If you’re a public relations student looking for an awesome resource to connect with other students, professors and practitioners in the public relations industry, check out PROpenMic, created via Ning. Here’s your opportunity to get out there and connect, ask questions and take the conversation beyond your own university. (As for you professor/professional types, here’s your chance to share your hard-earned knowledge with up and coming communicators).

And why not take it a step further—remember when I was talking about setting up informational interviews ? Well, here’s your chance to find a professional near you and set up a time to get together to ask some of those questions in person.

Entrepreneur Mitch Joel has been hailed the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” by Canada’s Marketing Magazine and was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. He is currently President of the award-winning digital marketing agency Twist Image . He regularly captivates audiences as a speaker on the digital landscape, as well as a blogger/podcaster at Six Pixels of Separation .

Show Notes

Mitch started his career in the magazine industry, where he became one of—if not the first to publish magazine content online. He later went on to join search engine mamma.com, and then on to Airborne Entertainment , a company at the forefront of mobile content which later sold for over $150 million. After a short stint at a PR agency, Mitch co-launched Distort Entertainment, a record label which signed the award winning Alexisonfire and City And Colour .

During this time, Mitch met his future business partners and went on to found the marketing agency Twist Image , which has come to be known as a the marketing agency that understands the interactive space and digital landscape. The 60-person agency in Montréal will soon be expanding to Toronto.

Mitch and I also discussed the idea of your "personal brand" in the digital space. You are being Googled. Do you know whats coming up? Go to Google and search your name, or set up Google Alerts to keep track.

Recommended Reading:

• Life After the 30-Second Spot by Joseph Jaffe
• Cluetrain manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger
• Anything by Seth Godin

Seth Godin raised some eyebrows when he took a stand against the use of traditional resumes in a recent blog post :

"I think if you’re remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a resume at all…
How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?"

Here’s my take—if you’re looking for a job right out of college, it can sometimes be pretty tough to get by the HR barrier without a resume. But why not have both a paper resume and these other things? Why not use your paper resume as a launching pad to an interactive space that shows the real you—all that stuff that you could never cram onto a one-page sheet of paper?

The very first line on your resume—before you list that great internship or the amazing study abroad program you took part in—should be your personal URL. If you don’t have any sort of personal site or blog, go to name cheap right now and buy your name (it costs less than $10). Or show your future employer that you have an opinion on your industry by starting a free blog with WordPress or Blogger .

This is your chance to show what you’re really about. Ask a previous employer or professor if they will write a recommendation for you on LinkedIn , and link to this from your site. And if you’re going into a creative career, you’ve probably compiled more than a few projects that you could display in an online portfolio.

If you lack the technical know-how to create a website from scratch, there are programs that make it easier for you to get started (and if you’re still in school, you can probably access these for free)—from Dream Weaver and Adobe GoLive to Apple’s iWeb . Of course, if you’re willing to take the time to learn a bit of code , the possibilities are limitless.

Another option is to create what Christopher Penn has dubbed the Social Media Resume , a more interactive resume that let’s employers get to know you on a deeper level.

Someday, having a personal website will be as natural for graduating college students as having a phone number. But for now, if you take advantage of this opportunity, you’re ahead of the crowd—which means you stand out. It worked for me anyway.

I had the opportunity to chat with Alexandra Levit , a twenty-something career expert and author. She has written multiple books on young people in careers, including They Don’t Teach Corporate in College: a Twenty-Something’s Guide to the Business World, Success for Hire and now her latest book How’d You Score That Gig? - a guide to the coolest careers and how to get them.

Show Notes
Strauss and Howe have written many books about generations and how they evolve over time, including:

• Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069
• The Fourth Turning
• Millenials Rising, The Next Great Generation

Alexandra and I also briefly discussed Inside PR #105 - Hiring Interns, about college students who are not interested in doing any administrative work. Is this realistic?

So the end of your life as a college student is rapidly approaching, and people are starting to ask the dreaded question…what are your plans after graduation?

I recently went to a dinner with a group of soon-to-be college grads, and I was surprised by how many of them have never taken advantage of informational interviews. Before you start freaking out that you don’t know where you’ll be in a month, consider setting up some informational interviews to build relationships and get advice directly from people in your business of interest. This may have been the single-most valuable resource to me when I was a college student. It’s amazing how many people will take the time to offer up their great advice if you only ask.

Don’t know where to start? How about here:

1. Make a list. Write down the companies that you would love to work for. Make sure you do your research so you really know the companies before you start reaching out and asking to set up the informational interviews.

2. Reach out. When you are ready to reach out, one option I recommend is checking with a career counselor to see if you can get in touch with alumni from your university. (Who doesn’t want to help one of their own?)

Not in college anymore? Another option is to search for the company name on LinkedIn—this is a great resource because you can browse through titles and find the person who is most relevant to your interests, then send a message to that person directly through LinkedIn.

3. Don’t get discouraged. Be aware that not everyone will get back to you. Sometimes professionals just get so caught up in their work that these things slip by. Still, they’ve all been in your shoes at one point, and most people would love to share what they’ve learned.

4. Plan your trip. If these companies are in another city or state, you may have to invest in a trip. I know paying for travel on a college student’s budget is not ideal. Here’s one idea—when I went to New York City for a career conference my senior year, I convinced a few friends in my major to come along—we were able to split hotel and cab fares, which made it much more reasonable.

5. Dress appropriately. This may not be an official job interview, but you want to make a good impression. You may have the opportunity to build a valuable relationship or mentor for the future.

