What Everybody Ought to Know About a PR Career

When I was choosing a PR career I thought of myself as the next Olivia Pope of the corporate world. You know this astonishing professional with high self-esteem, deep knowledge, and understanding of the field and most importantly ability to make a great influence on the outcome on whatever your company is doing.

Well, Expectations vs. Reality differ greatly for most professionals in this field. Some of us in the pursuit of new experience joint PR agencies and ̶d̶i̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶n̶g̶ ̶ and carry on with some crazy amount of non-stop work assignments. Others ̶s̶u̶r̶v̶i̶v̶e̶ get settled at a corporate firm (lucky if it’s an international business), taking care of countless press-releases and press statements, doing some marketing work (or what used to be considered as marketing like 10 years ago, when I was choosing my profession).

So, for those who are choosing this career path or for those who are already in this boat I would like to share my six thoughts on what corporate PR career is like and what you should expect when you ̶j̶u̶m̶p̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶r̶u̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶a̶r̶k̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶t̶o̶m̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶p̶i̶t̶ ̶join the field.

1. It’s one of the most stressful jobs.

I 100% agree with this statement. It’s extremely stressful and if you don’t like risking it all or can’t work under pressure it’s not for you. The Career Cast made a study to find out what are the most stressful jobs in the US. Guess what the top ten jobs on the list included Public Relations Executive, News reporter, Event coordinator, Broadcaster. And if you think that the latter 3 doesn’t concern you, then you are wrong. In PR you will be creating news for the reporters (which is even more stressful), you’ll be coordinating countless events. Okay, you probably won’t be broadcasting, but you might be close to it. If there’s a crisis or an emergency, you’ll have to prepare your Speaker to appear in front of the cameras.

My experience reminds me that PR specialists should always be ready. First, you have to know your job well, second, you have to know your business well enough, even if you’re selling gas turbines. You should be able to explain in simple terms why your gas turbines are so much better than the ones of your competitor. That’s tough.

I remember when I worked on challenging projects I held myself together, but once the week was over or the project ended I would cry my tears out (that’s just my way of coping with stress). At important events, you can’t eat, because it’s just too much for you. And the worst part is that everyone is approaching you when something goes wrong. Even if you have a team the eyes are on you and it’s your responsibility to fix the problem.

2. Highly unlikely that you’ll ever make it to the CEO.

In 2018 LinkedIn published a study on What It Takes to Become a CEO. The study where 12 000 CEO profiles were reviewed showed that PR was not even close to the top 9 in the most popular fields of study for CEOs neither did it make it to the 9 most common first job functions of CEOs. That said, it’s pretty rare to meet a PR guy who made it to the CEO position. Today we see more often how people with Marketing background become CEOs. There’s a reason behind it, Marketing is now all about strategy and data. And as we know data is the new oil for the XXI century. Which brings us to my next point.

3. PR is merging with Marketing.

Just a quick example, the business has a goal to get 100 people to try a new product. One of the ways to reach the target audience is to publish an article on business-related media to catch the reader’s attention and motivate him to click “the call to action” link in your article. The link brings him to the landing page where he registers for the free trial. Your task as a PR specialist is to identify the media where your target audience is hanging out and get them to read your perfectly written content. The rest you’d say belongs to the Marketing team. But that’s not 100% true. You as a team are responsible for the ultimate goal — to get 100 target audience registered for the free trial. You form a team with Marketing and do the project together.

Now, this was just a small example. You often hear about an integrated approach to communication and marketing, where you have to involve a 360-degree communication story to reach the audience. And PR can’t exist without Marketing and vice versa.

4. Other business functions will always doubt you.

No matter how nice people in your company are, they will always doubt PR’s ability to make an impact. It’s completely normal. This is the case because PR can’t show the same results as sales for instance. You can never say that a PR conference generated interest in the company’s products and it led to sales… Because unless you can physically prove that your customer approached your landing page at or right after the conference and then made a purchase it’s just your wild guess. You assume this happened thanks to the press conference. But it’s just an assumption. So, you will have to fight for your budget and prove you’re worthy.

5. 70–80% of your work is going to be digital.

Welcome to the digital world. Yes, there’s no way back, we entered the Digital Age. It means that most of your PR activities will take place online. And you will have to have the understanding and skills to work with digital tools. Moreover, everything you publish will instantly be available online and open for feedback. This is especially important to understand when dealing with crises. Information about the company’s failure will get viral and guess who will be cleaning up this mess?

6. Every statement you make can be used against you.

Speaking about viral, your social network accounts will no longer be your voice. Some of the PR specialists have already learned the hard truth by getting fired. Most of the corporate world provides special guidance for employees on how to behave online. But for a PR function, it’s even more strict. You probably understand why — you’re the next person the journalists would go to when they need information. Most of them will become your followers or at least will be able to easily find your social network accounts.

I’m pretty sure the list doesn’t sound that appealing. However, there’s a lot of amazing things you could do in PR. I’ll happily share my thoughts and tips on how to ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ ̶g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶ find yourself in the PR job.

Follow me here on Medium. And you won’t miss my next story on how I ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶j̶o̶b̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ got into a PR agency after 8 years of corporate work and found out that I was a bad writer.