HR

The NFL draft is under way and football fans, players, and coaches are excited. Why, look at the excitement on these faces.

For those of us not following each draft play, there are still lessons to be learned. In today’s guest post, Jeff Cohn, “a loyal Broncos fan and brand strategist at COHN,” offers up five lessons in hiring that we can glean from the NFL draft. So now, even the gridiron averse have a reason besides the Super Bowl ads to pay attention to football.

Click through to read on.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Public relations is proving to be one of the few bright spots in the current struggling U.S. jobs market. Census data shows that while those who majored in PR (and advertising) are making about the same as those who majored in areas like English and journalism (median earnings at $48,000), unemployment is at 6.1 percent, the lowest of the bunch.

The national unemployment rate in October was 9 percent, down from 9.1 percent. The economy also added 300,000 available jobs last month, showing some improvement.

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PR pros can be either the nicest, friendliest people you meet all day, or nasty ogres looking for a chance to flip out after a hard day dealing with an annoying client. Oh joy! You never know which you’ll get when you innocently ask, “Got a moment?”

So how do you deal with your boss when they’re acting like a snapping turtle out of water? Lynn Taylor, author of Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant; How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job has a couple of suggestions. Taylor is also a former PR pro, so she’s got some experience dealing with this less than cheerful behavior in the firm environment.

Click through for her take.

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Last week’s PRNewser Poll asked “How creative can publicists be with staff titles?” The votes are in, and the majority said, “Somewhat.”

Nearly half, about 48 percent, said PR firms can add a touch of whimsy to PR titles, going a little farther than the traditional account executive and VP labels we’re used to.  One comment on Twitter said titles could have a little imagination, but should stay “professional sounding to outsiders. Perception ≥ Reality.”

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In response to yesterday’s GolinHarris news that they would be reorganizing the company, our first thought was how someone at the SVP level, for instance, would respond to these changes.

“We’re very sensitive to this,” Fred Cook, the firm’s president and CEO, told us. “We’ve been around for 56 years and people are used to a certain structure. And we have a lot of people working for 10 or 15 years and we’re trying to make sure everybody understands their new roles and titles.”

Internally, staffers might be getting used to it, but the titles and the four new groups that are part of the g4 model — strategists, creators, connectors, and catalysts — caused some discussion externally.
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Today is National Hiring Day at McDonald’s, and there are plans to bring on 50,000 new workers across its 13,000 U.S. restaurants. Not only does McD’s hope to bring on some new talent, but the company would like to do away with the “McJobs” moniker — the idea that a job with McDonald’s is low-paying, dead-end grunt work.

CNN’s In The Arena blog notes that Starbucks was able to do away with this perception, and the McDonald’s webpage dedicated to today’s hiring spree emphasizes the company’s Restaurant Operations Leadership Practices training and it’s history of promoting internally. CNN also notes that the starting wage for a McDonald’s worker is usually $8 per hour, which is more than the minimum wage.

[h/t to ChicagoBreakingBusiness.com, image via]