Tips for Getting an Interview at a PR Agency

We recently went through the hiring process at my company The Storied Group. My jaw drops on a daily basis at just how unprepared and frankly, embarrassingly bad job seekers are at applying for a job. I blame it on the universities not teaching real life skills because getting the interview is the first step to getting a job. If you can’t make it to the interview, you have no chance. If you’re confused as to why you are sending out your resume over and over, but never hear back, this one’s for you! Below are five reasons why you aren’t making it to the first round of a PR job interview and more free advice from people who charge a lot!

PS. I did an IGTV video about this very topic so check it out!

5 Reasons Why You Aren’t Getting an Interview

1) You aren’t following instructions: Read the entire job description. A good employer spends a great deal of time thinking about the position they need and what qualifications the person needs to have. If the employer has asked for a cover letter stating why you would be a great fit for the company, don’t just send your resume.

2)You aren’t addressing your cover letter to a specific person: With so many resources at our fingertips, it is inexcusable to not address your cover letter or email to a specific person’s name—especially if you are applying at a small company like my boutique PR firm. I list my entire company’s bios complete with photos on our website. If you go on our Instagram, it would be very easy to figure out who makes the decisions. If you are applying at a huge company, it is more forgivable to not know, but LinkedIn makes it relatively easy to find who you are looking for these days. Speaking of Linkedin. If you want to really stand out, I recommend emailing an actual person and make your cover letter the body of your email and attach your resume—rather than just bulk applying for positions through websites/job sites. I can tell you from experience in hiring people, while Linkedin is great for helping to find candidates, it gets overwhelming looking through all the submissions. The ones who stood out also emailed us or messaged me directly on Linkedin to tell me they had applied and were excited about the position.

3) You don’t meet the qualifications needed: If you have no PR experience, but 1-2 years of experience is required, don’t waste someone’s time applying for jobs that you aren’t qualified to do. Unless the job description states otherwise, 1-2 years of experience also means working full time in that field beyond an internship. If you aren’t sure if you are qualified, use Google to help you research job descriptions to find out.

Take things a step further and find out what jobs with your amount of experience pay in PR. I interviewed someone recently who had no PR experience, yet wanted to be paid $10K over the going rate for the job because “she wouldn’t be able to pay her bills.” That is not a reason for an employer to pay you more. While I’m a big believer in not undervaluing yourself, you have to bring a lot of experience  to an employer to make your case for higher pay. If you have no experience, part of the benefit of a first job is everything that you will learn. If you feel that your lack of experience should be overlooked, you need to send a very specific cover letter explaining why.

4) Less about what you want; More of what value you can bring: While it’s great to incorporate personality in your cover letter that might include your dreams and desires, the bulk of it should showcase your experience and what value you will bring to the position.  Everyone says they are a team player. Everyone says they are meticulous. I want to know what experience you have that will help my company thrive, which leads me to…

5) You aren’t researching the company: Anyone who sends me a generic cover letter is an automatic no. PR requires savviness, attention to detail, and resourcefulness. I know it’s tough out there trying to find a job, but you don’t just want any job.  Make finding a job your full time job. Spend at least 30 minutes researching the top companies you want to work for and make it clear in your cover letter that you understand what the company does, who they represent and why you would like to join the team. Get specific. If you do this, you will be wayyyyy ahead of your competitors

Finally, get a second set of eyes on your resume and cover letter. This week, I had someone do everything right, except one key thing. She misspelled my company name twice—in the email as well as in the cover letter. Whoops! That is just not something I can overlook, and neither will any other employer. Have a question about this topic? Hit me up in the comments!

The post How to Get a Job in PR appeared first on The Sought After.

All effective photographs have several things in common, whether they’re captured indoors or outside. In the eye-opening tutorial below you learn what one accomplished pro says are the essential “building blocks” to consider.

Instructor Peter Forsgard is an accomplished professional photographer based in Helsinki, Finland whose popular YouTube channel is devoted to helping amateurs refine their skills. The tips he provides in today’s comprehensive episode cover everything from technical matters, perspective control, and post-processing methods to storytelling and conveying emotion in your photographs.

Forsgard begins this lesson by providing his take on topics with which you may be familiar, and then moves on to concepts that are less well understood. He jumps right in with a discussion of composition, which he calls one of the most important aspects of all types of photography. Simply put, this involves “placing the subject in a specific place within the frame that can significantly boost the impact of an image.” He recommends several methods, conventional and otherwise, for doing just that.

Next on his list is understanding how to use whatever light you confront—a technique he considers of upmost importance, regardless of your style of photography or the location where you shoot. By taking his advice you’ll learn how to increase texture for added sharpness, modify the mood, and manipulate the interplay between bright areas and shadows.

Another way to boost the impact of an image is to pay close attention to how the background of a scene interacts with other elements within the frame. One of his several suggestions for minimizing background distractions is to position a subject is brighter light than what exists further back in the scene.