6. Enjoy the conversation. When I used to go to informational interviews, I usually started by asking for a person’s story.

“What do you do and how did you get to where you are today?” will usually kick start a great conversation.

7. Send a thank you. Follow up with a thank you to let them know you really appreciate the time they have taken to talk with you. It’s always nice if you can point out a few of the points you took away from the conversation.

Christopher S. Penn has been paving the way for companies in new media since he started the award winning Financial Aid Podcast for the Student Loan Network and co-founded Podcamp, the new media community unconference, with Chris Brogan. He blogs at christopherspenn.com, twitters regularly (great stuff, I might add – a good follow) and co-hosts a fantastic weekly podcast with John Wall called Marketing Over Coffee (which I have recommended in the past).

Show Notes

• Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, summed it up when he said, “Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is.” This can be applied to your personal brand as well, so it’s time to start thinking about protecting your online reputation .
• When it comes to new media, there is no substitute for getting out there and playing with new tools. Do it yourself if you truly want to understand it.
• Go to conferences like PodCamp and BarCamp (unconference are free, which makes them ideal for students who have time but no budget).
• Create an account on LinkedIn (or your “resume on steroids,” as Chris puts it). This will allow you to provide more details about yourself than a typical resume. Go out and ask relevant people to add recommendations/testimonials to your LinkedIn profile to build your personal brand.
• Read Chris’ comments about commitment, motivation and consistency over at Mitch Joel’s blog, Six Pixels of Separation.
• Keep a calendar and update it regularly – ask yourself, “What do I need to accomplish today?”
• Books and ideas Chris recommends – depending on personal weaknesses you want to improve on:
  • What Sticks, by Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart – For those looking for advice on how to distill ideas down into something that is usable and memorable.
  • Seth Godin’s Books – For those looking for ideas and inspiration on how to become a better marketer.
  • Study Art, particularly paintings and photography. The principles that are important to marketing (capturing attention, for example) have been studied for years in art.

Chris Brogan blogs, writes, twitters and speaks on social media and its impact on business and individuals.Chris co-founded Podcamp with Christopher S. Penn and worked with Jeff Pulver on Video of the Net, a conference about the impact of the Internet on video. He also worked with Jeff on the startup Network2 for Independent video producers.

Chris’ Advice for Students

• Clean up your Facebook and MySpace accounts before you start applying for jobs.
• Network both on and offline.
  • Go to meetups to meet professionals outside of your university. Check out Upcoming.org to find events in your area.
  • Follow people in your area on Twitter (For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, Chris offers a great explanation in the podcast).
• Read Now is Gone by Geoff Livingston and Brian Solis.

Maybe grad school wasn’t for you, at least not just yet. The thought of buying more text books, forking over tens of thousands of dollars and putting yourself further into debt just didn’t seem appealing. So it’s off to career-land for you.

That doesn’t mean you have to stop learning. In fact, I think some of the best advice I ever received came from a friend working in advertising who said, “If you want to be successful, you just have to look at your first career as another form of school. Be ready to learn at work - because believe me, you have a lot to learn - and then take the initiative to go home and learn some more.”

With new technologies emerging every day, communications professionals have their work cut out for them if they want to keep up.

Every morning, I do a few of the following things to keep up with the latest marketing and technology news of the day (It helps that I commute by train, so I don’t have to concentrate on driving):

• Watch the morning news for the latest stories as I get ready for work
• Sync up my iPod with a number of podcasts I have subscribed to - this makes for good listening while I’m walking or stuck standing on the train
• Browse my feeds with the mobile Google Reader app on my blackberry
• Glance through my mobile twitter app, where I can usually find a number of valuable news updates and links called out by my friends in the marketing community
• Scan a few daily e-mail marketing and advertising newsletters in my mobile e-mail inbox
• Look through a few consumer e-mail newsletters that I have opted into so I can stay aware of what some of my clients’ competitors are up to in the online space.
• I also keep a running list of marketing book recommendations

So in the business of communications, graduating doesn’t put an end to studying.

A glance into some of the feeds in my Google Reader:

• Seth Godin’s Blog
• Mashable
• A List Apart
• Kottke.org
• Scobleizer
• Logic + Emotion
• Advertising Age
• Advertising Age - Digital
• Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications

 

I sat down with a few of my friends who work for various public relations agencies throughout the city of Chicago to discuss the transition from college to career.Thanks to Joeseph Tateoka, Erin Pierce and Kevin Saghy for offering up some excellent and candid comments and advice about the rewards and challenges of starting a career in PR, moving to a new city, networking, dealing with long-distance relationships and staying on track to reach our ultimate career goals!We’ll have to find a new place to record next time. Although I can’t get enough of Panera’s asiago cheese bagels, it was a bit loud. Still, this is conversation is definitely worth listening to if you’re considering a career in public relations or a related career field.

When people find out that I cheered in college, they usually ask, “How did you learn to do all those crazy stunts and flips in the air? Did you fall a lot?”

The answer is pretty simple. I learned to do all those crazy flips by falling a lot.

Every time I fell, I learned. Sometimes the best way to learn new skills is to just get in there and try them, without being afraid of falling down.

I should also mention that I always had the support of spotters—who kept me from crashing to the ground when I fell.

The same idea applies to your career.

The best way to learn is to get out there and do it. Books, blogs, podcasts, etc. are all great resources to get started, but if you really want to learn, you have to do it for yourself. And of course, it helps to have the positive support.