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Name: Sabrina Friedman
Degree and Year: BJ '00 (News-Ed)
Company: Yahoo!
Company Web Site: http://www.yahoo.com/
Title: Public Relations Manager
City and State: Sunnyvale, Calif.

What do you do? And what is most interesting about it?
I'm a public relations manager for Yahoo! Inc, handling media communications for Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Health. The most interesting part is that on any given day, my priorities can shift dramatically and thus I never have two work days that are the same. This allows me to thrive in an energetic, hectic and ever-changing environment - and it's definitely forced me to master time management.

How did you get your job?
I worked on many areas of the Yahoo! account while an account executive at Fleishman-Hillard International Communications. My boss left FH and ended up at Yahoo! She hired me a year later as the PR manager for Yahoo! Finance after I left FH.

Best professional lesson learned at the J-School?
That words are powerful...and thus make sure everything you write is accurate, because people believe the media.

What would be your best advice to current students?
Know that learning exists outside the classroom as well as within it. Internships, outside jobs, freelancing, absorbing a mentor's knowledge...whatever you can do to further yourself and gain experience, do it. Each experience you have, in and of itself, is invaluable - and all the more so in the "real world."

What are you working on currently?
At the moment, I'm preparing for a long-lead consumer media tour, taking place next week in New York, for Yahoo! Health. This requires research to create custom pitches for each publication, reviewing months of healthcare-related content from each publication to best align ourselves with their brand, scheduling appointments with key reporters and editors, and traveling upwards of 3,000 miles to complete close to 30 appointments in four days.

What are your next career steps?
This I have not yet decided, as it's taking everything I have right now to focus on my current job and plan my wedding at the same time. I'm actually enjoying public relations a great deal, but I do freelance on the side to keep my inner journalist happy. I would love to direct corporate communications for a Fortune 500 company at some point, but that would be much further down the career path.

What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement?
My greatest professional achievement was probably having the courage to leave my first job out of school. Sounds a little odd, but after nearly three years in one place I realized that I could only "spread my wings" elsewhere and that was a scary thing to do! That said, I think my entire career at Yahoo! could be summed up as my "greatest professional achievement." Public relations is an incredibly challenging field, and yet I am nothing but proud of the work I've done here.

What is your secret to success?
Wireless e-mail access and never letting a phone call or e-mail go more than 24 hours without responding.


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