Young PR Pros has a huge announcement to make this week… Kristine Simpson wants to welcome Julia Kent and Molli Megasko to the Young PR Pros family as permenant co-hosts. YEAH!
To debut their new official titles, Kristine, Julia and Molli discuss the expertise or skills young PR pros need to advance their career in PR.
Apart from the obvious skill – writing, Molli says that public speaking and confidence are important skills to advancing a career. Be it in an interview or a business pitch, if you are a good public speaker you will separate yourself from the rest.
Julia says responsiveness is important. She says she has faith in people who respond to emails right away, even if it is to say “got it”. Kristine goes off on a tangent and warns people of inundating others with email and finding other ways to respond. Regardless, all three ladies agree, responsiveness is a must have expertise.
Finally, Kristine ends the show by suggesting adaptability as an important skill to have. Communications and PR professionals work in all different environments, with different people using different tools. It is important to be able to adapt on a dime.
Again, we want to thank Beth, Stephanie J Woods and Julia Fauteux for sharing their comments and advice on episode 4.
Also, check out Molli’s blog post on Saving the Millennial Workforce from Bad Perceptions. The conversation is an interesting one, we suggest you follow it.
We want to hear about what you think PR and communication pros need to advance and succeed in their career. Share your opinions by writing a comment below, send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinesimpson, @kentjulia or @mollimegasko.
I didn’t get a chance to go in depth, but I wanted to expand on the adaptability point I made in this episode.
Being adaptable can really separate a young professional from the crowd.
Here are tips to being adaptable:
– Never say no to a new task. Learning new skills will help you adapt do different situations.
– Say yes, but ask questions. Being adaptable doesn’t mean you know everything, it means you are not afraid to change environments. Jump in to new experiences, but ask questions to ensure you are doing things right.
– Be confident. We mentioned this in the episode, but it is very important in being adaptable. Be confident with the knowledge you have. Trust me, you always know much more than you think.
As young professionals, we are rarely “experts” in anything. Especially in PR and comms, it takes an entire career to become an expert. When looking for an entry level positions in PR and comms, it generally means you will do a little of a lot (well especially in agency). When applying for these jobs, show off the different talents you have to showcase your adaptability.
Finally, never stop learning. And just remember, you don’t need to be an expert in everything to be adaptable.
The art of adaptability is being able to learn new things on the fly.
Great Podcast ladies! I really enjoyed the part about responding to emails, a task which I am still a little behind on. As for the public speaking, I think I could be good at it but I just haven’t found a place to practice it yet. It’ll happen soon enough though, I’m still just starting out. Of course, I’m more of a blogger than a PR person but there are aspects of PR involved in what I do.
Anyway, just wanted to say keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing what else you have lined up!
Cheers!
Thanks for listening Chris!