More Gary stuff elsewhere

You know what? I can be complementary about Exeter’s rivals. Over at Soccerlens, I’ve done a bit of a ‘well done’ to Torquay for getting promotion [1] out of the Blue Square Premier. I’m actually quite happy to see them back in the league, and chuffed for their centre-half, Chris Todd. He’s one of the nicest men in football and has battled back against Leukaemia this year to become a Wembley winner.

Then there’s the twofootedtackle podcast, with myself, Chris Nee and Kate Clarke, where we pick our Premier League team of the year, predict who’ll drop down to the Championship, chat MLS, share tips for poaching eggs, and have a quick chinwag with Bobby Zamora.

And then the longer Pulitzer-winning [2] version of the interview with BZ can be found at Soccerlens.

[1] If this were Argyle it would, naturally, be a slightly different story. Assuming I even bothered to write it.

[2] May be a lie.

12 seconds to sell yourself

Here’s an interesting way to get a rung on the PR ladder – sell yourself in a little over half the time the So Solid Crew spent bigging up themselves.

The deal: getting PR graduates (plus anybody else who fancies a go) to sell themselves in what may possibility the world’s shortest job interview via micro-vlogging site 12Seconds.tv. The prize: a month’s paid PR internship with the Big Yellow Self Storage Company.

Essentially, the candidate has 12 seconds to sell themselves in their job interview and even tough there’s only one internship up for grabs, all the entries will be shown around the industry.

Now, on one hand you could scream ‘reality TV gimmick’, but I think it’s quite a fun way of getting yourself known and, for the Big Yellow Self Storage Company, a good way to boost their profile in the social media sphere, especially when you consider that they’re not perhaps the most natural fit for social media.

For the candidates, it’s a good lesson in being concise. One problem that virtually every journalist and PR suffers from, usually early in their career, is excess verbosity, so anything that encourages applicants to edit down to only the absolutely necessary will stand them in good stead. Plus it also gives the applicant a chance to show they ‘get’ social media.

Also, I can see more companies asking candidates to upload videos to YouTube, Seesmic, 12seconds.tv and the like in the future. But that’s by the by. But The Big Yellow are certainly ahead of the game in that regard.

It’s a nice, fun way to give newcomers a chance to get into the industry, and ticks several social media boxes, so hats off to the person who thought this one up.

Anyway, if you’ve happened to stumble across here, happen to be looking for something like a paid internship and want something that’s more useful than my musings, head to 12seconds.tv/campaign/bigyellowselfstorage, register, and link your Twitter and Facebook account to your 12 Seconds account.

Once you’ve done that, record your 12 second video on your mobile phone, webcam or video camera and upload it to12seconds.tv/campaign/bigyellowselfstorage, along with a copy of your CV. You’ve got until June 13th, so plenty of time to get creative between now and then.