Job-seeker BEWARE!

When I graduated college I will admit, I had a dream. Not a MLK dream, but a dream that I was going to walk in the door of a PR agency and blow their freaking socks off. I think that many of the creative minds in communication that wander into the job world every year have the same sort of view. Every guy wants to live the dream of Nick Marshall, the womanizing, man's man from "What Women Want" (2000) and the ladies constantly wish that they would be shopping and bar/bed-hopping like Samantha Jones, the glorious 30-or-40-something from "Sex and The City" (1998-2004).
The truth is, it doesn't happen. Yes, I am the pin to your bubble, the dark cloud looking over your parade. It just doesn't happen.

You Are Special and Unique... Just Like Everyone Else-
Agencies are flooded, every day, with piles upon electronic piles of resumes from recent graduates. Truth is, most of them probably never make it out of the inbox, but rather go straight to the trash bin. How do you make the leap from "Inbox fodder" to "Viable candidate?"
Didn't you pay attention in marketing class?

Marketing 101:
I honestly remember two things from my Marketing 360 class, which is the only Marketing class required of Communication students at my alma mater. 1) Differentiation is good and 2) The DG who sat in front of me didn't own a full shirt or a full pair of pants, some part of her body was always exposed! While the second was a great discovery, the first one is the important one.
My suggestion: Differentiate yourself from your competition. Thousands of peope graduate every year with a BA in communication, or advertising, or marketing or event planning. What you have to do, is take that degree, use it before you get out of school and start differentiating yourself from the pack with your experiences and unique characteristics. No, your degree is not a differentiating factor.

If at First You Don't Succeed, A Restraining Order is Just a Suggestion
I do not know how, I do not know why, but for some reason, Monster.com, careerbuilder.com and a thousand other sites claiming to help people find jobs are still active! I have not met a single person who gained employment from one of those sites, but they still dutifuly e-mail their generic cover letter and resume to employers who vaguely describe their company and open positions.
My suggestion: It's not what you know, or how fast your browser is, it's who you know! Use your friends, alumni of organizations you are a member of or family friends to get into the field of your choice. There is no shame in that. Rarely do people find a job completely out of the blue without some sort of an in. If that isn't an option for you, there are placement firms out there that help recent college grads and actually present some useful opportunities, check outCampus Point.

Class isn't over until I dismiss you...
Now, remember, my suggestions are based on experiences of my own and those of my colleagues and accquaintences. If you found that my suggestions work for you, good. If not, try something different. Sometimes you have to just keep plugging away at things. It will all fall in place some day. Until then, stay true to your ideas, always question, and never ever (under any circumstances) try to wrestle with a monkey, you will lose, bad.

Take a Lesson from Gutenberg

When Gutenberg invented his press in the mid-1400s, he probably could never imagine that I would be sitting here typing on a laptop computer outside a Starbucks. He probably also never imagined that I could instantly disseminate my ramblings to potentially billions and billions of people with the click of a mouse button. But, I think that we have some things to learn from Johannes.

In the wake of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast lay in ruin; lights-out, no-clue-what-is-going-on ruin. Schools, government and business shut down as power grids shut down, leaving those left behind stranded from contact with the outside world.

Granted, the personal suffering of those affected by the hurricane is something to think about. But, for my purposes, I want to focus on the ways in which business and commerce were effected.

Beside looting of businesses in the region, all transactions ceased when Katrina hit and took out the infrastructure of the area. CEOs, managers and entry-level employees of banks, investment firms, newspapers, grocery stores and a million other industries were loosely patched together, due to cell-phones, if they made it through the hurricane.

However, with a shortage of gasoline to power generators and power a sketchy as it was, cell phones would quickly die, cutting off those lines.

Besides having a plan in case of catastrophic events, I think that major companies and government agencies should invest in a simple, generator-powered printing press and a bunch of paper.

By doing this, those groups can disseminate information to their key publics, regardless of the situation that the area is in. Yes, it is "ancient" and yes, it may take some work. But, the advantages of having an informed public (shareholders, employees, constituents) is worth the trouble.

Yes, the internet, cell phones and other technologyhave made our lives easier, there is no doubt in that, but when we are cut off from those and our lives suffer because of lack of information, we need to examine our lifestyle. By taking a logical look at your communication plan and crisis management plan, take into account the worst-case scenario. Will your employees know what is going on if your e-mail and phone trees are non-functional? Can you still do business without e-commerce? Does your company have a plan in place to operate at an alternate location should something happen in your area?

