Welcome to my blog series "10 Questions With". It consists of weekly interviews with practitioners from the PR, Marketing and Advertising industry. My goal is to talk to experts, who have interesting opinions and can give valuable advice to young people, who are pursuing careers in those sectors. 

Today's interview is with Iliyana Stareva, authour of Inbound PR and ​Global Partner Program Manager at HubSpot.

Q1: What was your first ever job?
I was 16 when I got a summer job as a waitress in a cafe in my hometown in Bulgaria. When I think about it, that experience helped me in two ways: learn how to work with clients and learn the value of making money yourself. My first proper career job was as a Social Media intern during the summer after my second year at university in Germany. Social media was just beginning to become important for business and it was great to dig into its possibilities for clients at an early age of about 21. 

Q2: How did you fall into PR?
After I graduated from high school in Bulgaria, I went to study a double degree in International Business in Germany and then in the UK. I picked International Business because I knew I would get exposure to various areas such as Finance, Marketing, Accounting and more and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I discovered that Marketing was what I enjoyed the most during my first year and that was the time when experts and businesses were trying to figure out social media and public relations as the discipline best suited to own it. I began following prominent names such as Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott on twitter and reading their books. I became very passionate about PR and decided that that's the career I want to pursue so every decision I made and action I took during the next few years of my studies brought me closer to the career choice I had made. 

Q3: What’s the most annoying industry buzzword?
Guru - I really don't like this word. 

Q4: What campaign or work have you most enjoyed being part of?
My job at the moment is different than my past in PR. My work is about making change happen and figuring out how to execute on major internal initiatives across the globe to drive growth to our Partner Program. This involves a lot of stakeholder management, getting buy-in and generally designing execution plans. Picking up a problem and then figuring out all the pieces of the puzzle to solve it and execute against it is what gets me up in the morning excited about the work that I do. And when you see the success of an initiative you have identified, planned and executed against, there's no better motivator than to go and do it again. 

Q5: Job hunting on social media – yes or no?
Definitely! If you have a strong social media presence and even better, a blog that you use to share your knowledge and opinions, you'll have a better chance of getting a job, especially if you want to work in PR. People will notice you. That's what happened to me. My current employer HubSpot, found me on LinkedIn because I had a strong profile and then they dug into my blog which impressed them so they reached out and in essence, brought me from Germany to Ireland to join them. 

Q6: What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about the PR industry since working within it?
How hard it is to reinvent it. PR often seems stuck with old norms, rules and ways of doing the work. PR missed the mark with owning social media and still seems to be struggling with the adoption of all digital. That's the reason why I wrote a book hoping to re-energise the industry to start thinking about the bigger picture of driving business growth. 

Q7: What have you learned from any mistakes you’ve made in your career?
I've made many mistakes over the course of my career but as a young, intelligent woman surrounded by experienced male colleagues I'm still learning to speak up and to feel confident to share my opinions in the moment instead of shying away thinking they are not important. 

Q8: In your opinion, is having a PR degree still beneficial for getting into the industry?
It is but I don't think it's necessary. I studied International Business where I never specialised in PR and the only exposure to PR I got was very generic during my Marketing modules. You can do any job as long as you are passionate about it because passion will make you take additional steps to cover the educational or professional gaps you may have in order to achieve your career goal. 

Q9: After the success of your book "Inbound PR”, are you planning a second book? 
Writing a book has been my goal since the age of 21 when I read all Brian Solis' books at the time. I said to myself then that I will soon publish a book of my own. Having done it now at the age of 28, Inbound PR is not going to be my only book. I am the type of a person that gets inspired by sharing my learning with the world - that's why I write a regular blog and that's why I wrote Inbound PR. As I continue growing my career and developing new skills and knowledge, I plan to write more books in the future. I have an idea at the moment that I need to flesh out better and experiment with on my blog to get my reader's feedback as I did with Inbound PR. 

Q10: What advice would you give to your 18-years-old self?
Go explore and try as many things as possible to find out what you enjoy and discover your passion. The earlier you do this, the happier and the more accomplished you will feel. 

You can follow Iliyana @IliyanaStareva and ​@Inbound_PR_Book. Thank you for the fantastic answers!

