Writing skills are highly prized by PR employers but if you’ve had three (or more) years of writing essays and dissertations, how do you go about changing your writing skills to be relevant to a PR career?

1) Write a blog.  Often people start blogging but give up fairly quickly because they feel they are talking to thin air.  No one comments and they wonder if it’s really worth it.  Let me tell you this, the vast majority of people who view blogs, don’t comment.  The most read post on this blog gets around 100 visitors a day – and doesn’t have a single comment.  That doesn’t mean I’m not reaching people, it just means they have nothing to add, and that’s okay.   Your blog should demonstrate your interest in the industry – so keep it focussed – and is a great place for you to demonstrate your writing skills to employers.  It is owned by you, so should have your ‘voice’ and try to steer clear of sounding too academic.  A good tip is to read what you’ve written out loud before you publish it.  Does it sound like the way you speak?  If not, it’s too formal.

2) Write thank yous. It seems that sending a thank you letter (or email, or Tweet at a push) is a forgotten art.  A well written thank you can be the difference between someone remembering you or not.  If someone gives you their time for any reason, be it an interview, a conversation at a networking event, some time giving you CV advice – send them a thank you.

3) Write a decent CV.  Your CV may be the first piece of work an employer sees, so your skills as a writer need to shine.  I give my tips for writing a CV here.

4) Write good covering letters.  Do not send emails saying “Here is my CV, Regards, X”. I am constantly astonished by how many people do that.  How are you going to persuade an employer that you really really want their job, unless you tell them why you are so great for it?  Keep it short – under 500 words – and punchy.  Split the letter into three sections, which job you are applying for, why you want to work there, and what have to offer.

5) Write a ten-point career plan.  This is just for you, not to be shown to employers, but by drawing up a plan of where you want to be and how you are going to get there it will make you think about acheiving goals.  It will also help you to work out how to write a decent to-do list.

6) Write on other people’s blogs and industry articles.  A sure fire way to get noticed by potential employers is to comment on the articles they write.  You will also have the chance to leave your blog URL with your comment, which will drive traffic to the content you’ve written.  However, make sure your comments are relevant and don’t do it too often or they’ll think you’re stalking them.

7) Write media analysis.  Choose a different newspaper each week and summarise the top stories.  Or choose two different papers and compare how they’ve covered the same story.  Then post a copy to your blog and start a written portfolio – on decent paper and neatly bound – that you can take to interview.  It will be good writing practice and will be relevant content – and as a bonus you’ll increase your current affairs knowledge at the same time.

8) Write opinion pieces.  Find an industry relevant publication or website (PR Week, Communicate Magazine, PR Moment, PR Examples, Gorkana, esPResso PR news… the list is endless), research a campaign they have covered then write an opinion piece on that campaign.  Was it successful?  What would you have done differently?  You can use your blog platform to publish it, but you should also keep it in your hard copy portfolio to take to interview.  It will demostrate that you can have an opinion and orginal ideas and that you are able to articlate them.

9) Write good emails.  When writing to friends and family, practice writing in a businesslike manner.  Stay away from smiley faces and LOLs.  Use the correct punctuation and pay attention to capital letters.  Work correspondence is not the same as writing to your mates and it can sometimes take some time to get used to not saying “cheers” and putting kisses at the end of your messages, so it’s good to get into good habits before you start in your new job.

10) Write a presentation.  Pull together a presentation which sells you as a PR practitioner. Presentations are part of PR life – you’ll pitch for new business using them, you’ll use them for training, you may present to clients using them – so you might as well become a PowerPoint or Prezi expert now.  You don’t have to use masses of text – in fact less is more when it comes to presentations – but relevant points and impressive visuals will make a great impression.  Check out Slideshare.net for some fantastic examples.

So you’ve just left university and you’re hankering after a job in PR.  What should you be doing?  Here are my ten top tips.

1) Treat job hunting like a job.  Get up, have breakfast then sit down at your computer and apply for a minimum of five jobs a day.  Make each application specific to that particular job or company.  It is hard work, and it can be tedious and disheartening but the persistence will pay off. Don’t get sucked into daytime TV.