Perspective is another of Forsgard’s key components, and he urges you to avoid the common trap of always shooting from eye level. This one is simply a matter of altering your vantage point by shooting from above or at ground level depending upon the subject at hand. Doing this will add interest to your photos and make them stand out from the rest.

The foregoing is just a taste of what Forsgard has to offer, and you’ll probably want to jot down a few notes as the video progresses. You’ll learn his approach to framing and cropping, how color and contrast impact your results, and a few technical skills that tie everything together.

He also discusses the importance of timing and post processing, and methods you can use to elevate your visual storytelling skills. You can find more great advice by paying a visit to Forsgard’s instructional YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look.

We also recommend watching the tutorial we posted from another accomplished pro, explaining how to use your camera’s ISO settings to shoot better photographs in different conditions and situations.

We’ve all captured bland landscape photos with unimpressive cool tones, and that’s usually because the light just wasn’t right. While it’s often impossible to return on a better day, today’s Lightroom tutorial explains a simple Lightroom technique for giving these images an eye-popping Golden Hour look.

We often turn to German landscape photographer Christian Mohrle to help bail us out in situations like this, and in today’s episode he demonstrates how to transform a ho-hum image into a money shot. We suggest downloading his Raw file from the link beneath the video to you can follow along and make the changes yourself in real time.

The first thing Mohrle does is go into Lightroom’s Lens Corrections panel and enables the Remove Chromatic Aberration option. He then checks the Enable Profile Corrections box because the lens he used created noticeable vignetting.

With the foregoing out of the way it’s time for a few simple global adjustments to create the best possible base image for the selective enhancements that follow. He changes the profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Landscape which immediately bumps up saturation, brightens dark areas, and make tones a bit warmer.

Mohrle then modifies White Balance which he says is the most important step among the preliminary enhancements because the image is far too cool. He also adjusts exposure by bringing down highlights to recapture more detail in the snow. He then drops shadows and adds a bit of contrast. After introducing some Texture for a sharper look, he pumps up Vibrance for more saturation.

After a few more subtle tweaks it’s time for some masking that significantly transforms the image. Mohrle adds a Linear Gradient over the top portion of the photo, leaving the foreground untouched. Among other things this enables him to add more contrast and punch to the mountains in the distance.

The next step is selecting Lightroom’s Sky Mask to bring down temperature and increase saturation and contrast in this portion of the shot. Mohrle then adds a Linear Gradient over the foreground that he uses to make several simple enhancements to create a powerful but natural look.

Now Mohrle now turns to color grading which he says is the “fun part” of this edit. He makes a variety of HSL color adjustments and adds a split toning affect to differentiate the cool tones in the sky from the golden hues in the rest of the image. All that’s left is a bit of careful sharpening and the transformation is complete.

Mohrle’s popular YouTube channel is full of tips and tricks like these, so be sure to take a look whenever you have time.

On a related note, we suggest you check out the tutorial we posted from another expert, explaining how to use color and contrast to create landscape photos with maximum impact.

One challenge with landscape and other forms of outdoor photography is composing complicated scenes and understanding which elements to include in the frame and those that should be eliminated. There’s a solution that works wonders for simplifying your images and it’s known as minimalism.

This is a unique style of outdoor photography that’s growing in popularity and delivers images with a clean eye-catching look. If you’re interested in learning more about this impactful technique, the quick video below is for you.

Instructor James Vooght is a professional landscape photographer who posts weekly tutorials intended to help other shooters up their game. In today’s six-minute episode he describes the fundamentals of minimalism, with tips on composition and other important considerations. By following his straightforward advice you’ll be well on the way to creating a new style of your own.

Vooght defines minimalism like this: “It’s a form of photography that’s distinguished by simplicity, emphasizing sparseness and careful composition.” He begins the lesson by breaking the rule that plain blue skies are detrimental to compelling landscape photos. As you’ll see, these “bluebird skies” can be an important element for shooting clean, simple images.

He explains how to go about a careful “edge patrol” looking for distracting elements to exclude from the frame. This can be thought of as addition by subtraction, or as Vooght says, “the more you pull out, the better your photos will be.”

One key to this approach is the proper use of negative space. This concept involves composing a scene so that there are no adjacent objects surrounding the focal point of your shot. Negative space can be represented by the aforementioned plain sky, a field in a landscape shot that’s all one color, or any other element that’s devoid of distracting detail.

This technique is particularly useful for landscape and wildlife photography as a means of making your main subject really stand out. It can also be used for architectural photos, environmental portraits, and other outdoor scenes.

Vooght demonstrates how to use contrasting colors, lines, patterns and other such elements to create images with a compelling minimalist look. He suggests giving this a try during a “non-optimal” time, like a foggy day, when there are no features in the background of a scene, and on days with plain blue skies that most photographers avoid.

He has several other tips for capturing images that owe their impact to the concept that less in more. So give this a try and you’ll like what you see. There are more tips and tricks on Vooght’s popular YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look.

 And don’t miss the tutorial we posted earlier with a video you need to watch before buying a new camera for outdoor photography.