Our campus PRSSA chapter just recently hosted a PR Day. This was our second annual PR Day event. I wasn’t able to attend last year’s and after attending this year’s, I wish I had. It was very informative. All of our speakers were incredibly helpful and entertaining.
The first of the speakers, Cristy Williams, VP of communications with GE Money, gave me a lot of helpful tips for navigating my career path. She had us do an exercise at the beginning of her speech. Each of us wrote down as many words that describe us in a given time. Next we wrote down our aspirations for ourselves. It was very interesting to see who people thought they were and who they wanted to become.
Jena Simonds, director of communications and branding for Streamline Consultants, LLC, was the second speaker of the day. She gave us all tips on how to get that job we are all reaching for. Jena showed us what we would need as a portfolio as well as a resume. She also gave us a few helpful hints on what questions they might ask in an interview like:
- What was your biggest crisis?
- What was your biggest success?
The keynote speaker was Bert DuMars, VP of E-Business & Interactive Marketing at Newell Rubbermaid. He was very entertaining. He really gave us insight into such a large company such as Newell Rubbermaid. I had never thought about all that went into every product line within a company. He also made Sharpie look like such a fun place to work! It’s just another opportunity out there that I never thought of before.
The last speaker of PR Day was Katherine Mason, Account Executive with Porter Novelli. I really enjoyed hearing about this company. The inner workings of public relations agency are very foreign to me so it was interesting to see how it relates to anything the advertising and marketing industry.
Overall I would say that PR day was very successful. Everyone that attended found it very informative and entertaining. I might even have to come back to Milledgville for it next year!
