Monmouth University’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and Shadow PR Firm hosted its first speaker series of the semester with Cassidy Lunney on Wednesday, Jan. 26.
Lunney, an Account Executive at Push The Envelope PR, spoke to PRSSA members in a Zoom discussion about pursuing a career in public relations and gave advice from her own experiences in the field.
Lunney majored in Fashion Studies at Montclair State University, where she also minored in Journalism and discovered her love for public relations. She described various media and PR-focused internships that helped her secure a job in the field after graduating, highlighting the importance of building a strong portfolio to show future employers.
“I personally interned at Push The Envelope when I was in college, but left to do internships at CNBC and other places like that. Then I came back and started as an Account Coordinator and worked my way up to my position now, which is Account Executive,” she said.
Push the Envelope PR is based in Freehold, NJ and has helped brands grow through strategic PR and marketing campaigns since its start as an agency in 2006.
“We’re a full-service boutique agency, so we pretty much do everything that an agency in the city would do, just on a little bit of a smaller scale,” described Lunney. “It’s more intimate, there’s a lot less people in the office.”
Prior to working at Push The Envelope PR, Lunney worked at 5WPR in New York. She highlighted notable differences between her experiences at the two agencies, describing 5WPR as being “very corporate.”
“It’s work all-day, always be attached to your phone,” described Lunney. “It’s a lot of fun because there are a lot more events and I had some really cool clients. It was a great experience and very hands-on, but you’re working with 200 other people and it’s hard to stand out.”
“If you’re not super into the corporate life and don’t want to commute to the city every single day, then I would say a boutique agency is better for you,” she continued. “You get to shine your talents a little bit more.”
“PR is a very social industry. It’s a fun balance,” said Lunney, who went on to describe her involvement in a campaign with the New York Comedy Festival. “It was definitely a very hard campaign. It’s a beast of a client. From June to November, we were pushing for big name outlets and all of the New York local outlets to feature the various comedians. That was a lot of fun, but a lot of hard work. The reward at the end was top tier.”
However, Lunney also noted that PR is not all fun and games. “It’s not an easy industry,” she said.
Aside from being very time-demanding, PR can also be difficult to get involved in. Rejection is inevitable, but Lunney emphasized the importance of not getting discouraged.
As a former intern at Push The Envelope PR, she highlighted some of the ways in which the agency prepares its interns for a real-world career in PR.
“Our intern program is geared to prepare you for a career in PR and to show you where you can go with it,” she explained. “We like to throw our interns into the fire to show them what it would be like if they were to work for us. The goal is to show them that we support them and trust their judgment and their work.”
Lunney is the first of several speakers who will join PRSSA throughout the semester to participate in the club’s speaker series, which often features PR professionals who offer advice for students looking to pursue a career in the field of PR.