2) Attention to detail is vital.  Whether that be in your job applications or in your first job.  You may sail through interviews and be offered a position but unless your attention to detail is good you won’t keep that role for very long.  Ditto punctuality and humility – you need both of those too.

3) Networking is important.  Keeping in touch with people you have meet.  It will be vital for your career progression. Go to industry networking events – keep building your contacts.

4) Pay it forward. If you see a vacancy that is not right for you, but might suit a friend – then pass it on.  Once you’re in a job, let your university know when your firm has graduate vacancies so that others might also benefit.

5) Keep working at your writing skills.  Set up a blog and write on it regularly.  Employers list good writing skills as an absolute essential when hiring grads into PR so it’s important you keep them up to scratch.

6) Keep reading the papers. Lots of them.  Lots and lots and lots of them.  Consume news everywhere – in print, online and broadcast.  Don’t limit your reading material.  It will help you both in interview, and in your first job.  The more you read, the more of an interest you will develop in current affairs and the media and that can only be a good thing.

7) Be nice to other people.  Don’t treat people badly as you’re going up the ladder, you may need their help and advice when you fall from grace.  This is true of both colleagues and of more junior staff.  Be especially nice to receptionists and admin staff – they hold the key to diaries and often are the heartbeat of a company.

8) Don’t forget to say thank you.  The impact of a nice thank you landing on someone’s desk should not be underestimated.  Twitter and email are also good thank you tools.

9) Be brave.  If you are nervous at interview, or in your new job, then fake confidence until you actually feel it.  Don’t be afraid to ask (relevant!) questions.  Don’t sit in a brainstorming session in your new job and say nothing – no one will remember you.

10) Be kind to yourself.  You have just left university.  No one expects you to know everything.  Everyone makes mistakes and as long as you learn from those mistakes and do better the next time your manager will understand.  Failing to improve when you make an error is when managers get frustrated.  You will continue to learn throughout your career – the process never stops.

One of the things employers look for when recruiting a new member of staff, is how stable their work history is.  If a job applicant has jumped around from job to job over the last ten years, the recruiters first thought will be “why don’t they stick at anything?”  Similarly, if an applicant has a significant length of time out of employment, the recruiter may be suspicious about why.

When you’re in an interview, it’s often easy to explain away jumping jobs, or being out of work but you may not even get that far if you don’t make the reasons clear on your CV.

The first thing you should do is label any jobs that were short term contracts, seasonal work, or temp jobs, as such on your CV.  Make it really clear that the reason you left the job is because you were only employed on a contract basis.

If you were made redundant after a short period in a job, it’s OK to make a note of that too.  In the current economic climate redundancy doesn’t have the stigma that it had a few years ago, particularly if your redundancy was part of a large section of your firm being laid off rather than just your role being made redundant.

If you’ve job hopped because you’ve got bored in the roles, that’s much harder to justify and when you secure your next position you must think carefully about sticking it out for a decent length of time, even if it bores the socks off you. Similarly, repeatedly leaving roles due to a personality clash with a boss or team member can tar you with the “uncooperative” brush so it’s not wise to draw attention to why you left those roles if at all possible.

There are lots of reasons why you may have a gap on your CV.  The most common being taking time out to travel, raising a family, illness or bereavement.   Don’t leave those gaps on your CV blank – recruiters are a suspicious bunch and will think the worst – so make sure you clearly note what you were doing during those months or years.   If you have suffered with an illness it is important that you make it very clear that the condition has passed, you are fully recovered and it will not affect your ability to work.  If you took time out to raise your children, or simply to take some time away from work to reassess what you want to do with your career, then it’s a good idea to mention anything you have done to stay in touch with the industry.  Do you still have a good network of journalists in your little black book?  Do you read industry publications?  Have you take any courses to update your work skills?

By making it clear that the gaps are not anything untoward, it gives you a much better chance of getting to the interview stage where you may find the interviewer is sympathetic to your situation.

