Considering a Career In Public Relations?

If you’re interested in starting a public relations career here are 3 fundamental skills you should know!

Communication Skills
You must be an excellent communicator. This one may be obvious, but do not underestimate how much of your day will be spent talking to people or writing emails organizing events, meetings, and other social and professional gatherings.

A lighthearted example of ways you will interact with people is something that I recently worked on during the holiday season, a company Holiday party. In a PR role, you may be responsible for organizing and booking a venue for your company’s holiday party, as well, as the event activities. That’s always fun, but it requires a lot of planning and communication.

Excellent verbal and written communication skills are very important in a PR role.

Social Media Savvy

Most companies these days have a social media presence, and if your company does not, as a PR professional it is your duty to get them to jump on and form those online relationships! Expect to spend 10–25% of your time posting, updating, and creating content for your social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and depending on your line of work, perhaps Instagram and YouTube. Make sure to follow other pages matching your companies profile who are crushing their social media presence for content ideas and ways you can improve your following.

PR Professionals must strive to build positive relationships.

Positive Relationships

As the job title suggests, Public Relations is about building relationships, fostering current ones, and creating new ones. Your job is to be a walking advertisement for your employer, building new connections and connecting others. Building relationships, especially with your coworkers, can go a long way, not only will it improve work productivity but it can also help you decrease your workload. Want to know how? Let’s say one of your monthly responsibilities involves writing a company newsletter. Content will be your best friend, but you can’t do it alone, so you send HR and email “Hey can you give me a list of employees celebrating their 10th anniversary with the company this year” and you send another one to a client or business partner along the lines of “Hey can you send me a brief paragraph summarizing the benefits of our business relationships.”

Now, sure if you have a decent relationship you can still send out those emails, but we all know getting people to respond to emails is like pulling teeth, but a great relationship with those individuals will ensure that you get a response and ultimately some of the content you need for your newsletter. Workload reduced, CHECK!

Lastly, let me briefly address some misconceptions.

Misconceptions

You do not need to be an extrovert to hold a PR position. Although it helps introverts can add their own strengths to the job like….

Although a degree in communications can help, it is NOT the end all be all to help you land a position in this field.

A career in Public Relations can be very rewarding, and in my experience, it can open up the door to many other career opportunities whenever you’re ready for the next step!