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Millennials and the Workforce

Posted on | by Ketner Group

PhotoAlto/Sigrid Olsson/Getty Images
By Sara Lasseter

Photo: PhotoAlto/Sigrid Olsson/Getty Images

For the last decade, Americans everywhere have been concerned about the high unemployment rates sweeping the nation. But who is it that’s out of a job? Unemployment has hit every age group, social class and industry, but Generation Y (those born roughly between 1980 and 2000) has seen the most trouble. While this group of 80 million recent grads and young professionals have one of the highest levels of education, entering the workforce as a Millennial is proving more difficult for this generation than any other before it. Gen Y has a staggering 12.1% unemployment rate, and the lucky few with jobs are experiencing lower average salaries that are decreasing at a higher rate than other age groups and skyrocketing college debt that is higher than it has ever been.

As part of Gen Y myself, I’m experiencing first-hand the challenge facing most Millennials in this economy. While I’m fortunate enough to hold a great internship position with KG, I’m entering my senior year at UT with determined resolve to find a job upon graduation. It’s the Holy Grail for college grads these days, so we can use all the help we can get.

A great feature on Forbes lists some helpful ways that Millennials can stay sane and keep their skills polished while waiting on one of 100 companies you’ve applied at to offer you a position. Here are a few of the best tips!

  • Keep working and volunteer – Contributing to side projects and small startups can keep your skill set in practice while also filling in that jobless gap on your resume. Volunteering in the community is fulfilling and adds another dimension to your on-paper personality that employers will notice. Continue reading →

I volunteer!

Posted on | by Ketner Group

“I volunteer!” she screams as she pushes her way to the front. “I volunteer as tribute!” The shocked crowd gasps as all eyes turn to Katniss Everdeen.

If you haven’t read the Hunger Games series or have yet to see the movie, just watch the trailer and you’ll no longer be living under a rock.

Katniss’ offer to volunteer in her sister’s place at the annual Hunger Games slaughtering—I mean, competition—is the ultimate sacrifice. And thank goodness most of us won’t ever find ourselves in that position! But a little bit of sacrifice is exactly what we should give when we volunteer.

I went to a charity event last month and was blown away by the activities and mission of this organization. It made me think about the people involved and what it takes to run such a successful program—then something happened. I wanted to join them. I wanted to make a difference.

“But I’m so busy with my job, going to the gym, keeping up with friends and spending time with my husband and dogs. I don’t even have kids, yet, and I struggle to find the time to fit everything in!” Insert your own personal activities and family members and my internal dialogue would probably match yours at one point or another; long story short, it’s hard. But that’s just it—volunteering should be a little hard. It takes some sacrifice, and you have to MAKE time to do it.

I took the plunge and offered to donate my PR expertise and time to this awesome nonprofit. This won’t be easy, and I’m already stuffed to the gills at the office with regular, billable work, but it’s important and I’m glad to do it. I’m so thankful that I have a really understanding and flexible team here at Ketner Group, and they’re also glad that I’m volunteering. We all want to at some point, it’s just finding that time. Or maybe the right organization that calls out to you like none did before.

I hope to talk more about my volunteering work, maybe more about the nonprofit when things start progressing. So stay tuned! And let me know about your volunteering adventures!

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho – It’s Off to Work We Go!

Posted on | by Catherine Seeds

Let’s face it, there are some days where we just don’t want to get up and go to work – you are lying if you say otherwise. Other than those few days a year, I will say that I genuinely enjoy coming to work at our funky little offices. Why? I love the people that I work with! We are like a family here. We look out for each other, and support each other at and outside the office.  In fact, compared with the company culture at other small businesses (and corporate organizations) we almost live in a protective bubble.

At Ketner Group, we also have a stellar track-record of employee retention and we are very loyal to the business.  This is not the industry norm.  According to a recent WebProNews article, gone are the days when we started a job after college and worked our way up the ladder until we retire at age 65. According to the article, “Not only do we have more jobs in our lifetime than any other generation before us, but we also plan to not stay in our positions.” A recent MetLife report found that only 44% of employees feel a strong sense of loyalty towards their employers and that over one-third of employees just flat-out want a different job.

