In an article I read from PR Fuel titled “Liar, Liar, Resume on Fire!” I was astonished to see how many people actually do lie on their resume. Some of the liars include, Dave Edmondson, the chief executive officer of RadioShack, Kenneth Lonchar, the chief financial officer of Veritas, George O’Leary, the head football coach at Notre Dame, Quincy Troupe, the poet laureate for the State of California and Sandra Baldwin, the president of the United States Olympic Committee.
These are all very prominent people, so why did they do it? According to the article there are two reasons why people lie, “Someone has chosen to falsify their resume, or someone has made an honest mistake.”
As a soon-to-be college graduate, I could never even imagine a reason to lie on my resume. I am what I am and if I lie, they will soon realize that. I really had no idea that people actually did lie. I have always heard the advice from everyone about not lying but it was not advice I needed to take, I know better. I just hope that others no better as well. It is not fair to others to lie and even if it helps a person temporarily, in the long run they will get caught. Why put your reputation at risk?
This semester is my last and everything around me is crazy. I can’t believe that I am leaving my friends and roomates after four years. I also can not believe that my classes are almost over. My last classes, ever. With all of the good-byes and finals, I have not been thinking as much as I should about the job hunt. I will be interning this summer but a job is not too far away. Public Relations jobs vary so much and that is what I am learning. I would like to continue what I have learned from my family business of concert production and continue events and production, I think. I know there is still so much for me to learn about pr and what I can do with pr. It is interesting to think about where I might be in five years.
I might be nervous about finding a job but a blog I recently read from Edelman told which students were most satisfied with their job. These statistics were taken from students from Ball State University. Edelman said, “Of the 786 students in the communications program at Ball State, approximately 1/3 each are in journalism, advertising and public relations. Graduates in advertising and journalism tend to take graphics and production jobs, with the number of ‘classic journalists’ down from prior years. Journalism graduates complain about long hours and inadequate pay, while advertising and PR graduates generally are satisfied with their careers.”
This is good to know since I hope to enter the pr profession. Robert French is also called out at the bottom of this blog for his efforts with all of us at Auburn. I am extremely grateful for Robert and how competitive he has kept our program.
I was in the airport recently and I started to get really flustered with the people around me. The Atlanta Hartsfield airport had an issue with security a couple of days ago where they had to shut the entire airport down for two hours. I flew out of Atlanta the day after all of that.
I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I went to the Kiosk and checked myself in and then gave the woman my luggage. I made my way to security where I found the smallest security line I have ever seen in the Atlanta airport. When I got to the woman who was checking boarding passes an identification I said, “How are you today Miss?” She looked up at me with a smile and then looked at my driver’s license to say “Uh, well Hillary, I am wonderful!” “Thank you for asking.” She was not used to that sort of conversation.
I got to the security line and got the worn out business man behind me a tray to put his belongings in. He, like the woman, looked at me confused and grateful. “Thank you so much, I am so tired. I am just out of it.” I told him he was welcome and made my way through security.
When I got on the other side to collect my things, the security officers were telling an older woman that her computer would have to go through the machine again. She said, “That is fine but I just want to know where my computer is!” The other woman with her looked at her with a red face that was telling her to shut up. “I travel every week and I have never had to put my computer into a tray,” obviously her travels were limited to trains and buses.
As I braved the walk on the moving sidewalks to Terminal B, I just thought of people. As a PR student I consider everyone aspiring to or practicing public relations to consider themselves the cliché “people person.” I think that people watching has got to be the most affective way to learn about others.
When we took off on the airplane after a two and a half delay in the lightning storm, I noticed that none of those people were complaining. They just understood that the precautions were for our safety and accepted that.
I hope to use my “people skills” in my future as a public relations practitioner. People skills, for me, entails an understanding of people and a good attitude. A smile helps too.
Today in class we had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Odwyer of Odwyer’s Public Relations News. Mr. Odwyer had many intersting things to explain to us. One piece of advice that I was interested in was non-profit public relations. He explained that the transistion from non-profit to profit was a hard one.
I am interested to know what my future holds. I plan on interning for non-profit. I will either continue working in the non=profit sector or try and get in to the entertainment industry.
Is there any other advice that I might need to know in my situation? I have also heard that working for non-profit will help a person in any pr sector. I have always wanted to work in non-profit and I hope it is all that I expected.
Katie Couric, as you all know, is leaving Today. Her following of fans is something that I am a little concerned about.
Personally, and maybe I am looking at this the wrong way, I think that her leaving is a little bit of a slap in the face to NBC. I know that 60 Minutes and the evening news are not exactly competition to Today but the network is! At least she gave everyone notice. But was it for the money or for the career change?
From a PR perspective, I just do not know what her image will be like. I don’t think that the demographics are even be the same for her new job. Her followers might not be able to follow.
