Dress for Success Hartford Capital Catwalk

8 May

The fabulously fashionable team at nonprofit org, Dress for Success Hartford is at it again hosting the 7th annual Capital Catwalk. Not your average fashion show, this awesome event has music, entertainment, prizes and hosts local celebrities to model the latest fashions (Hi, Mark Dixon!). All that, and it’s for a good cause. All the info is below. Check it out!

       7th ANNUAL CAPITAL CATWALK EVENT RETURNS TO CELEBRATE THE ORGANIZATION’S 4000TH CLIENT

WHAT: Dress for Success® Hartford is hosting its 7th annual Capital Catwalk fundraising event on Monday, May 21st at Hartford Stage. This festive evening of fashion will debut the latest summer fashions modeled by local celebrities, community leaders and some surprise models. Delectable hors d’oeuvres will be provided by area restaurants as well as many exciting auction items, such as a South Africa safari trip for two.

Dress for Success® Hartford is celebrating fourteen years in providing business attire and career development services to women in need, as well as welcoming their 4000th client. The organization, an affiliate of the international not-for-profit organization, has helped more than 4,000 Connecticut area women overcome obstacles to find employment and advance their careers.

Tickets are $55 in advance and $65 at the door. Proceeds will go directly to the programs that give local women the tools and support to enter the workforce, establish a career track and become self-sufficient. For more information, email Hartford(at)dressforsuccess.org or call 860.525.5015

WHEN:       Monday, May 21st 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

WHERE:     Hartford Stage

50 Church Street

Hartford, CT 06103

WHO:        Representatives from Dress for Success® Hartford, local celebrities, community leaders and some surprise models.

CONTACT:  Sara Avatapalli

Executive Director

Office: (860) 525-5015

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Four Tips on Acing an Internship Interview

17 Apr

Internship interviews are just as important as any job interview. They should be approached with the same level of preparation and enthusiasm. As many college students and recent graduates are on the hunt for a summer internship position, I thought it would be a great time to share some solid tips for acing that internship interview.

1) Come prepared. This covers a lot! Bring a portfolio of your work from classes and previous internships if you have them. This will allow you to get specific about the experience you have and your writing skills by showing the work as you discuss it with the interviewer.

Research the company. You should have an idea of who the clients are, the number of people working at the company, who you will be meeting with, etc. Nothing screams “I’m half-hearted about this internship” more than someone who hasn’t even Googled the place they’re interviewing for.

You will be asked about previous work, school, club, volunteer and internship experience. Mentally prep yourself before the interview to know the important points you want to make. Simply saying that you built a media list at your last internship doesn’t give me a good indication of your skill set. Tell me what you built that list for, what type of media you were researching, how you helped the account person, and the ultimate result. What did you learn?

2) Dress appropriately. Come to the interview in business dress. First impressions are a big deal and you want the interviewer to pay attention to what you have to say, not what you are wearing. Dressing the part shows that you are taking the opportunity seriously. You should also steer clear of loud jewelry and flashy makeup. I heard a story of a candidate who had bangle bracelets on that kept banging on the desk in front of her, and all the interviewer could remember from the interview was the bracelets.

3) Be yourself. Nerves can get the best of us. We can speak too quickly, stutter and ramble if we get nervous in an interview. Take a deep breath before you get to the office so that you can best represent yourself in a calm and collected manner. Public relations is a high-stress job, and showing that you can remain cool under pressure will set you apart from other candidates.

Being yourself is also paramount so the interviewer can pair you with the appropriate supervisor. Supervisors want to know who they will be working with and how their direct report works best. If a candidate acts one way in an interview, and completely different while on the job, it’s not doing anyone any good. Interns aren’t expected to know everything or be “perfect” at public relations (no one is!), so admitting your struggles and what you want to learn is OK. That’s why we have internships – so you can improve your skill set and eventually apply it in your career.

4) Write a thank you note. This should be a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised. Write a thank you note or email to everyone you interviewed with, and make it something personal and different for each person. A template thank you note doesn’t show a lot of originality or that you put a lot of effort into it.

We’d love to hear your internship interview tips as well! Feel free to leave a comment below.

And best of luck to all those on the internship hunt!

You can also see this post at Quinn & Co.’s Purple Lounge.

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Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson the Immortal World Tour

5 Apr

My typical reaction to anything having to do with Michael Jackson is to dance and shake my booty, not get all choked up and emotional. So why was I all misty-eyed last night when I left Madison Square Garden following Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson the Immortal World Tour?

