Comms career advice from a guy who’s stumbled his way to moderate success, I guess
I’m a big fan of dishing out unsolicited advice. It’s the prerogative of the lesser-known writer, I suppose. Open letters. Unsolicited advice columns. Blog posts that nobody will read. That, my friends, is my proverbial jam.
But then every once in awhile, someone will come along and actually ask what I think about something. Blind squirrels finding nuts and all that. And, for me at least, this has often come in the form of career advice — a fact that still astonishes me because I still don’t entirely feel like a grown up (though I’m wearing a sweater vest and blazer as I write this so I guess maybe…).
Such was the case this weekend, when a Carleton communications student asked me, over Twitter, if I had any advice for the cohort of commsfolk graduating this spring (she’s clearly never taken a class with me because obviously I have advice, I’m a white dude that makes his living, in part, on the internet).
I’ve given this spiel a few times in a few different forms over the years but I’ve been thinking about it in a new way in recent months, mostly because I’m teaching a fourth-year seminar this semester and also because shitty communications practices helped elect a fascist in the US recently.
I was just starting fourth year myself on September 11, 2001, and I vividly remember my political reporting prof walking in for our first class (on September 13), shrugging his shoulders and saying “well I am pretty sure the world of politics just fundamentally changed so I don’t know what I can teach you.”
The world of communications has fundamentally changed too. Not that I’m necessarily comparing the Trump election to a massive terrorist attack but the parallels, especially in terms of what’s acceptable in public discourse and the tenor of much of the prevailing debate, are striking.
And so, after far too much preamble, some thoughts on what it will take to have a career in communications in the wake of 11/08.
It’s easy to compromise your integrity. Don’t.
Commsfolk love to joke about the fine art of spin. We laugh about journalists “joining the dark side” when they flip to a comms or PR role. The public has a loose understanding of what it is we do and inherent in that perceived understanding is the idea that we play fast and loose with the truth.
We really need to change that perception.
Look, before he was a caricature of a hack, working himself into a frothy lather and yelling at reporters for a living, Sean Spicer was a reasonably-well-respected Republican Party communications strategist. He spoke out against Donald Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants and his attempts to smear John McCain. Kellyanne Conway worked for Ted Cruz — she too was critical of candidate Donald Trump.
But the moral high ground disappears fast when the White House comes calling, apparently.
At the end of the day, all we have is our integrity. At some point in your career you’re likely to be asked to help stake a position you’re not comfortable with. And the world isn’t always as black and white as it seems to be when it comes to shilling against and then for Donald Trump. But if we really want people to respect communications professionals and put stock in what we say, we need to, at bare minimum, at least be able to justify our work to ourselves.
Speak up for your profession
In my day job I work with lawyers and we represent accountants. And while those professions have their own perception problems, the one thing they do have that I am often jealous of is self-regulation. If a lawyer spots a lawyer breaking their profession’s established code of ethics, they can file a complaint to the law society. If an accountant thinks another accountant is being deceitful, they can ask their chartered institute to investigate.
Comms is not that kind of profession. We don’t have an arbiter of all things appropriate and ethical.
What we do have, though, is the ability to write, speak and otherwise get our message out. So when we see people who haven’t taken my first bit of advice, we can call them out on it.
Shitty communications practices have gotten us where we are. That’s my generation’s bad. Call it complacency, call it complicity, whatever. Those of us who believe comms can be meritorious and principled let our collective guard down and fake news hucksters have won the day.
We all have to fight to get our profession back. You didn’t start the fire but we need your help to put it out. Sorry.
And one less dire piece of advice…
Finally, on the off chance my dystopian take on the state of the industry hasn’t sent you screaming to the exits (or, you know, grad school), here’s the one piece of advice that you can actually implement without having to overthrow an industry:
Be interesting.
Have hobbies. Do things outside of work. Indulge your passions. And while this sounds like high school guidance counselor pablum, there’s a reason for it.
In comms you’re never telling your own story, you’re telling someone else’s. To do that well, the person you’re writing for has to trust you. You need to make them comfortable. And being a well-rounded person with life experiences and interests outside of work helps immeasurably.
Put more cynically, you need to cultivate empathy and relatability. The best way to do that? Meet a lot of people. Have a lot of stories to tell. Be interesting.
Albert Einstein famously said “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” This, of course, is bullshit. Dude knew his math. But the sentiment has merit.
