CAREER TALK FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS 2011-2012
On 5 May 2012, the Alumni Association of the School of Journalism and Communication organized a career talk for postgraduate students, and invited 3 speakers from the fields of broadcasting, newspaper and public relations. The speakers included Producer and Presenter of RTHK’s Putonghua Channel Miss Jane Chen, Assistant Chief Editor of Headline Daily Mr. Lau Kwok Yip, and General Manager of Strategic Financial Relations Limited Miss Esther Chan. The speakers reminded students not to concern too much about workload and salary when looking for their first jobs.
Miss Chen pointed out that the number of Putonghua radio programmes was increasing and students from the Mainland have an advantage that they were more familiar with information of the Mainland. On the other hand, they needed to pay attention to the different wordings of Cantonese and Putonghua and hence they better watched and compared Cantonese and Putonghua news broadcasting every day. Moreover, broadcasting stations required multi-talented professionals who were familiar not only with news, but had also got knowledge of various fields.
Mr. Lau spoke about his own experience of working in both broadcasting stations and newspapers. He opined that the experience of working as newspaper reporters could become the spring board for entering other professions and many of them ended up working in broadcasting or business world. Mr. Lau suggested students to first work at small companies: although the salary might be lower, these companies offered various kinds of work experience to help faster professional growth, and more opportunities of promotion. He reminded students from the Mainland that newspapers in Hong Kong and the Mainland had different ways of news writing, and they should read local newspaper regularly to get a better understanding of Hong Kong.
Miss Chan introduced four types of public relations practices: finance and corporate, event and marketing, public affairs and digital PR practices, the latter of which was novel whose professionals needed to be users of social media. She encouraged students to choose suitable practices based on individual personalities, interests and strengths. Miss Chan also put forward five requirements of working in the PR field: familiarity with media; proficiency in English and Chinese and the spoken languages of Cantonese and Putonghua; sensitivity to Hong Kong, China and International news and strategic thinking; enthusiasm in socializing; attention to details, creativity and responsiveness.
