E-PRSSA held their annual meeting with the guest speaker Kristina Millman-Rinaldi. During the session, Rinaldi was able to connect with her audience by telling her life behind the scenes working with Detroit Dog Rescue (DDR) and how to make one-on-one connections within your field of profession. Rinaldi is the executive director of DDR, as well as a mom and a wife. Throughout her time in the public relations field, she was able to create her own lane of success. But the road to success had many different lanes that lead to her life today.
"Your life is your resume," she said to EMU students.
After a childhood in and out of foster care, Rinaldi attended EMU 20 years ago. However, due to personal difficulties, she eventually dropped out of college. Taking a step back from academic life, Rinaldi began her life journey by traveling back and forth from Michigan to Chicago.
While being in Chicago, Rinaldi was able to connect with Interscope Records and work with music artist like Detroit native Eminem and Snoop Dogg by help promoting their music and venues.
As time went on and Rinaldi was able to push her way up the ladder of success, she began to work with different types of people in media fields like John Roach, Director of Media Relations at City of Detroit.
Rinaldi thinks that social media helps with maintaining a mutual relationship, “but face to face connection is one of the best ways.”
Throughout the session with Rinaldi, she was able to give EMU students a chance to understand the truth behind the word networking. She advised how to reach out to different people in your career through social media platforms.
“Many college students don’t release their chance of networking in right in front them. Get to know your peers and even outside of your major. Because one day, you will find yourself befriending different types of people,” said Rinaldi.
She went on to explain that people find social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) playing a huge part in everyday life, whether it is connecting with friends, different people across the world and even celebrities. Social media has a huge hand for college students looking for new opportunities. Rinaldi made sure students understand that social media platforms are their secret weapon to success saying, “You guys don’t know how lucky you are for having social media at a time like this. Your phone is major part in networking.”
“Investing in your technology means investing in yourself,” she explained. Overall, Rinaldi was able to connect to EMU Students on campus by breaking down the tools for success.
