost a total lose of control for public relations professionals.

What do public relations professionals do when the one tool they use the most turns against them? Let us know how you would handle this situation as a PR professional in the comments!  

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Hannah Litchfield.

Why Learning How To Code Can Enhance Your PR Career

As technology becomes more ingrained into our everyday lives, do you ever stop to wonder exactly how those websites and apps are created? Learning programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, or Javascript, are additional skills that could be added to your resume and increase your marketability. 

New Ways to Help Clients

If you identify an aspect of a clients website that could be updated, having basic web development skills would immediately fix the problem.  Rather than going through loopholes to find a developer, you could easily do a minor update; thus saving your client money and forging a better relationship.

Join a Startup

Have you ever thought of doing public relations for a tech startup? Learning how to code can give you a foot in the door. Having, at most, a rudimentary understanding of programming languages allows you to communicate with everyone at the startup about the product or service. This makes you an invaluable part of the team and helps to grow the company.

Ways to Learn

• Websites such as Codecademy and MIT Open Courseware have FREE online courses. 

• Programs, such as GirlDevelop It, host classes specifically dedicated to teaching women how to code.

• If you are still in school, and have a few extra credits, a minor in computer science or digital media technologies would also help.

Learning to code can be an incredibly beneficial skill, but don’t feel pressure to code just because everyone else is learning. If staring at a computer screen with a bunch of letters, numbers, and symbols is not your cup of tea, that’s completely understandable. But, I encourage you to give it a shot. Those symbols on the screen can turn into programs that make your life and career easier and profitable.

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Janelle Grace.

Interview Moves (Like Jagger)

Winter break is quickly approaching and with it comes prime job hunting time.When it comes to the interview, we've had posts on how to land one, proper attire, and even informational interviews. However, we haven't given as much attention to the body language we use.

We know that body language speaks just as loudly as our verbal communication and we're aware of obvious movements we should not use...but what exactly should we do? A recent article on Mashable pinpointed several very useful tips to keep in the back of your mind while trying to score your dream job. The following are just a few that I personally found surprising and may help you as well.

• Don't make direct eye contact. "Um, excuse me?" I said the same thing. Although most of us have been taught to do this, too much direct eye contact can be a bit unsettling for the interviewer. Instead, opt for what the article calls "direct face contact." Choose several different points on the face to focus on for seconds at a time for a more natural gaze.
• Show your palms. Studies have shown that when your palms are facing up, it sends a signal to our limbic brain communicating honesty, engagement, and positivity. Patti Wood, a body language expert, says, "It’s one of the reasons we shake hands, to show the open palm. It’s so tied to survival instincts ... If we don’t see open palm gestures, it puts us on our guard."
• Plant your feet on the ground. This tip is also grounded (no pun intended) in science. Apparently keeping your feet planted firmly on the ground makes it easier to think quickly. It allows you to move between the limbic reptilian brain (creative thought) and the neocortex brain (rational thought) to answer highly complex questions more quickly. I suppose that's where we get the phrase "Think/quick on your feet."

For the complete list and even more tips to put you a step ahead of the rest during interview season, read the rest of the original article here. Best of luck!