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Tips for Starting a Career in Public Relations

Interested in a career in public relations? Public relations (PR) professionals try to gain publicity for their clients (if they work at a PR firm) or for their organization (if they work in a corporate communications department with a particular organization).

What’s It All About?

Instead of paying for ads like advertising professionals, Public Relations pros try to draw media attention to their clients hoping that print, online and / or broadcast journalists will decide that there is a story worth covering through their paper, magazine, website or TV/radio program.

Public relations staffers get the job done with tasks like writing press releases, connecting key players at their client organization to the press for interviews, arranging press conferences and other events, composing web copy and creating newsletters.

PR pros must have strong writing, verbal and presentation skills; be well organized, detail oriented; be assertive and comfortable reaching out to others. Having a solid aptitude for marketing can also be very helpful.

Tips for Starting a Career in Public Relations

College students can prepare for entry into the public relations field by doing some or all of the following:

Consider writing intensive majors such as English, Journalism, Communications or Marketing.

Develop and promote a blog on a topic of interest.

Develop and document your writing / communication credentials by working for campus newspapers, magazines and TV stations.

Work as a public relations coordinator for campus organizations.

Land a student job in offices where the college is promoted or events are organized like the college’s media relations / communications department,

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sports information office, admissions, events or alumni affairs offices.

Pursue positions with student clubs where you can organize concerts, speakers, fashion shows and other events.

Conduct informational interviews with PR professionals through alumni / family contacts and professionals in your home area.

Ask professionals if you can job shadow them during school breaks.

Complete internships with PR firms, communication departments, media outlets and / or marketing firms. Contact small local firms near your school or home through local chambers of commerce as well as targeting big name firms.

Join the Public Relations Student Society of America to learn more about the field, identify mentors and internships as well as to demonstrate your professional interest.

Consider starting your career with a paid post-graduate internship.

By preparing in these ways you’ll distinguish yourself from the competition and lay the foundation for a rewarding career in public relations.

By Mike Profita (https://www.thebalance.com/tips-for-starting- a-career-in-public-relations-2059877)

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15 Top Tips for a Successful PR Career

One of the things I enjoy most nowadays is having the opportunity to speak to the future leaders of the PR profession when they’re starting out. One of the questions I often get asked is “what tips would you offer to get ahead in this field?”

Now that spring has sprung (at least, it’s trying to) and students are turning their minds to life after school, I thought it might be timely to offer some of that advice up here.

Here are 15 top tips for success in a public relations career. Funnily enough, I’d give the same advice to someone 10 years into their career, like me, too:

1. Be a sponge

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it made the PR pro. Whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been in the business for years, it’s incumbent upon you to constantly learn in order to stay on top of our industry. Never stop being curious.

2. Stay on top of the news

Make time to stay on top of current events. Read a newspaper (online or offline). Set up news alerts for your company and/or your clients. Listen to the radio or to podcasts about industry news. Watch the news in the morning. Whatever approach you choose, it will make you more interesting and it will make you better at your job. Consider it an investment.

3. Focus on details

Nothing hurts the credibility of a pitch, a proposal or a program like sloppy mistakes. Meanwhile, people who become known for outrageous attention to detail become go-to people in a team. Be that person. Read and reread your work. Be your own devil’s advocate in order to think things

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through and make sure you’ve covered all of the angles. Double-check your calculations. Question your assumptions.

4. Learn to juggle

This one applies especially to agency folks, but it goes across the board. Learn how to prioritize, how to focus when you need to and how to manage your time. Life in PR is a juggling act, and you need to know how to manage your workload and the expectations of your clients – however you define them.

5. Learn to write

Take the time to learn how to write well. Practice. Learn from others. Take a course if you need to (I recommend the eight-step editing course by the Editors’ Association of Canada, but there are many others).

Critically for many new graduates, you may need to unlearn what your professors taught you in university. Short paragraphs, short sentences and clear language help you to convey your point much more easily than the reverse.

Oh, and if you could put “by zombies” at the end of a phrase, it’s passive. Make it active.