The good news is that Meredith Vieria will be taking over and I think that Vieria will do an even better job. She is down to earth and I think people, ecspecially women, can easily relate to her. I have watched The Today Show and The View for sometime now and I this is the perfect solution. Vieria is going to shine in her new career and Katie can, well, relax…maybe. They can all just play network musical chairs.
This is also going to be the longest goodbye in history.
In a recent article from Brandweek Blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds are “the fastest growing segments in alternative media”. And for those of you who do not know what an RSS feed is, like me, it is a technology that is used to deliver headlines and news to your desktop or Web Browser. It is different from a podcast because it does not have audio.
According to the article, “Study: Blog, Podcast, RSS Ad Dollars Growing by Triple Digits“, the combined spending of all of blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds hit $20 million last year with blogs being the biggest chunk of money spent. The information came from the PQ Media, a media research firm.
These numbers impressed me very much. I am still grasping blogs and what they can do but after reading the article, I think that podcasts are going to eventually surpass blog spending. Podcasts have only been around for a couple of years and they are definitly still growing. There are so many people out there who are committed to these alternative media and those are the ones that I think will help it grow the most. I think that in the next few years, we will see a big change in media and all of those technology phobics are going to have a lot to get used to.
I just got back from my break and realized I have about four weeks of school left. The biggest thing on my mind is my Campaigns class. I know I have mentioned that I am working on a campaign for a real client for the first time.
The campaign is for the honor society, Phi Kappa Phi. We are mostly working on it as a visibility campaign and everything is starting to come together now. Since it is our first campaign I am now realizing how much I thought that I knew that I don’t. I consider myself a very creative person and I now know that a person needs a lot more than creativity to effectively create a campaign.
I have a group for this project, thank goodness. We have a great group including a perfectionist, an out-of-the-box thinker and me. I am very excited about where this campaign is moving and I think, I hope, our client will be impressed.
I can not stress how glad I am that I got to work on this campaign for a real client. I have learned more for my major this semester than ever. Auburn’s PR program is the best of its kind and I am so proud that I will have a diploma from Auburn Univeristy this year.
I recently visited Las Vegas for the first time and was very impressed with it. The recent Vegas campaign was in my head the entire time I was there. According to an article in USA Today, “Vegas goes for edgier ads”, Vegas is not even trying to market towards Families any more. The hotel I stayed at had the NASCAR cafe but that was the only aspect of Vegas that a family would even be interested in that I saw.
The ads that the article is talking about are the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” ads. In one of the commercials a woman has many different aliases all relating to TV characters. Another ad had a woman unpacking after a weekend with the girls and pretended that what she was hiding was how much she spent on clothes.
I think that the ads are surprisingly appealing because it infers that people can visit and “let loose”. I did not see any one with that problem when I was there, although I was only there for two days. The article mentions that younger people were positive to the ads and that is exactly who one of the key targets of the campaign are.
The trip was great, Vegas was great and I can’t wait to go back for longer.
As my stress levels rise and the end of my college career approaches, the internship hunting is continuing. I strongly look forward to my internship simply because I can’t wait to be independent and in implement all of the tools I have learned.
I chose public relations honestly because it had the word “public” in it. I had no idea what I was actually going to be doing. Now that I am applying for internships, I am excited to see that I might touch not only on marketing and communications but things like advertising and even creative design.
It is helpful when on the job hunt because there are so many things we can do with our major and so many companies need pr. The stress enters when actually trying to get that internship. I have heard countless tips and suggestions but I still feel as if I want to show up and just tell them that I can do this and I can do it well.
Some of the tips I have heard are always include a cover letter, follow up, be persistent and many others. I have done everything I was told but now is the waiting game.
I grew up in a family business of concert production. I have more than a general understanding of the entertainment industry and also learned about things like marketing and customer relations. I am very ready to enter the world of public relations and I am very ready to learn as much as I can. If I did not have an internship, I think I would feel lost the first day of my job!
For my feature writing class, our next assignment is to write about the problems in rural Alabama. I chose the topic methamphetamine and its use in rural Alabama. I have found a few disturbing websites while researching for this assignment.
“Mothers Against Methamphetamine” is an organization composed of many chapters. The chapters are not limited to mothers. There are males who do jail ministries and woman with community education.
This is a public issue and meth is becoming a very big problem for our country. Not only is it physically hurting people but it is causing problems in the community. In an article from NBC titled “Meth Labs, a toxic threat to rural Americans,” the first thing I saw was a fireman taking a baby out of the house. The house was converted into a meth lab and had caught fire more than once. The article continues with a synopsis of meth, meth orphans, the growing problem of meth on society and how it is growing rapidly nationwide.
Meth is one of the easiest drugs to get and its not just drug users. In a blog from BloggingBaby , soccer moms are doing meth in order to increase their energy.
Overall, methamphetamine is a growing problem in our country and something needs to be done. It is an epidemic and if attention does not exist on the subject soon, I think that “rural meth” will be a problem in every city and county in the nation.