If only all companies had the same protective bubble as we do at Ketner Group. Still, after reading these reports, I became intrigued.  How can people “job hop” like that?  I always thought having job after job listed on a resume was a negative thing – but is it really becoming the norm and acceptable? Check out these stats I found from Jobvite.com:

  • Today’s average college graduate will hold 9.8 jobs, working until age 65. In California, that same graduate will hold 14.3 jobs.
  • The median number of years that an average U.S. worker has been at their job – 4.4.
  • Average jobs in a lifetime for men – 11.4.
  • Average jobs in a lifetime for women – 10.7.
  • 61% of employed workers are open to or are looking for a new job. Continue reading →

What I Really Do, PR Edition: Fact or Fiction?

Posted on | by Ketner Group

The people of the Internet have once again moved on from one meme, most recently the Sh*t Girls Say phenomenon, to the next, currently the “What I Really Do” meme. So far on my Facebook feed I’ve seen what media buyers, law students, lawyers, journalists, film editors, stay at home moms, and military wives “really do.” I thought it incredible that I hadn’t yet come across “What PR People do” meme considering the number of my Facebook friends are also in PR, but finally this morning, there it was! Let’s take a look:

screen-shot-2012-02-17-at-23546-pm

And since you asked how I felt about it–oh, you didn’t? Anyway, here are my thoughts on the topic:

What my friends think I do: Fiction! I don’t think my friends would say my job involves any more partying than any other non-bartending job, which is to say it doesn’t involve much!

What my parents think I do: Fact. This is 100 percent true—my parents know what a press release is, of course, but that’s about as far their understanding of PR goes. There is some confusion on how it differs from advertising (a general rule: advertising is paid media, PR is earned media), and I’m not sure they would know how marketing is different from sales.

What journalists think I do: Fact. This is pretty accurate, though I wish there was a visual to capture a bunch of devious-looking PR folk sitting around wearing devils horns emailing a press release about an auto show to 2,000 journalists and editors who only cover healthcare. Unfortunately, a lot of editors and journalists believe PR specialists don’t try to target their audience and spam inboxes with irrelevant news without a second thought. At least at KG, we try our best to only send announcements or pitches to those we think are a good fit.

What my clients think I do: Fiction! This one made me laugh, I’ll admit. I work with truly wonderful clients, so I doubt my clients think the KG team frolics in piles of their money all day, but I will concede that when working on marketing projects, we do sometimes spend other people’s money (I hasten to add we spend it wisely!).

What society thinks I do: Fact. I was sold by this one photo—it captures society’s misconception that PR people are conniving, deceitful, shady, really I could keep going but I’ll stop myself. It’s funny how much discredit the public gives the profession. Certainly there have been gigantic PR missteps and sure, there are some companies with questionable products or practices I wouldn’t want to represent, but most PR, especially the B2B work KG specializes in, is entirely fact-based and straightforward.

What I actually do: Fact. It’s been well documented on the KG blog and elsewhere that PR can be a stressful career—from the fear of the five most dreaded words, “Why aren’t we in this?” to a chronic case of PR Paranoia, “I know I’ve checked and re-checked this release I’m about to distribute 100 times, but what if there’s a typo?” I imagine air traffic controllers, neurosurgeons and teachers all have more stressful jobs than I do, don’t get me wrong, but yes, this head-meets-wall feeling really happens quite often. Maybe we should party more?

This version of the “What I Really Do” meme is more reality than myth, which I suppose is why the meme is so popular. It may not be a glamorous career, but it’s mine and I think I’ll keep it, “what society thinks I do” warts and all.

