I recently blogged about PR Job mentoring responsibilities, but what about the responsibilities of the mentee? Last week I attended the NYC #HAPPO Hour with John Muscarello, the young professional I have been working with. As we walked around the room, I was proud to be able to introduce him to many potential employers and industry connections. John takes his responsibilities as a mentee seriously and it occurred to me that a good mentorship is a relationship… a partnership both parties must take responsibility for.

So along with those suggestions for mentors, here are some tips for young professionals to help make the most of their relationship with a mentor:

• Listen: Get to know your mentor. Follow them on Twitter, read their blog or published works and learn more about their areas of expertise. You’ll be able to ask better questions if you take some time to listen!
• Ask questions: Mentors want to help, but are often busy. Ask questions!
• Be sensitive to your mentors time and preferred method of communication: Most mentors are extremely busy. They take the time to build these mentoring relationships because they care. Help them to be a good mentor, by finding out how they prefer to communicate. A set weekly phone call or meeting? Daily emails? Twitter DM’s? Every relationship is different, but do make sure that you are on the same page.
• Take advantage of opportunities: Attending events with your mentor or offering to help out with a project they are working on is a great way to learn!
• Strive to pay it forward: Yes, you may be the “mentee” in the relationship, but you have a lot to give. Share your success’s with your mentor (they will take such pleasure in your good news!), support your mentor and help connect other young professionals and mentors. And always strive to be the professional they are proud to be associated with!

Do you have a mentor? What efforts to you take to help build the relationship?

Ever since I interviewed Mikinize Stuart at the #swagghamptons event regarding the transition from student to PR professional, there’s been an overwhelming response to this video post.  It’s certainly an important topic and one that is extremely helpful to those students who will someday go through the same transition process.

Valerie Simon and I thought that it would be beneficial to expand upon this very subject for our next #PRStudChat discussion.  We want to help our student community to better prepare for their futures as young professionals.  The chat session will take place on September 15^th at 8:30 p.m. ET and it will focus on the move from PR student to PR pro; how to prepare for the transition and how to maximize resulting opportunities in the real world of PR.

We’ve gathered some of our recent #PRStudChat members in their first PR jobs or internships post graduation.  We’ll question them with respect to a number of areas relating to their experiences including: the easiest part of the transition, the most difficult part of moving from student to pro, how to manage work and supervisor expectations, what to do when deadlines are looming, how to handle errors on the job, how to learn and embrace the unknown roles and responsibilities (not discussed in class) that come along with young professional status, to name a few.

We are excited to announce our panel of special guests that include several young professionals forging ahead in the PR profession:

• Angela Hernandez: Driven PR pro at @FrancoPRGroup with a passion for writing and success
• Mikinzie Stuart: Account Coordinator for SHIFT Communications in NYC and freelance writer for GLES
• Han Ma: Social media addict and self proclaimed “Tech Geek” interning (post graduation) at Bite Communications
• Kion Sanders: Recently completed a post graduation internship at Weber Shandwick and is moving on to his next great PR opportunity
• Jessica Lawlor: Health care PR pro doing internal communication at a hospital in Philadelphia
• Samantha Ogborn: Sales and Marketing Coordinator at Fuor Digital in Chicago

As always, Valerie and I are very excited for another dynamic session with our panel of young professionals.  We know that our PR pros and educators in the community will also have a great deal of advice to contribute from their many industry experiences.  We encourage you to post your questions in the LinkedIn group, if there is a particular topic that you would like our young professional panel to address.

We hope you join us the night of the 15^th and look forward to chatting with you!

