On September 20th, 2011 a recent Whitewater graduate Amy Paul came to speak to Ann Knabe’s PR Tactics 2 class. Amy graduated in May of 2011 with a Public Relations major and a music minor. Her first three years at Whitewater consisted of her working towards a music major. After those three years, she switched over to the college of business. After one year, she found that she did not like her business major, so, she then switched to the College of Communication and decided to try the Public Relations major, and loved it.
Currently, Amy is a Public Relations assistant at the Milwaukee County Executive’s office. Amy stated that she is interested in sports PR and never thought that she would work in politics. But, during her senior year, she was notified from Professor Ann Knabe of the position, got in touch with the Executive’s office, had an interview and accepted the job. At the Milwaukee County Executive’s Office, she manages their social media sites, composes press releases/media advisories, monitors media coverage, manages their website, plans major events and writes constituent letters. Amy shared with us that her first big assignment was to put together the “Milwaukee County Remembers” event which honors those that lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. Some of Amy’s duties for the September 11th event included putting together the design for the programs, calling local media to cover the event, scheduling the speakers and overall, making sure the event ran smoothly.
During her speech, Amy emphasized the importance of internships and stated that she had four while in college. The internship that Amy seemed to be most passionate about was her street team internship with the Milwaukee Admirals. During this internship, she promoted the Admiral’s home games, worked on their social media sites, managed their website and more. Amy also worked for Qdoba as a brand ambassador, the UW-Whitewater development office as a student assistant who helped bring alumni back to campus and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin as their fundraising/ special events intern.
While attending UW-Whitewater, Amy was very involved on campus. One organization that Amy was a part of was PRSSA. During her time in PRSSA, Amy held the positions of the secretary, insight editor and the professional development chair. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Amy was the brand ambassador for the Qdoba of Whitewater and was a student assistant for the University Development Office.
Amy also had a lot of great advice for current public relations students. One thing that Amy touched on was being careful when using social media. Amy said that especially when students are on Facebook, they should be careful with what they post and if you do have your boss as a friend on Facebook, use lists so that they don’t have access to your pictures. When using twitter, Amy said that it is important to follow people and companies that you would be interested in connecting with or working for. When using LinkedIn, Amy brought up adding professionals that you don’t know. She says to connect with professionals that you know or who you have met at least once before because nothing is more annoying than a random add. Amy also had a slide that showed some main bullet points on making your college experience beneficial and enjoyable. One of those points was to have at least one internship. While in that internship, make sure that you’re making the most of it. Amy emphasized that students should not be afraid to ask questions because one of the main ideas of an internship is to have it be a learning experience. She also brought up the point of networking with those from your former jobs and past internships. She said that it is very important to keep in contact with bosses from your past internships so that you can ask for references and because you never know who knows each other. Another main point that Amy brought up was getting involved on campus. It looks great to an employer if you were in a leadership position to a student organization related to your major. Amy highly suggested that PR students get involved with PRSSA to help themselves expand their knowledge about the field.
I also feel that I received another great piece of advice when I asked Amy if there was any one thing on her resume that helped her “stand out.” She indicated that there wasn’t just one thing because employers like seeing that you were a diverse student that had internships, was involved in school activities and had diverse experiences in different areas of your field. Amy also said to take your internships seriously because they are the first people that potential employers call when trying to see if they should hire you. Perform well so that you can get a great reference!