Three Ways to Save an Unproductive Day

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Daily agency life often feels like an elaborate juggling act—account managers constantly juggle accounts and each account’s unique priorities and deadlines. This requires switching gears throughout the day, usually several times an hour. The necessity of this workflow is obvious—we need to be available to our clients throughout the day as projects and issues pop up, and we strive to efficiently handle projects as if each account were our only account. The KG team prides ourselves on being flexible and in our ability to nimbly manage dozens of loose ends at a time. However, it would not be a stretch to call this style of work ‘multi-tasking,’ and from our recent series on productivity, we know that multi-tasking at its worst actually reduces productivity. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on how to be more productive at work, and identified “fragmentation – trying to juggle many competing, and usually unexpected, demands on your time,” as the leading cause of an unproductive day and the root of the uncomfortable feeling that you worked really hard all day and yet have the sense that nothing got done. Yep, that’s a day KGers can relate to! How then do agencies limit the inefficiencies of multi-tasking in the face of competing demands on their time?

The WSJ article, “How to Save an Unproductive Day in 25 Minutes,” gives three suggestions for busy professionals to maximize efficiency when pulled in a million directions. The article resonated with me, and I wanted to share the tips and how they apply to agency life at KG.

1. Schedule uninterrupted work time—Whether you have to go hide in the empty conference room to escape the usually welcome antics of your awesome coworkers (pie! Funny YouTube clip!), pipe in some white noise to get you in the no-distraction zone like Eric does, or follow the Pomodoro Technique like Valerie does, actually scheduling dedicated time to completely focus on the most pressing task at hand can help check it off your to-do list faster.

2. Keep track of the progress you made that day—The WSJ recommends writing out everything you did at the end of a crazy day to give yourself a better sense of accomplishment. Personally I keep a running to-do list and find great satisfaction (possibly too much satisfaction) in checking things off that list. Sometimes I even tack on a few too-easy tasks that really shouldn’t count (making breakfast, putting new ink in the printer) just to make myself feel more productive! As the WSJ points out, perception is reality and just feeling more productive can make all the difference between a good day and a bad one. Continue reading →

KG Productivity Tips Series #3: Other Things We Like

Posted on | by Ketner Group

If you’re a regular reader of the KBlog, you’ll recall KG’s favorite productivity tips for staying focused and organized. In the third and final segment in our productivity series, we share our favorite miscellaneous productivity tools and tricks that help make the KG team shine!

Brittany
Google Voice: So chances are that you’ve heard of Google Voice before, but on the off-chance you haven’t, let me be the first to tell you how cool it is to not have to listen to voicemails anymore. If I have to miss a call because I’m on another call, I almost instantly receive an email and a text transcription of the voicemail–quite the perk for someone like me who dislikes listening to five consecutive messages of “Hi Brittany, it’s your mom. Call me back!” to get to the message left by a client. (Aside: I can’t be the only person whose mom doesn’t trust that my phone will tell me I missed her call without needing to leave a message.) Especially effective for people with multiple phone numbers (home, work, cell), Google Voice gives users the option to use a single Google forwarding number to all of the user’s phones, so when your office phone rings when you’re out of the office, you can take the call on your cell. Brilliant! Google Voice also supports conference calling with call recording and online archiving. On top of all of that, there are lots more features, so get your Google Voice on now if you haven’t signed up yet.

Valerie
Good Old-fashioned Mindfulness: This one might be a “duh,” but if we were all doing it right, I have a hunch our society would be a lot different than it is. The powers of mindfulness are praised high and wide for increasing health, happiness, and productivity. Some even believe that if you focus your positive energy well enough, you can attract good things to you. Now, I don’t know if I’d go that far personally, but I do know that reminding myself to be mindful and “in the moment” can have powerful effects on my sanity and my efficiency.

Next time you find yourself scatterbrained, extremely stressed, or asking yourself “what the heck was I just doing/going to do?”, try this: Close your eyes. Take ten deep breaths and visualize all the thoughts cluttering your mind flowing out one-by-one, vanishing (poof!), leaving your head empty. (I’m saying visualize, folks – most of us are not really that good.) Then, ask yourself: What is it I really need to be focusing on right now? Try to pick one thing that’s high-priority. Open your eyes, and jot down a few steps that you can work on right now.

