Tesar-Reynes

In the last three recessions I remember the figure thrown out that somewhere between 35% and 45% of the people in integrated marketing communications got out of the business. I suspect that similar figures will be used for this one.

In the past, when people moved and changed jobs, they were lost from our database and probably lost to the statisticians of the industry. Thus far, in the last three months, I have called or contacted about 200-300 people in the $150,000-250,000 wage bracket. A goodly number are without jobs but a large number of them are consulting and are running their own business. They are having success because they can circumvent corporate head count rules.

The larger question to me is what happens to the people who drop out …

It was truly a wonderful week last week.  All of the words from the Obama administration were nice to hear but the proof of the pudding was in the Dow Jones numbers.  It went up Tuesday.  It went up Wednesday.  It went up Thursday.  And it even stayed up on Friday.

On Friday afternoon, when there was not a large selloff, I saw a lot of smiling faces as I walked around Chicago. It seemed that all of us were losing the battle against the constant bombardment of bad news; here was a non verbal positive statistic. Now I know that all the pundits are saying that this rally is probably only temporary.  But it’s the first piece of really solid news that we have seen in months.  It’s a little bit like giving …

I visited my PRSSA chapter for my last official meeting Monday. Afterwards, me and other members of the executive board went out to grab a bite. We chatted about how our marketing and public relations internships were going.

As we opened up, we got into an interesting conversation about our fears. The added pressure of hiring freezes and the competition that brings for jobs can make the workday stressful.

We of course would always perform our duties to the best of our abilities. We had to admit, however, lurking deep in the back of our heads existed legitimate, insecurity driven fears. Here are four of the fears we discussed. I hope this post helps our readers better …

Six weeks into my first position at a marketing/PR agency, I find myself working with clients more often. The task can seem intimidating at times. For a rookie, managing the client relationship can be like sitting at the dinner table with your rich uncle you only see a few times a year. You’re eager to impress, but don’t want to seem overly try-hard.

Last week, Kevin Donnellon, a friend and former VP at PR agency giant Golin-Harris, sent me this newsletter on client relationships. It was a welcome read. I mentioned the important lesson Kevin taught me on handshakes in a previous comment on one of Tony’s posts.

If you’re new to the industry like me, you probably don’t have much client relationship experience to draw …

The brilliant folks over at Viral Blog shared this great customer feedback campaign from Starbucks.

THAT is how you get a dialogue going with your consumers.

Can other struggling brands learn from the Starbucks campaign? Is there room for consumer-generated ideas for brands like the Gap, Chrysler, or Target?

A few years ago, Columbia College gave a scholarship to the student who created a marketing campaign that best revitalized the Gap brand. The winning scholar came …

Today, my student organization, the Public Relations Student Society of America, had the distinct pleasure of visiting Ketchum’s Chicago office.

Holy cow, am I impressed with the people that work there. What struck me the most was their age and character. The guest speakers we talked to were barely out of college. Every one of them was memorable in some way. Maybe they were funny, or intelligent, or had some great advice or insight for us, but they were all the kind of people you don’t forget about meeting.

At the end of the tour we met a senior partner and Ketchum’s editorial director. They talked about the changing workforce, how the baby boomers were retiring soon, and that as long as you had the drive and …

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An article in today’s Wall Street Journal (Grad Tidings by Sue Shellenbarger) reminded me of some testing I did when I was part way through my career.

The reason I took the testing was because I had it with my current choice of jobs. In the …

Hello. My name is Roland Cailles. I’m a senior marketing and public relations major at Columbia College in Chicago. I also help Tony and Bob, the managing partners at Tesar-Reynes, write this blog.

I’m very excited about blogging and social media in general. When I first started college, I knew I needed to do something that would set me apart from the thousands of other marketing and PR people out there. In short, I needed a niche.

Like other college students I spend the majority of my time in front of my computer. I live on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. I even have a couple of blogs. So I thought to myself, why not specialize in something I love doing anyway? That’s how I decided to focus my career on social media.

What I love about social media is that it’s helping to get rid of …

Welcome to the new Tesar-Reynes blog. This has been a project that has been simmering for over a year. My reluctance to kick it off has to do with the fact that it becomes one more responsibility for me and the fear that nobody will read it. We want this to be your window to the ramblings that go on in our office about recruiting, candidates, the job market, resumes and the whole integrated marketing communications business.

We hope your find our content helpful and look forward to your comments. We’ll link to other articles and sites that we’ll help you achieve your career goals, or at least add to your foundation of knowledge of our industry.

This blog won’t be all about us. Hopefully it will be a resource for people in the area of marketing, advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing, …