Stats on graduate employment make depressing reading.  It is one of the hardest times ever to leave university and secure a graduate level job.  My trainees worked out it was taking them on average 33 applications to secure an interview.  AN INTERVIEW, not even a job offer!  These are well trained grads who write great cover letters and have sparkling CVs which experienced PR headhunters have combed through in great detail, and even they struggle.

Which is why I was surprised on Monday when six out of twenty graduates invited to come along, didn’t turn up for the Taylor Bennett Foundation assessment day.  Two¸I believe, had genuine reasons not to be there but the other four contacted us after 8pm on the day before to say they  wouldn’t be turning up.  One said “I’ve had a change of circumstance”.  What could possibly change on a Sunday night that they didn’t know about on the Friday?

None of them had the balls to call us on the phone.  Even the two with genuine reasons. They all sent vague emails.  That really grips my shit.  It’s rude, and cowardly.  Although in the past we’ve had some who haven’t turned up and haven’t bothered to contact us at all and that is unforgiveable.

To get an assessment invitation they had to fill in a very very long application form.  It is deliberately long to test commitment to the programme and to give me the opportunity to check out whether they write well and whether they have the right motivation to be selected.  Then they have to attend a two hour pre-assessment briefing where they are given a rundown of what the assessment day entails and a presentation topic which they have to spend several hours preparing in advance.  Finally, they have to complete a 30 minute online personality suitability test.  It’s hardcore.  It’s detailed.  It’s designed for us to get the best.  These six graduates completed all these stages and yet still didn’t show for the assessment.

They are told, even if they don’t secure one of the eight coveted spots on our programme we will give them very detailed and honest feedback.  This takes considerable time and effort by our assessors and our Programme Manager who has to collate all of the handwritten notes from the day.  It is feedback they are never likely to get anywhere else.  It is unique to us and it is our way of helping more than just the graduates who join us for the ten week traineeship.  Only about one in ten grads bother to reply to us to say thank you for the feedback.  Manners, it seems, are not taught at university.

If I were a grad in this economic climate, I would have to be on my deathbed to not to turn up to such an amazing opportunity.

In a way, those graduates did us a favour.  It saved us the job of weeding them out as unreliable and uncommitted during the assessment process.  However, they did not do other grads a favour.  If they had given us enough notice – say, Friday lunchtime – then we could have invited others to have taken their place and have a shot at getting a place on the TBF programme.

So if they apply again, their applications will automatically go in the bin.  We don’t take rude and selfish people at the Taylor Bennett Foundation, and I suspect other employers won’t either.

As a relative newcomer to the world of PR – having just finished my first three months as an account assistant – I’ve had to face a steep but exhilarating learning curve.

PR is much more challenging than people seem to realise, requiring a huge amount of flexibility, a willingness to turn your hand to anything, and a hefty dose of self-confidence. By my second week I was pitching to the national papers, which terrified me, but I survived!

The payoff is learning a lot incredibly quickly,. This ranges, from how to keep clients happy to writing a press release or byliner on a subject you have little knowledge of. I’ve gone from knowing next to nothing about technology to being able to chat casually about cloud storage, IT resellers and data centres; I can practically recite the names of the national education correspondents in my sleep; I can handle Tweetdeck like a ninja, zooming around columns to spot client mentions or journo requests. I’ve survived conference calls, major meetings, and I’ve even had the fun of PR networking events where the wine is flowing (and free!) and you have the opportunity to meet some of the industry’s key peoplebest and brightest.

For anyone trying to get into their first PR job, it can seem daunting – a path of internships and fierce battles for the entry-level jobs, with andand no clearly-defined entry requirements. While a degree in a subject such as English or Media might give you a slight advantage, you really can get into PR from almost any discipline and background. I got into PR with a hotchpotch combination of an English degree, some publishing internships, some temporary admin jobs and a three-month stint as a barista under my belt. All taught me skills which have come in handy, such as how to handle a tetchy demanding client customer and how to proofread.

