By Breann Roettering

It is about that time of year when students are graduating from college and are ready to start the next chapter in their life. That next chapter could be anything from graduate school to starting a career. This is also the time of year when students start searching for internships to get work experience.

Market Yourself

Marketing yourself is very important when applying for any position. You need to stand out compared to your competition and the first step in doing so is building your resume. Make sure you have a professional resume that highlights your strengths as future employee.

The next step is creating a LinkedIn account. If you do not have an account yet, create one. Do not wait. On LinkedIn you can post your qualifications, make connections and apply for your dream jobs. This is a great resource to start with when entering the job market. Let this be your professional social media account and send all of your future employers to your profile. This is a source for them to get another view of who you are and to see other qualities you can bring to the table. To make your profile stand out I would suggest having your past employers and instructors endorse you skill sets. I would also suggest asking them to write recommendations for you passed on their experience working with you.

The Search

The Internet is a great place to start the job search. Students and professionals find Indeed.com and Snagajob.com to be helpful. These sites allow you to search for your field of choice and pick the location. As you start searching for a public relations job you may find that you do not get the results you were hoping for. Get creative and widen your search terms from PR to marketing, social media coordinator or communications. You will meet the requirements for several of these positions with a PR degree and from my own experience this has lead me to more job opportunities.

The Internet is not the only place to search for jobs though. Do not let this be the only place you search and market yourself. Build your connections through other sources and get creative. Here are 10 Unconventional and Creative Ways to Find a PR Job:

1. Contact everyone you know.
2. Edit your LinkedIn profile.
3. Edit all your social media profiles.
4. Create a landing page.
5. Run social ads.
6. Run Google Adwords.
7. Create Twitter list.
8. Subscribe to blogs.
9. Read and respond to HARO queries.
10.  Ramp up your content.

Leave your mark

My last piece of advice is to shine at everything you do. Make sure you show dedication and a positive attitude at every job you have, even during your college career. Be willing to take on a challenge and work hard to achieve it the ending goal. At times you will fail and know it is okay, but you have to get back up and work ten times harder to not make the same mistake again. Do not burn bridges. Leave your current place of employment or school positively because you never know when you may need a reference from a past employer or professor.

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