Career Advice

Nervous about speaking in public and worried that it’s holding you back in your PR career? Help is on the way. Effective public speaking is the subject of PR News’ June 23 webinar, which will feature presenters Leticia Ebb of Northrop Grumman Corp., Jonathan Rick of The Jonathan Rick Group and Dan Weckerly of the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board.

The ambiguity around the question of whether or not you’ll get the job after your internship isn’t really all that important. It’s great to get the offer, but what’s really important is making the most out of your time spent in the working world. For those out there who’ve already locked down their summer internships, or even if you’re still looking or considering making the jump, here are a few things I learned from my internship with PR News.

Science is deceptively void of emotion. There’s a Big Bang, a periodic table and numbers. But they can get awfully dry, and so can technology—at least on the surface.

There’s little doubt that successful communicators need to constantly adapt to myriad changes in content creation and distribution.

“The digital age has not made [being a communicator] simpler,” says Erin Streeter, SVP, communications, National Association of Manufacturers(NAM). “The talent and infrastructure needed to be successful is greater and more complex than ever,” she says. Her org chart illustrates this.

The path to effective engagement in any sector can be far from easy. In healthcare, while there are countless opportunities to connect with patients, making engagement meaningful and successful still can pose problems. Similar to the target audience for many brands, patients are a diverse group, representing every demographic cohort. There is no one way to reach them all.

Veteran communicators are already comfortable navigating the ebbs and flows of a dynamic career like PR. That’s why it’s so important for young PR pros to stay on the cutting edge of the industry; not only to best serve their companies and clients, but to also secure a long and fruitful career in communications. Here are five tips that every burgeoning PR pro should keep in mind.

When you don’t show up you risk losing your authenticity, and sometimes the trust your stakeholders have in you and your brand. When showing up, you are putting your best self forward. You are all in, whether it’s working on a project, attending a lunch with a new client, leading a meeting, listening to your colleagues, writing a report, a press release or an important email.

In a world focused on shareable content, we struggle to find ways to make our stories stand out. What makes someone read what we write, watch our video and more important, remember it and engage others by retelling it?

Reports of grammar’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

We’ve all been there. You are asked to write a newsletter article, a speech or op-ed about a topic that is very complicated and technical.