Not so much of an actual story line, this Cirque Du Soleil performance (the third I’ve seen) is more an homage to Michael’s life and talent and his message of peace. There’s incredible dancing and acrobatics, costumes with a nod to Michael’s creative aesthetic and, without words (aside from his music), an emotional conveyance of his love for children and our planet. It’s moving.

I don’t want to leave you feeling like the whole show was sad and depressing as I re-read what I wrote above. It’s in fact, the opposite.

Director of the show, Jamie King, infused what Michael fans would expect – moonwalking, THE Glove, the notorious Michael “ahhhh!” – but gave an exciting and entertaining Cirque-spin on it. Think: a little strange and quirky with some death-defying acrobatic stunts, a loveable mime as the “ring leader” and a woman who can bend her body practically in half. Oh yeah, and there’s world-champion pole dancer, Anna Melnikova. All of this enhanced with what seemed like thousands of LED lights, screen projections of Michael through the years, smoke machines, moving set-designs and more. This is the circus after all!

Giving a local spin to the Connecticut crowd, 19-year-old New Haven resident, Desiree Bassett, gave a killer electric guitar performance throughout the show (often next to an equally incredible and talented electric cellist).

Without giving too much away, I will end on this: See. This. Show. It’s a magical presentation and honorable tribute to the King of Pop. And hopefully, like me, you’ll be singing, dancing, and emotionally touched.

Here’s information for tickets to see the show at the XL Center in Hartford, CT May 2 and 3.

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Spring = Time for Butt-Kicking

21 Mar

Image‘Tis that time of year again! I’m walking my butt off to raise money for incredible causes. I kindly ask that you consider parting with the $10 you would have spent on Starbucks today and tomorrow, and donate to either one or both of the walks I’m doing (thus far) this Spring. Heck, if you happened to have $25 extra hanging around, or any other amount, your generosity would be most appreciated!

MS Walk (DONATION PAGE): One of my dearest pageant friends, Krystiana Bouchard, Miss Hartford County’s Outstanding Teen, will be leading team Krystiana’s Knockouts April 22 in Cheshire, CT. This will be my first time participating in this walk – doesn’t make me any less psyched!

March for Babies (DONATION PAGE): Most of you probably know that I am a huge fan of the March of Dimes and have been working with the CT chapter for a number of years. This will be my third walk (May 6 in Stamford, CT) in an effort to help this organization give every baby a healthy start. Woo!

Another thing I’m preparing for as the weather gets warmer is the Tri-State Spartan race in Tuxedo, NY with Christina Khoury. How she convinced me that crawling through mud under barbed wire, jumping over flames and scaling walls would be fun for a lovely afternoon in June is beyond me. I must have been possessed. Nonetheless, it’s a super “excuse” to be watching my nutrition and, dare I say it, get back into Miss Connecticut competition shape. (Giggle…we know that’s probably not going to happen, but I’ll try to get close.) With Weight Watchers and a sweet personal trainer app on my iPhone, I’m hoping to be in fighting shape in no time.

Wish me luck!

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I’m a Feminist. Sort of.

31 Jan

ImageI hate the ABC show The Bachelor. Hate. Loathe. And I feel the same way about The Bachelorette. While many of you sit on the edge of your seat sweating and having heart palpitations about which man or woman will get a rose (Do the guys get roses? If that doesn’t show you how few times I’ve watched those shows, I don’t know what will.), it makes me gag. The idea that we should go on a reality show to compete for someone’s love while the other contestants also have intimate relations with the Bachelor or Bachelorette, while everyone tries to untangle their multitude of emotions horrifies me.

Last night while on the treadmill at the gym, I watched this breathtakingly beautiful woman with outrageously orange nails cry on a boat because Whats-His-Name Josh-Groban-Look-a-Like tossed the rose that was meant to be hers in the cold, dark ocean.

“I just don’t know what I did wrong,” she sobs.

Me: “Girlfriend, the only thing you did wrong was come on a reality show looking for love. Let’s start there.”

There are plenty of things that fall into the “you should be dumped” category: Lying, murder, etc. You know. The usual. But this woman thinks she actually did something wrong not to win the affection of this man. I can’t help but think this is a matter of how we are programmed and conditioned as women: If something goes wrong, we are to blame. We are the problem, and never the solution.

I think that’s a crappy outlook.