The answers to those questions should be yes... in this day in age, with our cities growing so large, terrorism and the threat of natural disaster seemingly lurking around every bend, it is the responsibility of those crafting messages to work for change. It is the message that will calm, it is the message that will bring business back on track and it is the message that could save lives.

Communication in the Wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

With the needs of many and the help of the willing, the Gulf Coast Region will slowly and surely rebuild and repair the lives of those who felt the torment of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. What remains to be seen, however, is the way that government, business and media will use this situation as a learning opportunity for future disasters and for creating a model of communication that is as elastic and ever-changing as the world we live in today.

With a gust of wind and downpour of rain, Hurricane Katrina blasted Lousiana and other areas along the coast, just as was expected. Even the storm surge was expected, but what was not expected was the depth, breadth and tremendous impact the surge would have on the city. Businesses, government and media grinded to a halt, except for those brave reporters who stayed behind to bring the world the pictures that are now, no doubt, etched in the minds of people across the globe.

For those in business, the crisis management plan is a plan that many hope never to have to enact. When many executives with operations along the gulf coast were questioned about the storm that devasted the region, they were quick to mention their multi-pronged crisis management plan, complete with e-mail and phone trees. But, how in the world did they communicate anything to their employees when phone lines, internet lines and basically everything else in the area was cut off during the hurricane?

In this era of uncertainty, communication officials and agencies must look forward to alternative ways of communication. Yes, internet and cell phones are very useful, considering that the infrastructure is still intact.

Perhaps, this communicator thinks, in order to move forward we must look behind us. In the case of the devastating hurricanes that just ravaged our Gulf Coast, electronic communication between individuals was spotty at best and in this case a more primitive mode of communication may have been useful... PRINT!

We drop packages of food and leaflets over Iraq, Afghanistan and other counties, but the forward-thinking minds in our government (I am talking state, local and federal here, the blame can not all be shouldered by W.) found it too primitive.

It is the duty of every single person in this country to have their own plan, should a disaster strike their area, but it is the job of every communicator, not matter who you signs your checks, to work toward a communication program that is not only effective in perfect, or less than perfect conditions, but also in catastrophic times.

I leave you to think about that for a while... the next post will discuss in depth, some of my ideas and thoughts on new (old) modes of communication.

Ever Feel Like You Got Dropped Off in the Middle of Nowhere?

Ahhhhh... graduation! For me, it was May 2005 in Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum in picturesque Pullman, Wash. Myself and a couple thousand other Communication majors packed most of the place, while some Political Science majors and a couple others were allowed to sit along the other wall.

As I sat there, gowned in black and talking to my best friend at Central on my cell phone, I wondered... what's next? In what seemed like nearly three hours, and more sadly actually was three hours, I had my name butchered by our legendary voice of the Cougars (eventhough I spelled it FO-NET-ICK-LEE) and listened to our totalitarian university president

For me, being a Central Washington-raised guy, I wasn't exactly ready to head out into the cut-throat world of the Seattle area job market. So, naturally I turned the other direction on my way out of Pullman and drove directly to Spokane. (Mistake number 1)

Spokane, the city of... Yeah, I was at a loss for words too. I had been making contact with different communication related employers in Spokane and learned immediately how flooded the communication job market was. In three days I had contacted every PR firm, ad agency and major media outlet in the city with absolutely no leads. So, I decided to just throw myself out there, thinking that "hey, any experience is good experience." (Mistake number 2)

Luckily, I was saved from flipping burgers when my girlfriend, who at the time was living with me (that is a totally different kind of mistake) was offered a job in Seattle. Now, here is where things get a little crazy, but ultimately end up all right.

So, we left Spokane after being there all of one week. In Seattle my girlfriend interviewed with a placement company for college students located in Renton. They glorified this job in the field where she had always wanted to work, event planning. It was a little wierd to be that the job could be so good, yet they interviewed her, hired her and she started the next day. At the time, who was I to talk? I was still living off my graduation money.

We lived at a friend's apartment for a couple days until we could find an overpriced, undersized apartment in Belltown.

For the next month, I called, e-mailed, visited and anything else I could think of with every PR, advertising and other firm in the city. Finally, I got a call back from a company that was in no way involved in anything that I loved, except money....

/this is where the trouble begins.... check in next time to see