Communication students leaving university have never had so much opportunity as the current workplace.

This is generation that has grown up with the technology and the tools that so many businesses have yet to embrace. They already have many of the skills that agencies and communication teams are striving to build.

But there is more that the current generation of PR graduates could do to kickstart their PR careers. Developing and demonstrating your digital communication skills will improve your employment prospects and may even enable you to demand a higher starting salary than your less digital savvy counterparts.

This was my message to students on the International PR MA at the University of Cardiff. I ended my session yesterday with a three ideas for ways in which students could kickstart their careers.

Build personal online networks
Create a profile on LinkedIn and include details of your course and any work placements. Start to build a network with people on your course and contacts you make through work placements. Likewise Twitter. Build connections with future employers.

Generate content and conversations
Sunderland journalist student Josh Halliday’s SR2 hyperlocal blog is an extreme example of this strategy but no future employer is going to be left in any doubt of his skills. Demonstrate your expertise by contributing comment and content to hyper local blogs, forums and blogs.

Blog
There is ultimately no better way of demonstrating your ability to build networks and generate content than a blog. Ben Cotton’s is a great example. He started a blog in his final year at Leeds Metropolitan University and recently landed an award from the European Public Relations Education and Research Association – and a job in the digital team at Edelman.