When ever I interview a new graduate I am always interested to hear what they actually think PR is? More often than not, they are very confident about what they think the role is, but the successful candidates almost always tell me a few months later how surprised they are by what the job actually entails. I read a piece today in The Independent which rang true with what I have heard in interviews.
I think what Meriel Pritchard, deputy head of social and communication studies at the University of Chester, has to say touches upon the importance of PR in the real world but doesn’t actually explain the realities.
The reality is that most the 48,000 people working in PR don’t work for Britney Spears and to be honest don’t actually want to either. When ever people ask me why I do high tech PR I honestly and truthfully answer that I love the variety and the fact that our industry is always changing. The latest piece of technology that I help launch this week will be old news in a months time. Can the same be said so vigorously in other industries?
According to Meriel “You could be running a major charity event, managing a crisis, entertaining the media at a lunch or developing new branding and corporate identity – all during the course of one day!”. Interesting. I would hazard a guess that if you did all of that in one day the end result would be rubbish – running a major event, managing a crisis, lunch briefing and developing a corporate brand in one day. I am obviously far too lazy or need to get my hands on one of Meriel’s time machines.
This was closely followed by what I have to say was my favourite line from the article: “PR practitioners work closely with journalists”. Blimey now you tell me. Rather predictably, Meriel also managed to sneak into the article: “PR means working hard but also playing hard”. Reading that, it is not surprising that so many grads/outsiders believe PR is one great big jolly.
The reason I felt I had to blog about this is because we all work damn hard to achieve our goals in this industry and although I don’t want to put grads off about the realities of PR I also think they should be realistic about what the job actually is. At Berkeley PR we ask graduates coming in to do a few days’ work experience as part of the interview process aimed at finding new account executives to join our business. As my colleague Jo Jamieson explains it’s a great way to see whether they have the right attitude, attributes and passion for the job and – more importantly – a good way for the candidates to work out whether we’re the right company to help them start their career in technology PR.
I agree with this process, as it ensures employees come into the industry with their eyes wide open rather than thinking they are Patsy.
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