If you want to make a good impression, enthusiasm will take you a long way. You’ll be asked to do daunting tasks such as calling up journalists you don’t know, and who have little patience tolerance for with PRs, but if you can put your hand to it with a good attitude and confidence you’ll win both the respect of your office and (hopefully) coverage for your client. Another important factor is creativity, especially in business PR. You have to come up with interesting ways to promote themclients, angles to make their stories accessible to the general media, and ways to get people engaged.

Like many people entering into PR, I had no real idea what to expect from the B2B world, as my main perceptions of PR came from B2C. Luckily I took to it like a duck to water, and relished the challenge to work with businesses. I’ve enjoyed my time in PR from the very first day and never feel bored or unchallenged. Right now is an exciting time for the industry as social media grows ever more important, and so if you’re hoping to get into PR there’s never been a more interesting time to go for it.

Sophie Mackintosh is an Account Assistant at TopLine Communications and can be found on Twitter on @sophmackintosh.

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Mentoring is a hot topic at the moment.  Everyone is banging on about it, but what is it, and why should you be looking for a mentor?

Having a good mentor can be a real boost for your career.  Someone with plenty of experience and knowledge to share can be a great sounding board when you have a work-based issue, and a guiding hand when you need a second opinion on the direction of your career.  They may also have access to a network of people it would take you years to get to know so they will be able to open doors for you that previously would have been closed.

If you can join an established mentoring scheme that’s great, but there’s no reason why you can’t find a mentor independently.   Preferably, someone you don’t currently work with as you’ll need to be able to discuss work issues without worrying about upsetting the apple cart.  Perhaps an ex-colleague or boss you have admired, or approach someone in the industry you have seen speak at an event, or have read their blog and like what they say – they may say no, but they will be flattered to be asked and you never know, they might agree to it.

Have a think about what you want to get out of the mentoring relationship.  Do you need help writing a decent CV and covering letter to get a job?  Do you want someone to help you write a structured career plan, and help you achieve certain goals?  Or do you need something a bit less formal and just an ear to chew on now and then?  Make sure you establish both yours and your mentor’s expectations right from the start.  It is also useful to set a time limit on the relationship – do you expect to be mentored for the entire length of your career by this person, or are you looking for someone to help you through, say, the next five years?

The onus should be on you to keep in touch with your mentor and make it easy for them to spend some time with you.  Don’t expect them to chase you if they haven’t heard from you – they are doing you a favour by giving you their time so make sure you respect that.

The mentor should find mentoring you a rewarding experience and so it’s important that you update them regularly on your progress and be suitably thankful when they give you advice.

If you get the mentoring relationship right, it can be a fantastic way to get an experienced point of view and may make you think differently about how you can achieve your career goals.

Why You Can’t Ignore Social Media In Business by Victoria Tomlinson.  FREE

Thank you for Not Smoking by Christopher Buckley. £5.60

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  £6.03

How to Do Everything with Podcasting by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson.  £7.50

PR Power: Inside Secrets From The World Of Spin by Amanda Barry. £7.69

Brilliant PR by Cathy Bussey.  £8.35

Brand Anarchy by Steve Earl and Stephen Waddington.  £9.09

Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals by the CIPR Social Media Panel. £14.44

PR Today by Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy.  £16.32

Exploring Public Relations by Ralph Tench and Liz Yeomans.  £37.71

Firstly, don’t title that section “hobbies”.  Give it a broader name like “additional information” which will give you a broader range of subjects to write about.  Then, start including anything which makes you interesting.  Interviewers use this section of your CV to find out a bit more about you as a person, so it can help to give them a rounded picture of you.  This is particularly true if you don’t have much work experience – if they can’t ask you about your career history, then your education and personal interests are going to feature much more heavily during the interview process.

Divide your interests into sections, so sports, music, literature, art, charity, cookery, travel etc.  Under each section write something about that interest.  Below I’ve given you a few examples:

Sports:  Play five-a-side football for the local pub team.  Manage children’s under 8 team for local primary school.

Societies & clubs : Member of my university Afro-Caribbean society.  Member of Little Rock amateur dramatic club.

Music: Play bass guitar in prog-rock band.  Particularly keen on classical music, especially Handel.

