By KATIE MEYER
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
On Wednesday, March 20, three prominent women in the public relations field visited Fordham to take part in a Public Relations Panel. The event was sponsored by Career Ambassadors and offered students a unique opportunity to get insight into PR, which is not offered as a major at Fordham.
Claire Kelleher, associate account executive at ID Public Relations, Kristin Davie, senior account executive at peppercomm, and Mary Leach, chief marketing officer of Movado Group, Inc. and a professor at Fordham, all took time to talk to students about their positions and responsibilities, tell about their own paths to success in PR and give advice on how students hoping to work in public relations might achieve their goals.
There is no fixed route to a job in public relations; all of the speakers varied somewhat in their paths to their current jobs. Davies, for instance, originally studied film at Marist College, but ultimately became interested in PR and switched her major. During college, she interned at Hess Corporation and M. Booth & Associates and went on to get a position as assistant account executive for Medical Dynamics, and finally, in 2010, her current job at Peppercomm.
Kelleher also had an interest in film, and says that her minor in Film Studies from Fordham, FCRH ’08, has been helpful in the work she now does with movie releases.
She started out as an intern in ad sales, but found much more satisfaction when she interned at Bravo. Upon graduating from Fordham in 2008, Kelleher got a job as publicity assistant for Miramax Films. She got her job at ID in 2009.
Leach, another Fordham alumnus, FCRH ’85, entered college as a business major but later switched to a more communication-based program and concentrated on getting a good foundation in advertising and writing. She began her career at the advertising agency, Young and Rubicam, and then became vice president and account supervisor for start-up agency Mezzina/Brown. In 1999, she joined Movado Group.
Despite their different histories and specializations within the field of public relations, all three women agreed on basic guidelines for success in PR. One of these was the importance of interning. The real world experience that an internship offers is extremely helpful in deciding what career to pursue.
Kelleher, for example, had a decent experience with her first internship in ad sales, but it was her next internship at Bravo that made her realize what she actually wanted to do.
Internships are also important because they allow students to make connections with a wide range of professionals in the industry, and those connections can be extremely helpful in getting a job down the road.
“The more internships the better,” Davie said. “Any experience you can get would be great.”
The women also advised students seeking internships to use every possible resource and connection.
“Tell everybody you are looking for an internship, and I mean everybody,” Leach said.
This approach worked for Kelleher, who got her Bravo internship through a friend at school. Davie attested to the benefits of this approach and added that social media can also be a great tool for connecting with people and finding internships. She noted that she is often quicker at replying to tweets than to emails.
Another key part of finding an internship (and ultimately, a job), according to the panelists, is having great writing skills.
Writing forms the basis of a huge part of PR work. In an average day, Kelleher said that she writes constantly, be it for emails, pitches, press releases or any other task involving communication. She called good writing skills “instrumental and mandatory.”
Davie concurred, “What we tend to look for [in prospective employees and interns] is writing experience,” she said.
Yet another skill that is important in PR is the ability to multitask, as well as constantly staying on top of the latest news and trends. The field is extremely fast moving and constantly changing, and it is important to have accurate, up to date information for every client in order to make him or her feel important and valued.
Kelleher stressed the growing importance of social media and pop culture in PR. Not all news may seem important, she explained, but it is still helpful to know a wide breadth of information.
“Whether or not you hate the Kardashians, it doesn’t matter. They are a part of our pop culture,” she said. In order to stay on top of all news outlets, she regularly reads Deadline, Variety and Hollywood Reporter.
Davie also suggested reading PR Weekly, a big trade magazine in the industry, though she admitted to getting a lot of her news elsewhere.
“I’ll be perfectly honest, I get most of my news from Twitter,” she said.
Ultimately, the goal of any PR hopeful is to stand out from the crowd, and being well-informed is a big part of that.
In interviews, Davie is always most impressed by candidates who can ask questions that stump her. Those are the people who are likely to get second interviews. She also likes candidates who have a thorough knowledge of the company they are applying for and are willing to innovate, share their ideas, give suggestions and make a significant difference and impact in the field.