This must be the week of great PR announcements. Here is another special announcement about our very first #PRStudChat Tweetup.  I’m happy to announcement that #PRStudchat is hosting a casual/informal event on Wednesday, March 10^th at Gary Vaynerchuk’s (@garyvee) Wine Library (@winelibrary) in Springfield, New Jersey from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

We started talking about our first #PRStudChat Tweetup when we heard that Mikinzie Stuart (@mikinizie) was visiting the area.  She’s coming to New York/New Jersey as a part of a college assignment to shadow a professional (me).   In honor of her visit to the east coast and also because it’s time for our other graduating PR students to get out there and meet professionals, we thought that the Wine Library would be a perfect networking opportunity.  So whether you are a student interested in learning more about the PR environment directly from professionals, or you’re a PR pro interested in making more connections in the NY/NJ community, we have a fun, friendly #PRStudChat event organized for you.

I hope you will join me, Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) and other colleagues in the PR community for a wine tasting and an evening of networking with your PR friends.  Please note that Gary won’t be able to be there on 3/10, but you are welcome to visit the Wine Library on Saturday 3/27 to meet him in person for a special book signing from 1-4 pm!

See you at the #PRStudChat Tweetup!

I was really happy when Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) and Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) approached me to participate in Help a PR Person Out (#HAPPO). What a wonderful way to share information and to help PR professionals with the job search by organizing an upcoming Twitter event. The goal: to help PR job seekers locate the numerous PR jobs that are finally becoming available.

I started thinking about all of the interviews I’ve conducted with public relations professionals who were seeking jobs over the years.  It’s hard to say how many people, in the last 12 years, visited with me to discuss a position with my agency.  Whether it was 50 or 250, one thing was consistent pre- social media.  Somehow that little newspaper advertisement (and later it was an ad on Monster.com) didn’t always match the right person for the position or my agency’s culture.

If you’ve ever interviewed someone for a position, then you will know that most people come in with a big smile, a strong handshake and a great resume based on a wealth of experience.  But, it’s often very difficult to know whether someone will be a cultural match for the company.  A paper resume and a couple of interviews just isn’t enough to make that determination.

There were PR professionals with excellent communications skills, wonderful strategic planning practices and great pitching tactics, but they didn’t work out because the agency environment really wasn’t what they wanted or the personality of the company wasn’t what they expected!  With social media, this is very different today.  Even before the job interview, as an employer, you get a very good feel of this person’s background, experience and personality.  Social media allows you to see beyond a piece of paper and a casual interview, to get a better feeling of just who will be joining your team. And, as a job candidate, you can really do your homework to see if the company has the personality and culture that’s right for you.  The job candidate can also learn a tremendous amount about a company just by researching its Twitter feeds, Facebook wall or YouTube videos (activity or no activity can say a lot).

I’ll tell you a little personal experience, with a job hire, which resulted directly from my conversations on Twitter. We were gearing up for a large account at my agency and we needed to find a senior project manager who would be able to handle a large client, travel, coordinate all web and social media PR efforts.  The position required someone with a strong personality, who needed to be outspoken. I sent out a quick tweet that said something like, “Looking for a senior account manager to handle a large account.”  Within two minutes my new employee was tweeting back (of course I didn’t’ know that he would be my new employee at the time).

We took the conversation to DM and then email. It was so easy for me to see his personality, and his communication style, both as a person and professionally.  As we began to talk, I remember he said to me, “You may want to check out my blog…I’m pretty outspoken.”  And, yes, I did check his blog and he was, but this is exactly what we felt our agency needed.  In addition, LinkedIn and Facebook provided me with more information but the blog was his biggest selling point.  I knew that this was the right person.  And, to this day I’m thankful for social media!

Social media saved me so much time and effort in the interview process. I found a new employee who was a great addition to our agency and never had to wonder if he would fit in with my quirky, fun and creative staff.  At the same time, he was able to do his homework to research my work and my company through social media to know that this position was a good fit for him too.

I’ll be using the same interview process moving forward.  This process reinforces how important it is to consider how we appear in our social media outreach.  Of course, in addition to our experience and professionalism, we always want our personality to shine through. In this particular case, it landed a very happy PR person a senior account manager’s position and made this agency owner really happy!