WORKING IN PR

Public relations (PR) is one of the fastest-paced work environments. It focuses on managing the reputations of products, brands, or people through media relations. As an industry, PR is multi-dimensional, especially today, where social proof is often everything. We’ve put together some information about the industry and what it’s like to work in.

What is PR?

Roles differ a LOT in PR! This is because many employers and agencies will define PR differently. The golden rule is to carefully review job descriptions to gauge whether a role aligns with your interests and talents. To get you started, here’s a helpful way to expand your understanding of PR. As we’ve noted, PR is about managing and protecting reputation across multiple media. There are three main media types: owned, earned, and paid.

Owned media: These are the marketing assets you own, such as a firm’s own website or self-published magazine.

Paid media: Where exposure is paid for, very often online via a fee per click or set of eyeballs reached! Offline media, such as print adverts or billboards, are also paid media.

Earned media: More often than not, this is positive online or offline exposure gained through PR.

Influencers play a significant role in today’s PR and feature in the strategies of most firms. Influencers may be paid, or recruited through an incentive, or work with you just because you’ve given them something great to talk about.

You can see how the lines between paid and earned may be blurred. As long as you understand this, you will have a grasp of the right questions to ask at an interview for a PR job.

If you are proactive, PR is a great field to get into. Being reactive is occasionally necessary, though, too, especially in a crisis. Some professionals specialise in crisis PR management.

A career in PR

Today, a PR (confusingly, PR is used as a job title, as in public relations specialist) could start a career in an entry-level job as an executive or assistant. Tasks may include drafting content, managing the media and influencers, and monitoring results. Digital tasks are increasingly integrated into PR roles. You could be creating and scheduling content, ‘social listening’, and writing speeches or organising events.

Elsewhere, some PRs will be entirely digital-focused, working on SEO-driven PR. Responsibilities include building backlinks and monitoring critical social media algorithms. How the work gets carved up will be entirely governed by the team structure in any organisation. The size of an employer will have a bearing; in a small business, you alone could be the sum total of the marketing and PR department!

Depending on the budgets and structure, you may work closely with copywriters, videographers, or content creators. There may or may not be supplier agencies in place to support you. If not, expect to be getting stuck into some, if not all, of these tasks yourself.

And be prepared, when there’s nobody else to take on a task, it will often land on your desk. Any PR will tell you this can feel like you need the skills of a magician! Here are some typical tasks requiring supernatural skills or at the very least, friends in high places:

• The preparation of an award entry that has a closing date just a few days away and needs to include important statistics, which you need to research and fact-check.
• Sourcing a venue for a last-minute event and securing high-profile guests
• Producing some critical urgent communications for stakeholders, but you’ve only been given vague background information  

You get the picture!

In-house vs agency

A job and future career in PR can look different depending on whether you’re working in an agency environment or in an in-house role. Agencies are fast-paced, helping you gain skills quickly across several different client accounts. An in-house position offers a deeper, more long-term understanding of a single organisation, its culture, reputation, and PR strategy. You could become an expert in a niche.

Either path can be pressured, but it can also be a gateway to a long and rewarding career. If your head is spinning with all this, it’s a reminder that no two PR jobs are the same.

Would you make a good PR?

We’ve said no two roles are the same, no two days are either. If you’re good at spinning plates, managing up, down and sideways, whilst turning on the charm, then PR is an outlet for your talents.

To succeed, you’ll almost certainly possess digital literacy and an excellent command of the English language: spelling, punctuation and grammar, which will help set you apart. Employers today are seeking a hybrid of tech and creative skills; the job often requires storytelling talent.

Boredom is not one of the downsides of PR; however, you’ll need to be resilient and manage stress effectively.

The high life of PR

In the 90s TV series Absolutely Fabulous, the stereotypical PR was having long boozy lunches with clients and doing very little work! Of course, that’s a caricature and was not true in most cases. But many PR roles have a strong social aspect, and you can expect to attend out-of-hours business and work-related social events, often high-profile ones.

PR and AI

Misinformation can spread like wildfire online. The role of a PR involves being a guardian of accuracy and integrity. An eye for detail is essential when assessing facts and risks before commissioning, producing, or publishing content. With the rapid growth of AI-generated content comes an additional layer of responsibility. Using AI tools and monitoring AI-generated content are fast-developing areas in PR. They are ones to watch, as they will shape the industry’s own future reputation.

Getting started

This really has been a crash course in PR. Remember, there are no hard-and-fast rules. Here are some good places to start if you want to explore PR careers further

• The Chartered Institute of PR is a PR industry body with loads of information and runs training courses too.
• Degrees, apprenticeships, college courses, or Digital Skills Bootcamps are all ways to get started. 
• To begin a job search, you can filter local vacancies by ‘PR, Advertising and Marketing’ via ‘View Job Vacancies’ on the LCR BeMore Careers Portal