Education

Jessica Kleiman, VP of PR at Hearst Magazines, and Meryl Cooper, co-founder of the comms and events company Allen/Cooper Enterprises, are among the experts participating in Mediabistro’s Job Search Boot Camp, which starts tomorrow.

Kleiman and Cooper are also the co-authors of Be Your Own Best Publicist: How to Use PR Techniques to Get Hired, Noticed and Rewarded at Work, which was published earlier this year. Kleiman and Cooper will be small group advisors for the education program.

The Job Search Boot Camp is an online, interactive workshop featuring guest speakers and Q&A sessions, opportunities to network, and the chance to get feedback and advice about your resume and online brand. Taking place over the course of four weeks (through November 17), speakers also include Mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby, and Dan Schwabel, founder of Millennial Branding.

For more information about the Job Search Boot Camp, Mediabistro’s Boot Camp series of programs, and to register, click here.

Just about every thriving business is using social media in one way or another to market itself to customers. But with so much happening online, standing out from the crowd is key.

Learn how to create a social media strategy and successfully execute your plan with Mediabistro’s Social Media Marketing Boot Camp. An online conference and small-group workshop, the Social Media Marketing Boot Camp brings together social media leaders and thinkers offering educational and networking opportunities along with keynote speeches and assignments that will put your strategy in place quickly.

Among the events taking place over the eight-week program are “A Tumblr Case Study” led by Newsweek/The Daily Beast writer Jessica Bennett and a look “Behind the Scenes of a Twitter Success Story” led by Mediabistro’s own publishing editor Jason Boog, editor of GalleyCat.

Don’t miss this chance to beef up your social media marketing skills. Click here and register today.

Fleishman-Hillard has launched a global China practice, which will help Chinese companies looking to build business internationally with financial communications services, brand awareness building, CSR initiatives, and other outreach. According to the release announcing the new practice, F-H’s business in China has grown 250 percent in the past five years.

The practice was introduced during the World Economic Forum, currently taking place in China through tomorrow. Serge Dumont, vice chairman of Omnicom Group, said during his comments that there are now 40 Omnicom agencies operating across various marcomm areas in China.

Separately but sort of related, F-H has also entered into a partnership with American and European universities including Stanford University for a China Masters Exchange Program that will work with Chinese students seeking communications careers. Students will receive scholarships and the opportunity to work in F-H offices in Europe and the U.S. for a year before working at Fleishman-Hillard in China.

The Universal Accreditation Board, which administers the test that gets publicists the APR designation, has reported a 75 percent pass rate for those who took the computerized exam in June. A total of 24 candidates passed, and 32 completed the test.

For this year so far, 96 people have earned APR accreditation, about the same as 2010 with 95 new additions. For the second quarter there were 56 candidates who earned the accreditation, the highest since Q4 2010.

Have you thought about getting your APR accreditation? For those who have it, what are the benefits you’ve experienced?

Social media can be just as important to a job search as face-to-face meetings.

Social media has not only become a key part of PR campaigns, it’s an important part of finding a job in the PR industry.

Renee Harris, the academic director for marketing, PR, and other programs at New York University‘s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, says, “Most of our students are those that are looking to move into a career or looking for a job. They may have been displaced or let go and they’re looking to acquire the skills that will make them competitive in the job market.”

These students have a wide range of skills they’re looking to build, but there has been a noticeable increase in interest in social media and digital coursework, particularly in the past two to three years, Harris told us.

Last Thursday, New York Women in Communications hosted a “Night of Coaches,” where career advisers and others in the industry shared information about networking and career advancement. Social media is not only useful during the job search, but in many ways, required.

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The U.S. and U.K. topped the list of cities PR students would work in if given the chance.

Research conducted by Moonlight Media, a U.K.-based PR and marketing firm for the financial technology and banking areas, found that 73 percent of PR students polled would go abroad to advance their careers. Forty-seven percent said they would go to the U.S. and 29 percent said the U.K.

The firm, with help from Survey Monkey, polled 294 PR students at universities including those across Europe, in the U.S., Australia, and across parts of Central and South America, Asia, and Africa.

The top two reasons given for choosing to go abroad was the image of the host country and the opportunity to learn professional skills, each with 35 percent of the response.

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The Supply Education Group, a nonprofit organization that works with community leaders around the world to bring education to impoverished children, has teamed with Internet celeb KevJumba to raise $50,000 to build a school in Nairobi, Kenya.

Yesterday was KevJumba’s, née Kevin’s, 21st birthday. To celebrate, the partners launched a campaign to encourage about 2,381 people to donate $21 per person.

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Summer is in full swing. To celebrate, mediabistro is having a one-day “Summer Starts Now!” sale.

Today only, you can take advantage of a 25 percent discount on mediabistro courses using the promo code SUMMER25.* Mediabistro has more than 100 courses on tap for the summer, spanning across media, journalism, and PR. Sign up today and get 25 percent off courses like “Public Relations: Incorporating Social Media and Multimedia” which begins online on June 13.

For a full list of available course, click here. Don’t miss the discount!

*Please note: This offer may not be applied to past purchases or combined with any other discounts or promotions. Not valid for Weekend Warrior: 2-Day Film School, Certificate Programs, Self-Paced Courses, or How-To Videos.

Roger Bolton has been appointed chair of the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University, effective tomorrow. He’s been on the board of the Arthur W. Page Society since 2006 and has served as a past president of the organization.

Bolton works with consulting firm Gagen MacDonald and with APCO Worldwide. He has served as the SVP of comms at Aetna and assistant secretary of the Treasury for public affairs under President George H.W. Bush. He also worked in the Ronald Reagan administration.

The Page Center is a research unit at Penn State’s College of Communications. The Center was formed in 2004 and collects stories and histories of PR practitioners. It has handed out $370,000 in research grants for ethical projects since its inception.

We spoke with Bolton for a podcast on trust and reputation back in January. Click here to listen to his thoughts.