Q1: What was your first ever job?
I remember it very well! It was a summer job in Cyprus, back when I was a student. I was employed on a construction site and my responsibility was grouting tiles. This was definitely an experience I will never forget.

Q2: Why did you get into PR?
It wasn’t intentional. Career-wise, my first dream was to get a job in the film industry. This is why I applied for an internship in a foundation which was organising film festivals. I guess it must have been fate that I got accepted to a department which organised a press office for one of the festivals. From there, things started happening quickly. Four years ago, from being the CEO in my own agency, I became the CEO of a technology firm, which is addressing its solutions to the PR industry. In retrospect, I don’t regret that my career evolved like this, as filming is now my hobby. I’m about to complete my first documentary soon!
 
Q3: What piece of technology can you not live without and why?
A camera and a video camera. I virtually can’t exist without these devices anymore. Can you imagine how many experiences would you miss throughout your life without the digital image that surround you every day?
 
And Prowly, of course, without which I wouldn’t be where I am now.
 
Q4: What is the most exciting thing about your job?
At Prowly, I am gaining new experiences incredibly fast. I entered the world of technology without much knowledge and with zero experience in running such projects. All I had was an analysis of what our target group’s needs were, after all – I was a seasoned PR pro. What is and will always be most exciting for me is keeping up with the things that determine our development. Every day, as a company, we are faced with new problems we must handle quickly and effectively, and each failure must be turned into a lesson for the future.
 
Q5: Who has been a big inspiration for you in the industry?
I draw a great deal of inspiration from my surrounding, but I’m always trying to diversify it. I love spending time with people who are completely different than me. Right now I’m working on a documentary about an 86-year-old person who means a lot to me and whose life experiences inspire me everyday. Relationships like this one give me a nice break from my everyday professional challenges (and there’s a bunch of these!) on the one hand, and on the other – the strength to fight these challenges.
 
Q6: Job hunting on social media – yes or no?
As a co-founder and CEO, I’m not really looking for a new job, but I think social media are now one of the key sources of applications in the recruitment processes we conduct at Prowly.
 
Q7: What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about the PR industry since working within it?
Rather than a surprise, it’s a constructive conclusion for the future. Based on my past observations, PR pros focus more on finding solutions for external problems – that is, communication-related challenges of firms for which they work – rather than the problems they’re dealing with within the structures of their agencies or departments. We tend to do better about the second type of problems, but there’s still much work to be done if we want to effectively address such problems as measurability or the impact of technologies on the work of PR experts, by providing real solutions and not just never-ending discussions.
 
Q8: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a career in the PR industry?
Do it, but only if you enjoy growing comprehensively. It seems to me that PR is one of few areas where you have to be prepared to acquire as broad a knowledge as possible.
 
Q9: If you could ban one buzzword or piece of jargon, what would it be?
Innovation. Innovation everywhere.
 
Q10: What advice would you give to your 18-years-old self?
I’m sure the first thing I’d say would be, “Girl, remember to always believe in your potential no matter what and always try to go the extra mile. The rest will follow in time.” I know it sounds like a cliché, but I do believe that many things that are stopping us from progressing in our careers – especially in the case of women – stem from nothing but low self-esteem. I often find myself thinking, “Shit, I don’t think I can handle this” – and I’m systematically trying to fight it.

Thank you Joanna for the fantastic answers. You can follow her @jdrabent ​and Prowly @Prowly_com.

Welcome to my blog series "10 Questions With". It consists of weekly interviews with practitioners from the PR, Marketing and Advertising industry. My goal is to talk to experts, who have interesting opinions and can give valuable advice to young people, who are pursuing careers in those sectors. 

Today's interview is with Jo O'Connell, PR Consultant and Director at Jelly Rock PR & Marketing. 

Q1: What was your first ever job? 
Helping to run the village newsagents, aged 15, on a Saturday and Sunday for an alcoholic couple. I learned how to run (or how not to run) a business, plus I loved chatting to all the customers – of all ages and types. 

Q2: How did you fall into PR? 
At school there was a computer programme that asked you questions and then gave you a career option at the end of it. I loved answering the questions over and over and always got the same answer – journalist. I was very close to applying for a degree in journalism. Then, after researching more, I found that PR could pay more and offer transferable skills. I’m kind of sorry to say that, with the current climate in the industry, I made the right choice. Journalism is in steep decline and more reliant on PR. That’s great for me and my colleagues, but bad for the news industry. The journalists I know are extremely hard-working people but the quality and essential nature of their work is no long valued like it used to be.