Eric
Session Manager: I love tabs. There are two dozen tabs open in my browser right now. Session manager helps keep those tabs safe until I’m ready to return to them.

Session Manager is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that allows you to save the state of all windows and tabs open in your browser. This snapshot of your broswer can be saved and an unlimited number of sessions saves are allowed. Besides backing up your browsing in the event of a crash, this helps keep personal and professional browsing separate. It allows you to unplug — save your 9-5 browser windows as you’re leaving for the day, close your browser and leave your work projects until you’re ready for them. (It’s no fun to open up Chrome on Sunday morning when you’re looking for a good brunch spot on Yelp and get a big reminder of all the loose ends waiting for you Monday morning.) Or, focus on plugging back in. (If you’ve been shopping at home for a sweet new pair of slacks and reasonably priced ties, you can save those window-shopping tabs until later to avoid distraction when you get to the office.)

Caitlin
Look at the Competition: This may seem unrelated to productivity, but competition is a huge motivator, and motivation increases productivity. When I look at clients’ competitors’ news coverage or social media activity, for example, I get motivated to work really hard and to come up with new ideas to stay at the top of our game. If you’re even the slightest bit competitive like me, you’ll find your competitor’s success a perfect productivity push.

Achieving and maintaining peak performance is a constantly moving target. Just when you think you’ve cracked the code, another distraction or challenge pops up and creates room for improvement. At KG, we’re always on the lookout for the next big thing, so let us know if there’s something that works for you that we should know about!

Leading a Double Life: What PR Can Learn from Social Work

Posted on | by Ketner Group

A body outline drawing of Valerie in which each piece symbolizes a part of her journey through the Social Work programPhoto: A body outline drawing of Valerie in which each piece of the drawing represents Valerie’s journey through the Social Work program.

For those of you KbloG readers who don’t already know, I started working on my Master’s in Social Work last fall. It’s hard for me to believe that I only have NINE weeks of class left before I finish my last “real” courses and begin my final internship before my May 2012 graduation. Of course, as you know because you’re reading this blog post, I couldn’t bear to leave the awesome Ketner Group team so soon, so we’ve worked together to make it possible for me to “lead a double life” and do both. Even though there are few weeks in there that I’ve all but forgotten due to lack of sleep, I wouldn’t have changed a thing (short of altering the laws of time in which the day is 30 hours long – the parents are all nodding their heads in agreement!)

I could go on for way too long about the experiences I’ve had, but for the purposes of this post, I thought it would be fun to talk about a few of the things I’ve picked up in social work that I could see the PR world benefiting from.  If I really sat down and thought about it for a while, it would be a LONG list – but as you can imagine, I’ve got studying to do, so let’s make it snappy!

“Yes…. and….” – My beloved first-year practice instructor, Tammy, drilled this one into us on day one, and we all thought it was kind of silly, but now, I try to drill it into anyone I catch making a “yes…., but” statement. We’re humans. We love to think we’re right, and we love to argue. But it can get pretty obnoxious when you’re talking with someone and they keep pretending to agree with you at first, then negating exactly what you said with their “Yeah that’s true but I mean….” statements. Being on the receiving end of these comments is no fun, and it happens more than we realize – oh, until now, because you’ll start realizing it all the time. So what’s the alternative? The more positive and respectful “yes, AND” statement. What I didn’t know until I Googled this just now is that it’s also an improv comedy technique, which makes total sense! No one wants to watch an improv skit where the comedians can’t let go of their preconceived ideas or egos rather than playing off what’s going on in the moment. Continue reading →

KG Productivity Tips Series #2: Staying Organized

Posted on | by Ketner Group

A few weeks ago, we started a new series on productivity and we shared some our favorite ways to minimize distractions. Today we tackle another beast–organization.