People often have a hard time understanding that I’m a ‘wanna-be’ feminist. I say ‘wanna-be,’ because I’d be doing an injustice to those who came before me and have yet to come – those who have and will effect change regarding how women are viewed and treated by society. I’m a pageant girl for goodness-sake! A number of times in my life, I have put myself in front of a group of strangers to judge whether I was WORTH putting a sparkly crown on my head. Think what you will about my involvement in pageantry, but it has helped me become a confident speaker, comfortable in job interviews, be cognizant of my health, and awarded me thousands of dollars in scholarship money. (For those who don’t know, I wasn’t a toddler in a tiara, and I started participating in pageants because I wanted to at the age of 16.)

Another point of clarity I must make is that I am not a man-hater. I have many wonderful men in my life who have always treated me well. Feminism is about the equality of men and women, not women overpowering men. I’m equally disturbed by the degradation of men as I am by the degradation of women.  

I strongly urge you to watch this video. It’s a trailer for a documentary titled “MISS REPRESENTATION,” which explores “how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in influential positions in America and challenges the media’s limiting and often disparaging portrayals of women, which make it difficult for the average girl to see herself as powerful.” It’s alarming for me to watch all of these mashed up images of oversexed women, many placed in an inferior position to men. Even worse are the confused school girls wondering who they are supposed to be when they grow up: Pamela Anderson or Condoleezza Rice. They aren’t supposed to be either! They are supposed to be THEMSELVES. Unfortunately we, as a society, have screwed up any chance that those young girls will have the slightest grasp of who they are, according to them.

Another thing I can’t stand is that women who do use sex appeal to pursue a specific career or venture such as dancing or modeling are immediately dismissed as being dumb or promiscuous by society and the media. Just because of a pretty face and a display of sexuality, we assume that there’s only half a brain in that genetically blessed body. This kills me! Women being sexy, looking sexy, wearing makeup is not wrong. It is not bad. Loving and appreciating your body and wanting to look how you feel best is OK. How’s that for feminism?

So if I haven’t utterly confused you, I don’t know what else will. I guess all I’m trying to say can be boiled down to a few bullet points:

  1. Man or woman, you must respect yourself. You respect yourself and others will follow suit. If they don’t, no need to bother with them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If anyone wants to dismiss me as a dummy because I did pageants, I don’t have the energy to waste to convince them otherwise, nor do I care.
  2. Parents and teachers play a huge role in how boys and girls grow up and see themselves / each other. No matter how many times I went home after middle school to watch TRL and ended up seeing Mariah Carey get half-naked, I had strong female role-models in my mother, dance teachers and others I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by. Those women were reality to me…not Mariah. Despite children today consuming ridiculous amounts of media (most of questionable moral standards), that doesn’t mean we should give up the fight to be their foremost role model.
  3. If you have to stand on your own, do it. No one has to be a product of how they were raised. If you want to be president of a Fortune 500 company one day, believe in yourself and do it. I’m not naïve to the fact that odds are stacked against women in the workplace, but for every woman who achieves her career goals, whether it be as a part-time sales representative and a part-time stay at home mom, OR president of Pepsi Co., there’s one more ceiling shattered.
  4. Last but not least, women, stop humiliating one another. I’m specifically thinking of all the reality shows (Baseball Wives, Mob Wives, Real Housewives, etc.) where women play each other’s worst enemy. When did slapping, hair-pulling and bullying become ok? By putting each other down, we just give license for anyone else to do the same. It’s not cute. Or ladylike…whatever that means.

 

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I +1 you Google+, but…

3 Nov

Don’t get me wrong. I like Google+. I have no major problems, issues or grievances with it. As a woman nearly obsessed with trying to conquer know what I’m talking about when it comes to as many social mediums as possible (find me on Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked In and Google+), many can say I’ve stretched myself a bit thin in my usage of online tools. In my defense, social media is part of my job.

After recently sitting in on a PR News webinar about Google+, my colleagues and I started a discussion about why anyone or any business should use any one social medium over the other.

Allow me to digress for a moment and preach. There is no “one is better than the other.” If your client base, fans, critics, etc. – anyone you are trying to communicate with or deliver a message to is on a specific forum, then you should be on that same forum. I stress in my marketing with the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Corporation that not all of our friends, fans or sponsors are on Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, to be sure we reach all possible audience members we need to diversify our outreach, cross-pollinate material and not limit our communication to one single form.

Back to the webinar discussion. I stated my point in this discussion that I will stick to until the cows come home: I get that some Google+ features trump some Facebook features or its lack of (hello, hangouts, I’m looking at you), but the argument that Google+ circles will be the death of Facebook (ok, I’m dramatically over generalizing), I will not buy. Another side note: Facebook will slowly kill itself whether it be in 5 months or 15 years and it doesn’t need any help from Google+.  I created circles, I assigned people to these circles and not a single one of my posts on Google+ has yet to be anything less than entirely public!