Q3: Biggest career achievement in your opinion? 
It was very early on in my career and was when I managed to secure a uni placement in Sydney, Australia. I spent long evenings in the uni computer centre sending emails and CVs. I eventually got a ten-month placement at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s top PR agencies. Travelling out there on my own, via a few days battling jet lag in Hong Kong, was daunting but great fun. It set me up with a wanderlust addiction for life and certainly shaped me. I worked on some great campaigns in tech PR such as Palm (now defunct technology – you’ll have to Google it!), Acer and the global launch of Sony PlayStation. I then travelled through the East Coast of Australia, and then onto Malaysia and Thailand on my way back. There were many hair-raising experiences being a young solo traveller. I got hooked on SCUBA diving which later led me to becoming a diving instructor, working in Thailand and the Philippines.

Q4: What is the most exciting thing about your job? 
Each and every one of my clients are inspirational. I love hearing their backstories, their business ideas and seeing the different ways they grow their businesses. At JellyRock we haven’t carved out a niche and so our work is delightfully diverse. We work across a number of sectors and that keeps life interesting. Plus, we work with smaller businesses on tight budgets. We believe creativity thrives on a minimal budget and so make every pound counts to produce results. 

Q5: What have you learned from any mistakes you’ve made in your career? 
Several! Mainly putting up with awful bosses for too long. I would never put up with that crap now. But I learned the hard way and allowed some people to make my life a totally misery for far too long. It’s left me with some entertaining, shocking stories, but has made me learn what type of boss I want to be. There’s real freedom in running your own business and understanding what kind of leader you are.

Q6: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a career in the PR industry? 
Get as much work experience as possible. But get out there and build lots of relationships so you can get through the door and into the office. Work for businesses, charities, whatever helps you learn the trade. There’s a line between work experience and exploitation though – I don’t mean sell your soul for long unpaid work internships. And REALLY work on your CV and covering email. Sometimes, when someone sends me a CV it sings off the page; there’s a great tone to it and their passion is evident. I save those CVs for the future.

And get work published – whether that’s in a uni magazine, in print, creating videos, running your own blog site, your social media following or writing guest posts. As an employer I want tangible evidence that you’re better than everyone else. 

Q7: What campaign or work have you most enjoyed being a part of? 
In May 2018, JellyRock PR launched the Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum. Being able to launch museum is a rare and prestigious honour. There are three JellyRockers who work together; Caitlin manages all things social media, Catherine runs the local PR; and I pitch national PR. We all work seamlessly together, despite working remotely. It means we can take on larger projects but as we each work from home we remain much cheaper than agencies. Shire Hall is a modern, interactive museum, packed full of interesting stories that we’re enjoying sharing. We’ve also generated a huge amount of coverage in such a little time – nearly 80 pieces in just a couple of months.

Q8: What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about the PR industry since working within it? 
How much London agencies can charge and get away with doing so little. I’d say 80% of our clients have tried the big, glam and expensive agencies that offer it all but actually deliver very little. It’s meant that clients come away burnt and poorer for it. They then come to us disheartened about PR but want to give it one last try. We then deliver them results that show them the power of good PR and they totally love it. It’s so fulfilling showing people that PR doesn’t have to cost that much, but can really boost business.

Q9: In your opinion, is having a PR degree still beneficial for getting into the industry? 
Absolutely. A placement degree is essential. I still refer back to the basics I was taught at Bournemouth University; crisis management, chaos theory, stakeholder engagement and management etc. But it’s only when you spend time on the job, or self-publishing your work in some way, that you develop your PR career. Some of the PR students I’ve met in my time (Yana being one of them) totally stood out in their hunger, determination and passion for what they do. 

Q10: And finally, what advice would you give to your 18-year-old self? 
It’s totally possible to ditch Impostor Syndrome. 
​​
Do what you love, learn what you can, work hard, follow your instincts and maintain balance in your life and you can shake off Impostor Syndrome by the time you’re thirty. It’s a wonderfully liberating feeling to know your subject inside out and be able to teach others about PR with sincerity and confidence. 

You can connect with Jo ​@JellyRockPR. Thank you for the awesome answers!