Edelman’s VP of recruitment wants you to tidy up your Twitter feed
Edelman VP of recruitment Travis Kessel wants you to be your own best publicist, from Twitter to thank you notes. He sat down with Grid reporter Madeline Skaggs to offer some tips on what it takes to get hired at the PR giant.
Show ‘coachability’
Especially for junior positions, Kessel likes to ask “about the best coach or mentor you’ve ever had and what it was about your relationship with them that enabled you to really succeed.” The answer tells him “what kind of manager you’re going to perform well under.”
Want it
“I think that it’s funny when people display during their interview that they’re ready for the next step already,” says Kessel. “That’s kind of a pet peeve.”
You’re the expert
Kessel may not be a master of the skill for which he’s interviewing, but you should be. He wants to hear senior-level candidates ask “specific questions about programming,” even though “in a lot of cases they stump me.”
Mind your manners
Brush up on your penmanship, because while a thank-you note won’t necessarily get you hired, Kessel says, it “could cost you the job.” And so could not sending one at all. “If you go in and you meet 10 people during an interview process, you should have 10 thank-you letters ready at the end of the day.”
Life on a Jumbotron
Social media is “one of the pillars of what we do [in PR],” Kessel says. So expect your online presence to be scrutinized. Speaking at Northwestern, Kessel called out an attendee who was tweeting about the event — right after a series of profanity laden rants in the person’s feed. “If you’re trying to mix that image — the profanity and all the graphic language — with networking, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.”
