Hello and Happy Thursday! Today I am guest blogging over at Spin Sucks. This summer, Spin Sucks was named the PR Readers Choice PR Blog of the Year, and I’m honored to share my thoughts on A Rose By Any Other Name… Might Not Be as Marketable. Please jump on over there, check it out and share your thoughts and questions on the Spin Sucks comments section.
Year: 2010
Help us Give Billy a Title
He’s always happy, he makes other team members smile and you have to admit that he’s absolutely adorable! We like having him around the office so much that we overlook the occasional (okay, frequent) on-the-job nap and the fact that he is the team member most likely to slobber on a client.
Being such a vital asset and beloved part of our team, we have decided Billy deserves a title.
Director of Stress Management?
Official Tail Wagger?
Head of Team Moral?
Do you have a better idea? Please share your thoughts in the comments section. We thank you, and Billy thanks you.
What Do Great Bosses Do?
As I grow the team at Clairemont, I ask myself on a daily basis what I need to be doing to be a great boss. Two books I like on the topic are Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em and How to Become a Great Boss. More than anything, I reflect on my former supervisors and what they did well.
While I’ve been thinking about this as a blog topic, there’s a reason for me writing this post today. On Sunday, I learned that my first “real job” boss passed away. I want to share four things that made him the kind of boss that nearly 17 years after working for him, I aspire to be. Continue reading “What Do Great Bosses Do?”
Intern Tips
Thanks to Bridget, Rachel and Michelle, Clairemont’s TLC summer interns — it was a pleasure spending the summer with you! While we continue to interview fall interns (email j@clairemontcommunications if you are interested in applying), we wanted to share some parting words of advice from our summer intern group.
Bridget: Stay informed. When it comes to being an intern – and public relations in general – you should be in the know. It is necessary to keep up-to-date with clients, public companies, relevant news and recent trends. Being aware also keeps your mind occupied with fresh concepts, as well as facts that you can put on a side burner for later use. I believe that one general rule of being an intern is that you can never have too much information.
Rachel: As an intern, it is important to be a sponge. Learn from the professionals and other interns around you in order to get the most of your internship opportunity. The interns at Clairemont each come from different backgrounds, so we all have something different to offer one another in terms of knowledge and experience. On-the-job training is the best learning experience. Learn something new with each assignment and to never be afraid to ask questions.
Michelle: The action of finding important information via Internet research is an interesting task. How can I manage my time effectively while researching? How can I optimize my search to get results in an efficient and productive manner? The key is to maximize the search, and here are some helpful hints:
1. It is all in the words. Think carefully about what is being searched and write words that will most effectively narrow in on results. What is most important or unique about what is being researched? Focus on these aspects.
2. To search for an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase.
3. Place a “+” before a word to guarantee the word will be on the page.
4. Place a “-” before a word to guarantee the word will not be on the page.
5. If a helpful website lacks a search bar, google “site:somesite.com” and the desired word.
6. Instead of forming a question, change the question into the form of an answer.
Were you a summer intern? What did you learn?
Social Media in Recruiting and Hiring
In need of communications professionals with an understanding of social media, we posted our job descriptions on our blog and then tweeted and Facebooked it out to our contacts. To help spread the word, our contacts did the same.
When Clairemont launched, it was our goal to find the perfect blend of traditional communications and social media for our clients. We proudly do just that for our clients, with a high majority of the day-to-day work falling on the social side. That’s why I was impressed when one candidate creatively demonstrated that 1) she understood the importance of social media to Clairemont clients and 2) that she had a working knowledge of how to use it by sending me a thank you note in the form of a blog post. (It was the “Thanks, Dana” sign that did it form me!)
She then took the blog entry and posted it to my Facebook page. To continue using social media as part of the hiring process, I asked my Facebook friends (many of whom are other communications professionals) to like the post if they thought I should hire her. Twenty-five likes and 19 comments later, Continue reading “Social Media in Recruiting and Hiring”