It all boils down to the “what you see, is what you get,” mantra. I’m 100% positive that my colleagues I’m friends with on Facebook don’t care at all about me being on the board of directors for the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Corporation and my posted photos and updates about the program. I am 100% sure that my friends from high school following me on Twitter don’t care about that Wall Street Journal article my client was in. So what? With discretion of course, I am very open, and who I am “in real life” and online is the same person. (For those of you who know me well, I watch my language a bit more online, ha!).

I am perfectly aware that not all people conduct themselves in the same manner, and Google+ circles work for them in dividing up who in their networks sees what they post. I’m in no way stating one way to conduct yourself is better…just sharing food for thought.

Until my next blog post, I’ll be seeing you everywhere else online.

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My 2 cents on Occupy Wall Street

19 Oct

I’ve kept my mouth shut on Occupy Wall Street until now. With the photos of people holding up signs explaining how they are the 99%, and videos of police spraying women with pepper spray and, protesters commandeering a bank that I’ve seen over the last few weeks alone, I feel confident enough to articulate some sort of thought on the matter.

Let it first be said that I don’t claim to be an expert in any way, nor am I close-minded to changing my opinions on Occupy Wall Street. Above all else, I am a curious bystander interested in watching what’s going down.

I recently received an email blast (copied below and shortened for brevity’s-sake) from Change.org which helps illustrate my general thoughts on this movement.

Dear Kate,

When Molly Katchpole found out that Bank of America would charge $5 a month to use a debit card, she was upset — so she started a petition on Change.org.

Since then, 225,000 Change.org members have signed her petition. And now Bank of America is under enormous pressure to cancel its new debit card fee. A Bank of America executive even called Molly and told her that while cancelling the fee would be “premature,” the bank was “closely monitoring customer feedback.”

More public pressure could be enough to push the bank to cancel its new $5 debit card fee. Can you sign Molly’s petition asking Bank of America to cancel its new debit card fee? Bank of America is listening to you — and other banks are, too.

In less than three weeks, Bank of America went from announcing a new $5 monthly debit card fee, to reeling under huge pressure from the media, Congress, and Change.org members. Here’s a quick review of what happened:

  • September 29: Bank of America announces a new $5 monthly debit card fee.
  • September 30: Molly creates her petition on Change.org; more than 150,000 people sign in the next 5 days.
  • October 5: The petition becomes a major national story. ABC News interviews Molly, then tracks down Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan and forces him to respond to it. 

My harsh initial thought was: “Hey Molly, go get a new bank!” which is indicative of my overarching thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement. However, Molly’s plight and form of action is minutia compared to the greater beast that is Occupy Wall Street. She’s just one of the 99%.

The fact that thousands of people have gathered to “make change” is a fascinating display of democracy at work. Thumbs up! Their commitment is strong and their presence is unmistakable, even with a rather peaceful gathering overall.

However, these protesters are keeping us on our toes without any solid demands, goals, legislation ideas, etc. We keep hearing that it’s too soon for them to make defined demands. The movement is organic. But have a Wall Street executive walk out to address the protesters one-on-one and ask “what do you want from me?” the protesters are left in silence. Without any set demands or outline of legislation, forward motion is impossible. Occupy Wall Streeter’s have the numbers to make great change, but no deliverable action steps.

So what does an employed young woman with health insurance, and a private school education, predominantly paid for by her wonderful parents, yet saddled with some student loans and a fair amount of credit card debt and complete awareness that she is lucky and that her fate could change in an instant, do with Occupy Wall Street?

I see it two ways, as I usually do for everything.

My unsympathetic (that’s a terrible word to use…) side sees those who feed off the system that my and your tax dollars pay for, the reckless spending we’ve all become accustomed to and the abuse of credit and does not blame Wall Street. Wall Street didn’t make me go to an expensive private college. Why are they the enemy? Capitalism is a huge part of why America is the greatest country in the world. And why all the finger-pointing? If people stopped placing blame on the other guy and actually did something, we’d be a lot more productive.

On the other side of this, I understand that the United States has a system in place both politically and financially to keep those who are down, down for good. Those who have, gain more, while the have-nots can’t catch a break. My whole ‘stop finger-pointing’ argument is shot down. And those in power to actually deliver change (politicians) are fueled by corporate funding and that’s probably never going to change.

With this said, no one knows what’s to come. This is history in the making. History tells us that movements such as these are unpredictable and the ending is yet to be determined.

Watch this video, that I particularly enjoyed, for an on-the ground look at the movement. And let me know your thoughts. I’m eager to learn more.

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