Speed Networking and Informational interviews

On Wednesday, November, 13, 2013, I had the privilege of networking and doing speed interviews with three out of the 45 PR professionals that were in attendance. This event was held at the Hudson Business lounge, the atmosphere was very calmed and relaxed. This made the whole situation less intimidating, and made the PR professionals seem more approachable. It was very generous of them to donate some of their time to the students.

The night started off by a 15 minute presentation by Jeff Carrigan of Big Shoes Network. One of the main things I took away for the presentation was the importance of internships to employers. Another really important thing that he discussed was the five C’s that make a person standout in an interview. The five c’s that he discussed was Competence, Connections, Character, Chemistry, and C-suite. What he stressed in his presentation was to really know the company before an interview. The more you know about a company the better questions you can ask.

After the presentation was over, we broke up into one-on-one interviews with a PR professional. My first interview was with Amy Listle who is the Administrative Assistant of the Jefferson County Fair Park. After that I went on to interview with Rachel Bennett who is with the Greater Milwaukee foundation. They were really approachable, and gave me positive feedback as well as some advice on how to improve my interview skills.

The night ended with our mock informational interviews with one of the PR professionals. My mock informational interview was with, Sharon Roy from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. At the end of the interview she looked at my resume, and she gave me some great advice on how to improve it. I felt very comfortable asking her questions about the field, because she was knowledgeable on the subject.

I really did enjoy this event, and it gave me a lot of insight into the PR world. This gave me a better picture of what to expect after graduation. 

B2B PR and Cision

This week in class Steve Stadler visited our class. He had a lot of great insight into the field. He is very experienced and has done this for a very long time 15 years to be exact. After graduating from the Universityof Wisconsin Milwaukee he worked for the Milwaukee sentinel. It was a great experience and taught him a lot. Currently he is an account executive at LePoidevinMarketing. One very important search engine that he uses on a regular basis is Cision. Cision is a search engine that saves time and makes it easy to find accurate data for a client or research. Cision is the world’s largest media database. The interesting thing about cision is that there are different versions of it. Depending on how much info and data a company needs is how much a company is going to spend on this search engine every year. Cision makes it easier to network with other clients as well other professionals. It also makes it easier to let clients and other media aware of how to get a hold of someone and when is the best time.  If you wanted to be alerted about a certain topic for a client it can do that for you saving time and making the search process much easier. The best part is that it is constantly updating so it makes it easy to keep up with all the latest and greatest info. Information is the strongest tool in the PR field who ever knows something first will be the one who can get the story out before everyone else. 

What happens after uww

 This week in class we had a guest speaker Amy Paul visited our class room.  She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Her speech was very motivating and inspirational. It really got me thinking about my own future. Some excellent advice she gave us was to get involved on campus. One of the campus activities that really helped her get her feet wet in the field of public relations was PRSSA.  Another really interesting piece of advice she gave the class was to create our own internships. For example, when she was in college the local theater still did not have a social media site so she volunteered to do it just for the experience and to help them out. Being a senior right now does have me really think about what I can do to give myself more of an edge when looking at jobs. I know it is going to be so important for me to find an internship so I can have an idea of what I am getting myself into. While she was in college she had many internships, one of her favorites was for the Milwaukee Admirals. She is still involved and volunteers with that company to this day.  She currently works Ascedia as the interactive account coordinator. The best piece of advice she gave the class was if we have the time to take on more responsibility. In our internships we could ask our boss if there is anything more we can do outside of the hours we are there. The true thing that gives students an edge is to be driven and hard-work. It defiantly showed just how driven she’s been throughout college and her career. After hearing her speech it got me thinking about how I can be a little more driven in everything I do.

the pr student

Hey everyone. It's me Tera Flores senior at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and I am  currently studying public relations. My main goal right now is to focus on this last year and find an internship hopefully before I graduate. It is very important that I do find an internship before entering the field, because I want to be positive that the public relations field is right for me.I think its important that all students who are studying the field of public relations to have an internship first ,and work their way up to make sure that they have the heart for it.   Right now I am not a hundred percent  on what part of the public relations field I want to go into. My minor is general business so it may be a good idea to go into that direction as well. I am enjoying all of my classes in both departments it may also be a good idea to have a mix of both worlds and would really  enjoy it.   However,event planning would be a good fit for me as well. I'm sure that no matter what field in public relations I end up in i will find something enjoyable about it at least.