IS PUBLIC RELATIONS THE RIGHT CAREER CHOICE FOR YOU?
Over the 25 years that I've been a public relations executive, many people from all walks of life have asked me about jobs. My physician asked, "can you get my wife a job in PR?—she's really good with people."— Others have said, "I'd really like to know more about what you do—it seems like so much fun."
Let me set the record straight. Public relations is a serious business which requires a lot more than people skills.
First and foremost, a public relations practitioner must know the fundamentals of writing. If grammar has ever been a challenge—it may be a good idea to reconsider your career path. Our word programs can certainly check our spelling, but keeping tenses intact and structuring a sentence correctly are skill sets that we all should have mastered in High School if not earlier.
If a person writes concisely, they generally think and speak clearly which are other imperative requirements for a publicist or communications specialist.
If you have passed the fundamental requirements, ask yourself these questions?
- Are you willing to work long hours including nights and weekends?
- Are you well organized?
- Do you work well with constant deadlines?
- Are you a proactive, self-starter?
- Can you multi-task?
- Can you work with difficult personalities, and not take it personally?
- Can you take the person on the other end of the phone hanging up on you?
If you have answered "yes" to each of the questions listed above, you may indeed be ready for a career in public relations. The rest of it will come naturally with practice and experience.
Many people do not realize that the bread and butter in public relations is how effectively an individual can communicate with the press. Without viable press contacts, an individual can never get past an entry level position in the public relations profession.
Press contacts can be developed easily in the right entry level position. For example, my first job in public relations was working as an assistant to the VP of public relations for WOR-TV, a local television station in New York City. (Today it is WWOR-TV, New Jersey's first VHF television station). It was my job to notify television listing editors of any program changes that were taking place in the station's schedule. In essence, the TV listings editors at the Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times, TV Guide, and Newsday needed me to keep them updated, so it was a great place for me to excel at this task. The bonus was that many of the editors in charge of TV listings were also the reporters who wrote stories about the television shows themselves. In fact, that is how I met my partner at my company today, BR Public Relations. Diane Blackman was the local editor for TV Guide, and I had to keep her abreast of all programming changes, and pitch her story ideas for close-ups which were small editorial features about WOR-TV's movies and specials.
Entry level jobs at PR firms, established magazines, newspapers, television, film and fashion provide fantastic opportunities for a newbie to build fantastic press contacts. Particularly today with business networking sites like Linked in, it is easy to build these contacts like a bank account.
Another imperative requirement for public relations practitioners is having the ability to think like a journalist and knowing how a newsroom operates.
The number one complaint that I hear from journalists about the PR novice is, "Did they ever actually read my column or watch my TV show? "For example, Stuart Elliot has been the advertising columnist for the New York Times for many years. His name and publication is on many "media contact lists" distributed at public relations firms and listed in media directories. An aggressive public relations novice will all too often pitch a story to Stuart about topics that don't have anything to do with the advertising business. It is a publicist's responsibility to know the outlet before they blindly pitch stories.
Similarly, a public relations practitioner must be aware of a reporter's deadline. It isn't a good idea to pitch a story idea to a newspaper reporter in the late afternoon when they have to get their story to their editors.
At Blackman Rakowitz Public Relations, we know the bookers, reporters and the producers who are affiliated with every major media outlet in the world today. It took Blackman Rakowitz public relations over 20 years of hard work, contact building and success stories to get to this point, and we love mentoring new public relations talent—if they have what it takes.