Career Advice

In a perfect world, your summer vacation would begin the moment you set your inbox’s “out of office” message and leave your desk. As most professional communicators know, though, PR is far from a perfect world. Crises materialize that require your advice or input, while requests come down from the C-suite that you would be wise to address in a time-sensitive fashion.

if you’re applying for a PR job and get called in to meet face-to-face with potential employers, it’s to your benefit to assume that you’re up against a lot of stiff competition. Armed with that assumption, you can take simple steps that are guaranteed to make you stand out from the crowd.

We asked PRSA chief Anthony D’Angelo to provide his vision about what PR should be doing to boost its image as an ethical profession. This column is his response.

A career in PR can be many things. Usually one thing it is not is the glamorous, party-hopping profession portrayed in movies, television and novels. Sometimes PR pros are asked to represent brands whose positions on social and political issues they abhor. In other cases they’re asked to lie to protect the brand they represent. Veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon offers three questions aspiring PR pros should ponder before making their career choice.

As we enter the final days of the final week of 2017—a time when you or everyone around you is on vacation—this is the perfect time to adopt some processes so you can hit the ground running next week. And so here are 9 tips that will help you attack 2018 with renewed vigor. The best part is that they take very little time and the payoff can be large in terms of productivity and networking. In short, they’re a way to identify what you can prune so that you’ll have more time for issues that matter.

The modern workplace is changing rapidly, and PR agencies and communications leaders at brands and nonprofit organizations must adapt to provide the best benefits and opportunities to attract and retain the best talent. On Nov. 29, PR News celebrated those organizations that have gone beyond mere adaptation at its 2017 Top Places to Work in PR dinner at the Edison Ballroom in New York. Workplace culture and the recognition that employees are people first, and PR pros second, ruled the evening.

If you’ve just started working in PR no doubt you’ve learned that the life of a PR pro means juggling a lot of tasks and skills. Perhaps you’re overwhelmed. Worry not. Veteran communicator Andrew Blum has tips and tactics to help as you get acclimated to professional life. And while it’s unlikely your first job in PR is glamorous, it can be a steppingstone to the rest of your career.

PR pros move between corporate and agency roles regularly. Although there are a set of common skills that you must bring to both corporate and agency environments, there are some key differences. Srikant Ramaswami, who has worked in corporate and agency settings, shares his wisdom for success in transitioning from the brand side to an agency. He also shares tips for new grads on how to choose between working in-house or at an agency.

If you’re knee-deep in an all-consuming career, you probably don’t take much time out to ask yourself how and why you got there. A little navel-gazing can go a long way, though. Paychecks aside, asking yourself why you’re in a particular line of work can put you back in touch with your original inspiration, your core ambitions and your native talents.

Many job interviews end with the interviewer asking the candidate if he/she has questions. It’s best to use this opportunity to obtain important information. Topics to inquire about include the company’s culture, its salary/promotion review process and the structure of its work environment. After all, this is the time to figure out if the company is the right fit for you. On the other side of the table the interviewer is deciding if you will be a good employee.