Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

My first real job after college was working for Grey Advertising in New York City. This was 1993 when the Internet was just truly at its infancy and no-one really knew where this wacky interwebs thing was going. I remember the interview like it happened yesterday. I was applying for a developer position, yes I know, it's ok to begin laughing now. Moving on, they actually called me in to interview with the president of their new Interactive group so I put on my one and only suit and headed to their midtown office.

I sat down with the president and he immediately remarked about my suit. He mentioned that most of the people he had interviewed for this position wore jeans and t-shirts to the interview. I thanked him for the compliment and got ready for the actual interview. That's when a funny thing happened, the discussion of my attire and what made me decide to wear a suit actually became the interview. The president did not know what HTML or Javascript was nor should he. His focus was on finding good people that he could build a new group from the ground up.  My interview was pretty quick and he made me a job offer right there.

Now was I qualified for that job, probably not? But I worked my butt off to learn and get qualified quickly. I went the extra mile and within 3 years of taking that job, I was the Senior Producer at Grey Interactive managing a number of our largest clients.

What does all this mean? How does this help you find that job you really want? The point I am trying to get across is that the hiring process is not just about resumes, interviews and skill sets. Hiring managers like myself not only want to find smart and talented people, but we also care deeply about the culture and the "vibe" of our company. There have been times we have passed on a qualified candidate because we did not think they would help elevate or be successful in our culture.

Ask yourself, how am I selling myself today? Does my resume not only show my qualifications, but also some personality communicating who I am as a person? What can I do in my next interview so the hiring manager will want to work with me?

You might take away from my story that I was incredibly lucky and my suit got me hired. You might be right. What I like to believe is my suit gave me the opportunity I needed to show what kind of person I was and the kind of employee I would make. The president believed in me and that is what you need to do to land that next great gig.

Do you know where you'll work in ten years? If so, congratulations. You're one in a million. You can stop reading here.

For everyone else, continue reading.

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When I was a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill, I thought it was time for me to get started on my career at Capstrat. I applied for an internship. As a freshman, I didn't have the necessary skills required for an internship at Capstrat. I had not completed all the public relations sequence courses. Nor did I have any other work experience to speak of. Thank you, Capstrat, for not laughing at me. They even interviewed me!

Needless to say, I didn't get the internship. Even so, I stayed in touch. In the years following my interview with Capstrat, I completed eight other internships and work studies. Graduation was upon me, and I had no idea where I would work. I was applying for public relations positions across the East Coast. (I believe it was just about this time several years ago that I started sweating.)

During that time, I also applied for the PR Week Student of the Year award. That spring, I traveled to New York to the PR Week Awards ceremony, where I took home second place in my category. Capstrat was a finalist too. And the next day, I got a call. It took four years, a rigorous award application and an event in New York City to help me land a job 10 minutes from my university.

The moral of the story: Never burn a bridge. I'm sure there were many other qualified candidates for my position at Capstrat. But Capstrat and I had a relationship. Networking may seem like it's a lot of hard work, but in the end, the more people that know you and know what you're interested in, the more likely you'll find not only a job, but the right job for you.

The flip side is true, too. Employers you network with are just as interested in meeting you as you are them. Talented people are valuable, and building a relationship makes it more likely those valuable potential employees will want to come to work for employers they already have relationships with.

Keep your foot in the door. You never know when it will open.

Do you really need a degree to report the news? According to the past week's coverage of the protest rallies in Iran...not really. For the past week and for the first time ever, CNN, The New York Times, BBC and other big news corporations have been reporting based on the updates of Twitterers and other social media users. Some broadcasters have deemed this phenomenon the "Twitter Revolution;" but personally, I'm seeing it as the "Social Media is Taking Your Job- Revolution."

This past week has been a week of unrest in Iran, following the presidential re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With claims and accusations of election fraud, Iran's Supreme Leader ordered a halt to the protests and a ban on international media coverage. This ban led to international news networks depending on civilian eyewitness reports received through social media sites.

Because of the rapidness of status updates and tweets, many are relying on social media sites for news. However, the fact that some of the most influential news giants are turning to Twitter to find out the news is ground-breaking.

But what are the downfalls of this increasing dependency on social media for information? People are depending on social media sites for news increasingly, every day; yet these same people are taking the chance of being misled. This past semester, there was a shooting at my university. The shooting happened on a Sunday at around 12:30 am; however, in a public relations disaster, school officials did not notify students until hours later. The local news station did not broadcast the story until the next afternoon and still had little information to share with viewers. Their mistake.

Students and parents were enraged. The only way people could find out what was going on was through reading random status updates on Facebook. By the time the school sent out the "emergency" alert, everyone and their mama already knew the information...

Sort of.

One downfall to depending on social networking sites for breaking news is the authenticity of what is being reported. Because of Facebook, I was under the impression that the shooter was on a rampage around the campus, hiding in bushes and wreaking havoc on random dorms for hours. Locked in my room, my friends and I stayed on Facebook until the university's "emergency" alert finally went out. (Much) later, we found out that the incident was not as severe as we had thought.

Reporting credible information is the chance that reporters are taking by depending on social media. Because Iranian authorities wouldn't allow international journalists to report on the violent rallies, CNN depended on "iReports" all day. Almost all of CNN's staff was monitoring Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flikr, Blogger and other sites that were being used by Iranians to share the events with the world. While this allowed for thorough coverage of the events, the CNN news team was unable to authenticate its findings. With reports of hackings and deliberately misleading reports on social networking sites, no news network was able to confirm statements from twitterers.

So, what does this mean for Journalism, as we know it? The same way that CNN gained viewers by becoming the nation's first 24-hour news network, the Internet is taking over, and now social media is taking over. People want to know what's going on and they want they want the information quickly. But can 140-character tweets on social networking sites compete with relatively fast, detailed articles published online?

Well...I'm not even sure if it's a competition anymore. Social media is taking over, so I guess the real question could be: is your job next?