Literature:  Keen reader of historical fiction.  Favourite author is Alison Weir.

Charity: Volunteer for the local women’s refuge.  Walked 300 miles across the Namibian dessert to raise £3,000 for a children’s charity.

Travel:  Travelled extensively and have visited places which include Turkey, America, Hong Kong, Australia, China, France, Germany, South Africa.

Cookery:  Currently taking an evening Thai cookery course.

Crafts: I have recently completed a glass blowing course.

By fleshing out the information on each section, it gives the interviewer the opportunity to ask you about your interests in more detail.  Most employers are particularly keen on activities which show you work well in a team – so playing team sports or being part of a band, orchestra or choir are always good examples of this.  Steer clear of using “socialising” as a hobby – it suggests you spend a lot of time in the pub!

You should also use this section to list any further accomplishments, like additional training, any work you may have published and any posts you hold outside of work.  Like this:

Training: Completed the PRCA Digital PR course, July 2012.  First aider qualified.

Published Work:  Author of “How to get a PR job”, published January 2011

Posts held: Governor of Little Stippleton High School.  Trustee of Rocking Aid charity. At University I was treasurer of the Student Union.

Finally, you should include any skills which haven’t already been featured on your CV.  This may include IT packages you use and languages you speak.  Make sure you clarify how proficient you are in them:

IT Skills: Advanced user of Microsoft Office, Sage and SAP.

Languages: Fluent in French.  Conversational Spanish.

You might be surprised at how much you can write once you get thinking about it.  Of course, if you spend all your spare time in front of the telly, now might be the time to discover a passion for something you can talk about in an interview.

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Making your CV more effective

It was a planned pregnancy.  Well, planned in that we have been trying to conceive for nearly five years with no luck, but I never really had expected it to happen and so in terms of when the baby is due to make an appearance, it was not diarised.

For anyone who knows me well, you will realise that this has caused me endless sleepless nights.  My role at the Foundation is completely unique.  I have never met anyone who does my job elsewhere and so I take great pains to make sure I am not away on holiday when the internships are running so that someone else doesn’t have to take on tasks they never imagined they’d have to.  I never imagined, therefore, that I would be taking four months maternity leave in the middle of the year and leaving my precious interns in the hands of someone new.

The baby has been warned that it must appear on its due date of May 5^th as to be early would be disastrous and to be late will mean mummy will be cross.  My friends have scoffed at the idea of a child who follows my spreadsheet but it will have to learn pretty quickly I tell you.

The question of who will manage the internship programmes while I am away is still up in the air.  We’ve had a few ideas but the decision of who takes over is down to the Foundation’s trustees so I have my fingers crossed they will go with my first choice.

Whoever it is will have to take on a bewildering array of tasks.  I have been running these programmes for two years now and I had never quite grasped the variety of things I do on a day to day basis.  To ease the cover person into the role, I have started compiling a “Guide to Running the Taylor Bennett Foundation Internships”.  It is twenty pages so far and I’m only up to what to do to recruit the interns and how to settle them in on their first week.

I am very lucky in that I love my role.  It is challenging, interesting and can be very rewarding, but it demands of me some unusual skills.

So, for those of you who fancy running such a scheme here are just some of the more random things you’ll be tasked with:

-          Make sure the interns understand how to change a toilet roll (no one likes going into the loo to find that the last roll has been used and not replaced)

-          Ensure you’re up to date with popular culture so as not to seem a million years old (I am 37 so to the average 22 year old I am ancient) and, if running an internship focussed on fashion PR, be clear in your understanding that Paul’s Boutique bags are chavvy and Mulberry are not

-          Be clear when giving instructions.  Graduates are used to pages of academic instructions with little room for interpretation.  If your directions aren’t clear, they’ll go off piste

-          When giving them career advice think about it from their mum’s point of view.  If it’s not advice you’d give your own child, it’s bad advice

-          Bring them cake.  Homemade is best, but if you’re six month’s pregnant and can’t be arsed to bake then Krispy Kremes also go down well