By: Eloise Pisano
I’m probably going to date myself here but, I remember the days when Cision was called Bacons and the directory was the size of an extra-large telephone book (what’s a phonebook? Google it). It was during an interview for a job and the interviewer told me, “your degree isn’t going to help you much in PR – I suggest you go back to school and get a degree that actually means something.” What’s a young 20-something to do with feedback such as that? I can tell you this: I didn’t listen.
I didn’t have my heart set on a career in PR – to be honest, it wasn’t until my college advisor suggested it as a minor to declare. I remember that moment really changed everything for me – from then on, I viewed the rest of my time in college as a way to catapult myself into the ultimate goal: doing PR for a professional sports team.
Fun fact: that never happened. Sure, I’ve spent my whole career since graduating college in PR – I’ve worked with clients in the sports industry and for organizations focused on sports/athletics so overall, I consider that a win. When I graduated college, I was lucky enough to land a gig at the organization where I interned. For two years I worked for a leading non-profit that was focused on advancing the lives of women and girls through sports and physical activity – it was a dream job for me at the time. Unfortunately, like many non-profits, they felt the impact of the 2008 recession a bit earlier than most for-profit companies and I was let go. I was young, naive, and thought that it couldn’t be that hard to find a new job because I had what I thought was pretty great work experience under my belt. I had done some pretty impressive things during my time at the organization – what could be the issue?
Well, apparently there was a huge one: Lack of agency experience.
I heard that a lot during the course of the interviews for the jobs I was rejected from. Yes, this was when I ran into Mr. Get-A-New-Degree and his point was that my degree in Sports Recreational Management with a minor of Public Relations wasn’t appealing enough for agency employers. Apparently, I had done things backwards in the world of PR. But, I couldn’t travel back in time and change my course – I had to make do with what I had. So I took stock of what I had: some work experience that wasn’t working in my favor at that exact moment and most importantly, my network.
Full transparency, that network was pretty small at the time but it worked! My former internship supervisor knew that the agency she worked with at her current employer was hiring. That led to a four year position with a mid-sized agency where I learned so much! My boss gave me a chance – one that I am forever grateful for. From there, I moved to a much larger agency working on big brand name products. Add in a couple more stops at a high school sports cable TV network and an e-commerce gifting giant, I’m now with my current employer – and very happy.
My point being: there is no “right” way to get from the point A to point B in the world of PR. Your network, organizations such as PRPLI and others are a huge and invaluable resource. There is value in every job and every experience – in the end, it’s all about how you market it and position it to your future employers. It’s hard sometimes to remember to PR the PR – but it’s so very important. Embrace the atypical – you got this!