Caitlin
Google Docs: Because Ketner Group is not on an intranet, we usually have to verbally or electronically call dibs on editing a document, then pass it along to the next person and the process begins again. Google Docs allows us to collaborate on the same document, while getting real-time updates from the person editing. This way, we can eliminate the added time it takes to combine two or more edited versions that were sent around the same time.

Outlook Tasks: I know, I know. It may seem old school (or nothing new), but I keep my week’s ‘to-do’s’ in my Outlook Tasks folder. What better place to store my action items than the same program that stores my emails and calendar appointments? Also, when I receive an email that requires some action, I flag it and it is automatically sent to my Tasks folder. I also set the tasks to ping me on certain days or times so I don’t forget to complete them. It’s like my electronic nagging mother.

Eric
Stickies: What should you use Stickies for? That’s up to you. This minimal tool offers a relatively low-tech way to jot down notes or keep track of projects and more. 

Stickies is a free, basic note-taking application available on every Mac since 1994. These electronic Post-It Notes can be placed around your desktop. Stickies is an easy-to-use, lightweight application that works well for everything from to-do lists, taking notes on a call or preparing the first draft of an email — or this blog post. You can create multiple Stickies, but they all save to one file and save instantly, making them great as a word processor in a pinch — the barebones application runs lightning fast even on sluggish computers — where you don’t (knock on wood) have to worry about losing your content in a crash. And, Stickies is not just restricted to text. You can drag and drop everything from images to Quicktime movies to embed.

Brittany
Walgo
: It may sound like a shameless promotion, but Ketner Group client Omnego developed a really cool app that helps keep my life less cluttered, and at least for me, less clutter=more productivity. 

 Continue reading →

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes

Posted on | by Ketner Group

It’s coming. I can hear the buzz, the distant rumble of excitement from anticipation and preparations. It may be early, but people are already planning for it. It comes every year and the eyes of passersby twinkle at all the sights and sounds that flood the senses…

…at the annual South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, Film and Music festival in Austin, TX. Did I have you thinking about Christmas for a second? I don’t blame you. But today, I’ve got SXSW on my mind.

We Ketner Groupies are just plain excited. We all have special connections with SXSW. I got married this year during the music festival (which hosted an awesome Friday-night outing for our out-of-towners). Another Ketner Groupie’s love story began there. We helped launch a new social media application there. And every year, we learn something new and valuable that we can share with our clients and friends.

As PR professionals, we ‘heart’ SXSW Interactive (SXSWi), the marketing, digital media and technology hub of the festival. How lucky are we to have the brightest minds and entrepreneurs from all over the globe meet up in one place to share an explosion of ideas and knowledge—right in our own backyard? And we are doubly excited for SXSWi 2012, because three of our clients have submitted their own panels, which are up on the 2012 SXSW PanelPicker now! Check these out and if you like what you see, give ‘em a thumbs up (AKA: vote for their panel)! Continue reading →

Location, Location, Location

Posted on | by Ketner Group

William T. Dillard (1914-2002), founder of the Dillard’s department stores, is the person most often credited with the quotation, “Location, location, location.” Supposedly, one of the things that helped make him so successful was that he took notice of consumer’s shifting preference to indoor shopping malls. Of course, all you have to do is look at The Domain here in Austin for evidence that this preference seems to be shifting yet again.

We got to thinking a lot about location recently, wondering if it is equally important across all industries. With retail stores, restaurants, etc.—of course. Location is absolutely key. (Again—Austinites, if someone gave you $5 million 5 years ago to open a retail store, would Highland Mall be anywhere on your list of possibilities? Well I sure hope not, because it’s about to become the next ACC campus.) But in the age of globalization, Rebecca Black, and Cheezburgers, does location for certain types of business really matter anymore? If it’s not obvious yet, I’m talking about PR firms (though the same question could apply for interactive agencies, web developers, journalists, etc.) Continue reading →