6. Embrace numbers

Measurement has been a weak point in the PR profession for a long time. Nowadays, companies demand more. This is especially the case for social and paid media programs. The days of output-focused measurement are numbered, and outcome-focused measurement is on the rise. You don’t need to be an expert in dissecting website traffic (especially if you have a measurement team supporting you), but you should know the basics and know how to coach clients and people within your organization on how to approach measurement effectively.

7. Measure through the lifecycle

Measure throughout the program lifecycle.

Measurement is so much more than reporting, and companies are

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demanding more from PR measurement nowadays. Know how to take full advantage of the potential that measurement holds throughout a program:

Inform your objectives (setting realistic goals, fueled by insights from past programs)

Fuel your planning (again, with insights from past work)

Identify and help to address issues mid-flight

Measure results and generate new insights to fuel future work

8. Provide solutions

Tough challenges are a fact of life in the PR industry, where the role of communications is often to help to change behaviour or perception. That’s difficult. Few things will endear you to your boss more than this: become the person who comes forward with solutions alongside their problems. It doesn’t have to be the solution they choose (that helps, though), but the fact that you’re thinking it through and considering solutions demonstrates the kind of mindset that managers adore.

9. Learn to stay level-headed

PR pros have to deal with difficult situations come up all the time, many of which can’t be predicted. These are moments where you can distinguish yourself and improve your reputation, or the reverse. Be the person who doesn’t lose their head. Stay calm and focus on solutions (per the earlier point). Remember: frantic doesn’t mean effective.

10. Know what you don’t know

Self-awareness is a valuable trait, regardless of where you are in your career. Be humble enough to know when you’re out of your depth, and to learn from those who have experience in areas you don’t. Whatever you do, make sure that when you find yourself in that situation you don’t sit, paralyzed, until it’s too late for anyone to help you.

Bonus points for thinking things through ahead of time and coming prepared with a suggestion: “I’m not sure of the best approach here… here’s what I’m thinking… what do you think?”

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11. Learn the difference between objectives, strategy and tactics

Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing people confuse objectives, strategy and tactics with each other.

Simply put:

Objectives are what you need to accomplish. They should relate to business goals.

Strategies are how you plan to accomplish them. They should drive toward the objectives.

Tactics are the actions you take. They should funnel up to the strategy. Learn it. Preach it.

12. Become a trusted advisor

Whether you’re dealing with executives in your company, or with clients at other firms, strive to become a trusted advisor to them. Go beyond what you “have” to do and become a partner. Flag opportunities and threats. Offer strategic opinions. Learn to empathize with them. Have difficult conversations when you need to. Push them to take the right approach (but know when to accept their decision).

Don’t just take orders.

13. Learn from your mistakes

Accept that you’ll make mistakes. We all make them, and they’re a key piece of how we learn and improve. If you don’t make mistakes then you’re not trying hard enough or not trying enough things. The key is to make them at the right time, in the right setting, and to learn from them. Conversely, people who constantly shirk responsibility for mistakes, or make excuses, will never learn.

Some of my most valuable lessons, and most beneficial experiences, have come from making mistakes. They weren’t pleasant at the time, but I learned from them and I’m better for it. What’s important is owning them and figuring out what to do differently next time.

14. Think outside your bubble

It’s easy to get caught-up in your day-to-day routine. Instead, look around

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and proactively identify ways to expand your expertise. That could be by finding new ways to get better at tasks, or by getting involved in a project that stretches you, or by learning more about a relevant field.

15. Understand converged media

This point began life as “understand social media” but nowadays it’s broader than that. Start with understanding social media – monitor and participate in relevant conversations; think about how your programs might play out in social channels and so on. Social is just the beginning now, though. The key nowadays is understanding how earned, owned and paid media play together. You don’t need to be an expert in all of them, but you do need to understand how to leverage them.

There you have it – 15 tips for success in PR. What would you add to the

list?

