How to land a job in PR that Matters

In today’s evolving Public Relations industry, PR alone is simply not enough. In the hunt for potential employees, I find it a constant struggle to identify people with the right mindset. Sifting through candidates, I am always gripped with the same internal debate: Will I be able to change the way this traditional PR person thinks, or is it better to start from scratch with someone at the entry-level?

I firmly believe that within any company, especially those companies that are service-oriented, the hiring process is the most important job. Be that as it may, finding the right individuals to hire is still not an easy task. I do confess to having made hiring mistakes over the years, including recently.

I often ask myself why that is.

On paper, it seems so simple. I look at a candidates’ resumes, evaluate their personality, and make the determination of whether or not they would be a good fit. Browsing through the person’s resume, it is always the ‘experience’ section that catches my eye. “Wow, those are some impressive PR agencies to have on her resume, and look how many years she spent with them!” Unfortunately, and as I came to learn more than once, these impressive features can mean nothing. If I had to pinpoint the main reason for my hiring failures, it is this.

Since starting my career over 16 years ago, my belief has been that both PR and marketing should be taught in business school and not in the school of journalism. My apologies to all of those traditionally focused PR people, but if you continue to think like an ordinary PR person then you might find yourself on the streets, begging for change, in the next five years.

Today’s world requires a PR firm to be holistic, integrated and tackling things from a business first approach.

From the point of view of a traditional PR firm or a digital agency, you might be thinking from the bottom up, hoping that the article you landed or the content you created will trickle up to help your client’s business needs.

Unfortunately, this is, and always has been, the wrong approach. Instead, you should be thinking from a top down perspective: “What can we do that directly relates to their business needs?” “What are the three main goals of this business?” and “Are we making sure to deliver the right messages, on the right platform, at the right time, to the right target audience?”

Experience can matter, but these ten questions matter more to me, when interviewing a candidate (I may ask some directly, others I will try to uncover):

• Do you understand that a company’s business goals come first?
• Beyond PR, have you taken any certifications, such as Hubspot, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, etc./
• Do you grasp the life cycle of a business?
• What are the last 5 books you’ve read?
• Do you understand how to use social media to engage target audiences?
• Do you have at least 500 connections on LinkedIn? (for mid-level positions)
• Show me your last five blog posts, bylines or other digital content . What traction have these pieces received?
• (for entry level positions), Do you understand in what ways PR is different than what you were taught in school?
• Do you know strategy? If not, can you learn it?
• Are you a natural leader, manager and example for the rest of staff?

Just make sure you don’t read this and think, “I’m screwed!” There are still things you can do to land that job:

• If your entering into or are already in the PR field, start by building these skills.
• Don’t look at a job description and say, “I don’t have the specific qualifications!” Simply tell me why or how you can become the right person to fit the position.
• During the hiring process, interact with our brand on social media. Shockingly, very few candidates take advantage of this direct route to our heart.
• Don’t tell me about the article hits you’ve secured in the past. Instead, tell me how you want to be remembered when you die.
• All majors apply; you can be a computer programmer, an artist, doctor or even a lawyer. It does not matter. I am not hiring your “profession,” I am hiring your “brain.”

At Venture1st, we look for smart people and professionals that can understand both the business and marketing worlds as well as be a “sponge” for new and inventive ideas.