Once upon a time, when I was interning in a land not to far from where I am now, I made an appoint to network with everyone at the company. I would ask the AAEs for tips and tricks on how they landed the job I so badly wanted and I would ask the seniors out to coffee to hear about their experiences… and that really hasn’t changed too much. I would always ask, “what’s the best advice you can give an entry level PR girl?” I heard it more than once and definitively more than twice:
Never burn bridges because the industry is too small.
It’s a little game of Connect the Dots. I heard stories of how people started working together as interns decades back and then both became senior executives at the same agency, to work as close as they did before. I heard about AEs reaching out to past senior executives to see if they were interested in an opening and vice versa, mainly because they knew their work style and personality, which was compatible with their own. My past colleague, who I spoke to and saw every day when I was interning in Austin, is now a CEO of the PR agency.
The circle keeps going round and round and eventually you meet and work with people at different agencies and it’s always good to leave lasting impressions, whether you met them at a polo event, at a PRSA panel, worked with them for a co-branded client event, or simply at the bar downstairs. Keep it real because you never know when you might be talking and working with them again… and in PR better to assume you’ll be connecting again sooner rather than later. And if you really REALLY don’t like someone continue to suck.it.up. So unlike the London bridges, PR bridges should never fall.
