With the excitement of baseball season taking over the office (goooooooooooooo Giants!), it was a pleasant surprise when we were presented with Text 100 employee appreciation week! What does an Employee Appreciation Week entail? Well…

We started the week with mimosas desk-side, received coffee gift cards Tuesday, ate a delicious breakfast Wednesday, relaxed with massages Thursday, had a wine and cheese tasting, and ended the week with a blushing bride cocktail toasting one of our newest brides in the office. Although these small gestures don’t affect deadlines or workload, it was really pleasant having these relaxing breaks from the day-to-day grind. 

 I’ve always been a person about the small things – they stand out to me.  In my three-plus years at Text 100, the need to challenge, dare and excite our clients has always been instilled in me. I’m thrilled to see these principles applied throughout the organization and back toward the people.  Employee appreciation week is just one example of the many things Text does as a thank you toward its people (yes, we have been known to celebrate nacho day and spicy day).

I’m happy to be a part of an organization that values its employees, and cannot wait for the “next surprise” (hint hint espresso machine J).

Attending a college with only 2,700 students means that you know almost everyone – and their business. It also means that you walk away with lifelong relationships with not only students, but with professors who will look to you in the future to come back and share your experiences and knowledge with current students.

Over the past two months, I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak to several groups of college students at my alma mater, St. John Fisher College, in Rochester, NY.  It all started when two of my past professors asked me to come into their classroom or speak on panels to share the path I took to get to my current position at Text 100 and to offer advice to students on how they too could become young PR professionals.

My first thought when staring back at the classroom of students was, “Oh my gosh – what on earth do I have to offer these kids? I was in their shoes just two years ago!” But after I started spewing my story on how I got to where I am today, I realized that I actually had some pretty decent advice to offer and I should be proud to share it. So here I go!

• Intern, intern, intern – Internships are the single most important thing you can do to propel yourself into a career in PR. There is a lot of truth to the statement that “there are just some things that you can’t learn from a text book.”
• Learn to manage your time – Managing two classes and a trip to the dining hall is a lot different managing client meetings, daily reports and tracking for coverage. Learn your organization and self-management style now before you’re up to your knees in unfinished work.
• Embrace social media – Social media isn’t going anywhere so do yourself a favor and jump on the bandwagon already. Knowing Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other online communities is a requirement for most entry-level PR jobs and you need to be able to show that you understand them. Even if you aren’t someone who posts on these sites every day, at least keep an eye on the conversations that are happening and stay current with the industry.
• Write…a lot – As a PR professional, you need to have strong writing skills across all areas. If I could have taken any extra classes in college, I would have taken more writing classes – business writing, PR writing, creative writing, blog writing – the whole nine yards. There will be situations where you need to adjust from writing a casual blog post to a bylined article from your client. Being able to adapt is key.
• Network – Many students dread events that force them to go out on a limb and talk to complete strangers about their job and if their company is hiring. Attending PRSA meetings, social media events and young professional gatherings may seem scary or not important, but you never know who you’re going to meet and when that stranger’s business card is going to come in handy.

Photo credit: Text 100.

Many of the experts agreed with the tough challenge facing recent grads. One headhunter working exclusively in filling communications positions throughout the U.S. and Canada told attendees that August through October 2009 was the most difficult year for his firm in more than 30 years of business. The hiring managers in attendance nodded in agreement and you could almost feel the audience mentally bracing themselves for the job search struggle ahead.

I could certainly relate. Only three months prior, I had finished a temporary PR apprenticeship with a Boston firm and was back on the market. Facing that kind of job market, I knew it would require far more to be considered for a job than submitting a cover letter and resume. I decided that I had to treat my job search like a public relations challenge, which it truly was: trying to have my voice heard over a sea of static and competing messages from other candidates.

This kind of mentality allowed me to think strategically about my search. I imagined the challenge of hiring managers – dedicating only a fraction of their time to evaluating candidates, they need material that had an impact and was entertaining to digest – while demonstrating on face value that I understood how to apply PR concepts. I reached out to PR Week and pitched a story about my job search. To my shock, I got it. From there, I created www.burkeswork.com so employers could easily navigate my material and see a personal image of me that was more “real” than a name on a resume.

This is the advice that I give to job seekers since it helped me land two positions in such a poor job market. I believe it is important to understand that ultimately, managers hire people, not resumes, and that creatively crafting an image of competence is equally as important as having the skills for the job.

Ultimately, my search led me to Text 100. What attracted me was their commitment to professional development, global opportunities, flat organization and work/life balance. I think it’s important for employers to understand that candidates prize these attributes almost as much as salary. They want to know explicitly how this job is going to get them to the next step in their career. The problem is that those attributes are the selling points of every hiring manager I’ve met.

Employers should assume that candidates will do their own research. I personally checked out Text 100′s employee reviews and salary information on www.glassdoor.com, watched YouTube videos of global office parties to get a feel for the culture and searched LinkedIn to determine how long employees stuck with the company. It goes to show how much more power candidates have to reference check their potential employers.

I’m pleased to report that my research and personal experience with Text 100 has proven everything I heard in my interview to be true. The culture is tight-knit and collaborative, management and coworkers are amazingly supportive and my career growth is strategically planned. Not all employers will match their true culture to their online presence as well, and it’s illustrated for me how important image management is for both parties in today’s job search.

You can learn more about Text 100′s career openings on our Web site. Yes! We’re hiring.

Photo credit: Tony the Misfit