Jump-starting a PR career
David Ross-Tomlin is one in a hundred. He has successfully navigated a graduate recruitment scheme that offered six places this year and received some 600 applicants – a success rate of just 1 per cent.
Now at Hotwire PR in London before even receiving his PR degree certificate, he’s in a good position to speak about career choices, competition and ambition. So what helped set him apart?
“I’d completed a year’s internship in an in-house role, so I already knew that PR was for me. I then spent my final year considering my options and talking to tutors, career advisors and checking the CIPR website.” [The Chartered Institute of Public Relations is the professional body representing some 8,000 PR student and practitioner members in the UK.]
Ross-Tomlin is now working as an associate program executive within Hotwire’s telecommunications practice, with clients in the telecoms and digital media sectors. He recognizes that he is being given a ‘fantastic’ opportunity to succeed within a fast-growing and award-winning consultancy and attributes this in part to luck (”it was the first proper job I’d applied for, he said”). But what advice does he have for job seekers?
“Be selective. Make sure you’re applying for something you’re interested in. That way your enthusiasm will come across. You have to be humble, but shouldn’t be afraid to offer opinions and suggestions. I’d say, be bold.”
The other five on the graduate recruitment scheme have yet to join, so Ross-Tomlin isn’t sure of their backgrounds. But he suspects they come from a range of courses (the graduate scheme was advertised widely on a graduate careers website.) “My PR degree was helpful, but the attitude here is ‘we will train you up.’”
Training, it seems, is crucial. Interviews are two-way processes and graduates want to know what training they can expect to receive, not just what salary’s on offer from an employer. And it appears that Hotwire takes this role very seriously: a member of the team even has the grand title of ‘graduate tzar.’