By Sarah Deitz
On the first day of school, my teachers asked my classes “What did you do this summer?” Nearly every student in my class said they had an internship, some in Muncie or Indianapolis, some on the other side of the world. Internships are very important for PR students. At Ball State, you have to do one before you graduate.
However, not everyone is lucky enough to land an internship right out of the gate. I was one of those folks last summer. I spent my summer working at a car dealership because I couldn’t get an internship set up in time. Lots of freshmen spend their first college summer not doing an internship. But this summer, I learned that you could still work on your PR skills without having the words “public relations” in your job title. Here are some things I did (and you can do too!) without a PR internship:
Perfect My Résumé
At the beginning of my summer, my resume looked pretty pathetic. It was only meant to get a part-time job on campus, and it needed some help. So, on the days when I wasn’t working, I spent some serious time working on my resume. I gave it color, put in all of my new experiences, and really worked on emphasizing what I could take away from each job I listed. You can usually find something public relations-related in any job, especially if you have to deal with customers in any way. Now, being back at school, I feel confident that I have a resume that will lead to success.
Vamp My Social Media
In this day and age, social media is so important. I worked hard on improving my social media presence. I added skills and experience to my LinkedIn page. I participated in Twitter chats, and they have quickly become my favorite networking tool. Every Tuesday at 3pm, I got on Twitter and participated in #RaganChat. I’ve met so many awesome PR professionals online that way, and I’ve learned a lot from people who really know the PR industry. The key to improving your presence is to go through your social media pages and think, “If I were thinking of hiring me and saw this, would I hire me?”. If you answer no, it’s probably time to clean up your social media sites.
Take A Class (or Two)
Since I didn’t have to dedicate a lot of time to my part-time job, I was able to take a summer class at my local university and do an immersion project with Ball State. If I had been working at an internship, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that. However, since I was only working about 20 hours a week, I had time to take my class in the evening, and I did my immersion project after I finished up my summer job. Both were extremely rewarding experiences, and they got me six additional credit hours that will help me graduate when I want. If you are behind on credits or want to get ahead, taking a class or multiple classes is a great thing to do when you have time during the summer.
Make Money
While we all know we do PR for the love of the game, not for the money, money is important. Several internships in the PR world are unpaid or have very low wages. However, I was able to make some decent money this summer thanks to having a normal, hourly job. I’ve saved most of it, so if I find an internship next summer that will give me the exact experience I need but is unpaid, I’d be much more likely to take it knowing that I saved this summer. It also offsets the cost of expensive textbooks and other school expenses that we all face during the year. If you have the opportunity to have a decent paying job for the summer, get as many hours as you can and make some serious money. It’ll help you in the long run.
Brand Yourself
So often, when PR students are asked about their personal brand, they say that “they don’t have time” to sit down and work on personal branding. Well, I had four months without the stress of being a full-time student, and I wasn’t working full-time at an internship, so it was the perfect time. I worked on thinking through some important questions that I need to know the answers to when I’m out looking for a job in just a few years. What are my values? What do I stand for? What’s the limit on what I will and will not do? How can I best portray this to my or my company’s publics? If you don’t know your personal answer to these questions, taking some serious time to sit down and think about them (and realizing that they may change as you go) will help you immensely. This will not only help people understand your intentions better, but it will also help you know what to look for when looking at companies and potential jobs.
Again, I want to stress that internships are INSANELY important, and if you have the opportunity to do one, you should take it in a heartbeat. But the purpose of this blog post is to encourage the students out there who can’t get internships right away to not be disheartened, because you can still improve yourself, your brand, and your PR career no matter what your circumstances are.
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