By Dave Fleet (http://davefleet.com/blog/2013/04/15/ 15-top-tips-successful-pr-career/)

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Five Tips for Landing a Job at a Public Relations Agency

Searching for a job is hard. Searching for the right job can seem impossible. From figuring out where to apply to waiting for the hiring manager to email you back, the job application process can be overwhelming. Having just gone through it myself, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to get your foot in the door and finally land the PR job of your dreams. Throughout my application and interview process, people were eager to give me advice and tips on how to land a job. Here are the five tips that I found the most useful in securing my first job out of school.

1.There are over 22,000 public relations firms in the United States. Don’t apply to all of them.

Whether it is the city you want to be in, the type of clients you want to represent, or the size of the organization you want to work for, having some criteria will help you narrow your search and find the PR agency that is right for you. If you are passionate about tech, look for agencies that specialize in tech public relations. Your passion and knowledge of a certain niche market will shine through on the application and during the interview; hiring managers will take notice! Most importantly, don’t pretend to be passionate about something you aren’t; the hiring manager will be able to tell and you won’t be happy if you did get/accept the position.

2.Your cover letter and resume are your first impressions with a company, so make them good.

Proofread. Proofread again. Send it to your mom and have her proofread it and then forward it on to your old English teacher if you have to. Just make sure your cover letter and resume are free of any grammatical or spelling errors. The foundation of public relations is built on how well you can write and

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communicate. Your cover letter and resume are the first writing examples any company you apply to is going to see. If there are glaring (or even minor for that matter), grammatical errors, it will be hard to get your foot in the door after that.

Also, make sure your cover letter and resume are tailored to the agency you are applying to. If you are applying to more than one PR agency (which you probably are), don’t just have a standard, canned letter; personalize it for the position and company you are sending it to. And most importantly, send the right agency the right cover letter. Nothing is going to get you sent to the trash bin faster than sending an agency the wrong cover letter.

3. Don’t sit and hope to get a response; be proactive and reach out to the hiring manager.

So you sent your application, now what? Obviously, any company is going to need time to go through all the applications they receive, but that doesn’t mean you should be waiting around for them to email you. Make sure you are sending a personalized follow-up email expressing your interest in the position you applied to. This is an excellent opportunity to include more information about yourself and your past work. Send writing samples or anything that showcases your abilities in public relations or that is relevant to the position. This will give the hiring manager a better idea of what you are capable of and if you are right fit for the organization.

Don’t limit yourself to just an email follow-up. If your emails are going unanswered, you might want to reach out to someone from the company directly and ask for advice on how to make your application stand out from the others who have applied for the position. Your initiative will show how much you want to work there. That being said, know the difference between being proactive and over the top. If the hiring manager isn’t responding after your initial follow-ups, know that they might not be looking to fill that position right away or have decided to go in a different direction.

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4.So, you landed an interview. Congrats! Now make sure you know what you are talking about.

If the job search process was like school, submitting your application would be like signing up for the class and the interview would be the exam you have to ace to get the “A.” Just like any test, you are only going to do as well as you prepare. Do as much research on the company you are interviewing with as possible. Who are their clients? What are their specialties? Have they been in the news lately? The more you know about the company the better you will be able to answer questions about what you bring to the agency. If you can highlight what exactly you can bring to a specific client, your interviewer will take notice. To take from JFK: “don’t ask what your job can do for you, ask what you can do for your job.” If you are focusing on how the position you are interviewing for can advance your career, hiring managers might see this as a little too self-serving. Instead highlight what value you can add to the company and why you are the right fit.

Don’t forget that the interview is not only an opportunity for the hiring manager to get to know you, it’s also your chance to get to know the company better. Asking questions about the culture, specific clients and future growth of the agency will give you a better grasp on if the company is the right for you, not just if you’re the right fit for the company.

5.Thank you notes aren’t just for thank you. Leverage them to make a lasting impression.

Thank you notes are a conventional nicety of the business world. However, in the interview process, they can be used for more than just thanking your interviewer for taking the time to meet with you. The thank you note can be your opportunity to share anything you didn’t get the chance to elaborate on or forgot to share in the interview. Whether it’s how your experience doing X will help you excel at Y or an added writing sample, use the thank you note to leave one last impression on the hiring manager.

Timing is also a huge factor of the thank you note. In addition to showcasing any additional facts about why you would be the best hire, it is also

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