Career Advice

Let’s face it: You don’t have to be running PR for Donald Trump to find yourself mired in the muck with a difficult client. This is a common situation for those in PR and communications and it causes a lot of stress and anxiety. So it’s important to know how best to deal with challenging clients, both to minimize the psychological impact on you and also ensure you deliver quality results for the client.

A candidate’s resume doesn’t tell the whole story. Emotional intelligence is not quantifiable on a CV but it has been identified as the number one quality you need in a new employee. So it’s important first to understand what EI is, and then use your interviewing skills to suss out clues. Here’s how.

Veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon assembles a checklist comprising the traits he thinks would make the perfect PR pro. The idea for this exercise is based on an assignment a brand executive gave him years ago, when he was with Burson-Marsteller. Despite the myriad changes in PR since that time, the traits he chose then don’t seem very different from those he says he’d pick today. They include a mix of media relations skills, integrity, and creative thinking.

It’s not all about eye contact or presence. Public speaking is like an expensive watch: There’s an almost incalculable amount of highly intricate machinery working behind the scenes to keep it running smoothly. The speaking—like telling time—looks effortless, but it takes many highly coordinated pieces to function. If you are representing your brand on stage, here’s how you make sure you’re doing it right.

With school beginning soon (yes, the summer has flown by), we turn to educators, most of whom are or were PR pros, to tell us what areas of the profession communications students need additional training in. Then we ask PR pros to give us their assessment of incoming PR candidates and their training needs.

Have you been enjoying a restful summer, lounging at the pool, a la “The Graduate,” replenishing your energy for the job search after securing a communications degree? Or are you in the trenches, navigating the water cooler and the ‘delights’ of a 7 a.m. commute at your first post-college gig? The great news is that you graduated—an accomplishment, for sure. But what’s next? And where do you start?

There is a proverb that says, “Failure is the mother of success.” And we, as business professionals, know this to be true. So why do we only discuss our triumphs? In this PRNEWS series, in partnership with the Institute for Public Relations, some of the most successful leaders in the industry will share the lessons they have learned from failure.

We rarely cover live events in this publication. PRNEWS senior content manager Sophie Maerowitz gave us a reason to make an exception. She attended a PRSA session featuring former Hearst executive Joanna Coles, who offered so many interesting tips and tactics that we had to share them with you. Here are some gems from the sharp yet blunt mind of Coles.

“How many of you have ever felt stuck at some point in your career?” That was how Joanna Coles began her talk at PRSA’s conference earlier today. As someone with an impressive and long-running career at the helm of some of the biggest media properties in the world, Coles has a deep well of wisdom to draw upon for PR pros. Women and men have parts to play in closing the gender gap in PR, she said.

We’ve all been there: You need to achieve terrific results but your client just doesn’t have a big budget. Can you reap a six-figure return on a four-figure investment, or less? If this is what you’re aiming for, here are five things you need to keep in mind.