>>I think that the biggest thing that I would recommend is for someone
to do an internship at a small agency.
A lot of people will tell you oh, go to a large agency and you can really see what it's like
but what they don't tell you is you're not going to see what it's like.
You're going to sit in a really little room probably other interns and you're going
to make copies and you might build a media list, but you're not going
to have any interaction with the media.
If you do an event, you're probably going to check people in, whereas with a small agency
which is where I started and have always worked actually, it's obviously a small team
so people rely on you and when something goes wrong they say, "Hey, can you fix this?"
And you get the opportunity to figure out how to fix it and there's not always someone there
to walk you through step by step, so that seems scary
but that's the only way you learn things is kind of when somebody says, this is what needs
to be done figure it out and you never know you can come up with a better way
to do it then the owner of the company originally would have wanted it done
and she says, "Oh wow, this is great."
So I think that would be my recommendation is do a small agency.
I think it's easier than people think to make the jump from small agency to large agency
because you have so many things on your resume to say that you've done.
You pitched media, you've written press releases, you've done all these things
that at a larger agency you probably wouldn't get to do for a couple of years,
so I think that would be my biggest thing.
I definitely think you have to a thick skin.
You have to be personable without being fake because people, when you meet a journalist
or even when you're e-mailing with a journalist, they get hundreds of e-mails a day.
There has to be something about you that stands out.
Obviously, like I said, if you have a great strategy in terms of writing
and communicating that, that helps but if you can develop a relationship
with them that's even better because then when they see your name they're like okay great,
let me see what she has as opposed to another name on a long list of e-mails.