The best employees we have had are always the ones who can't seem to learn enough, who are continually curious. PR, unlike other professions, is a bit unstructured. Anything can happen at any moment. The stock market can take a dive, a product can fail in clinical trials, a researcher can commit fraud. And it is the PR professional who will be called upon for advice and quick action. One needs to be organized, calm, efficient, and one must attend to details for multiple clients, usually simultaneously.
So what is a typical day like? It can begin with a news release, or several news releases, which can mean getting up in time to distribute the release as early as 3 A.M. Remember, some firms operate on European time. When it is 8:30 A.M. in Europe, it is 2:30 A.M. in New York. Sending a news release might involve faxing it to a group of publications you have chosen to get that news. This group may vary, depending on the news you are distributing. For example, a science discovery would go to a different group of reporters and interested individuals than would a personnel announcement. Besides going to a different list of publications, it might go to different reporters at the same publication.
Once you have sent out the news release, it is time to follow-up with the group of reporters to whom you have sent it. Are they interested in the story, and will they report it? Was there an interesting aspect of the announcement that they may have missed? Why was the paper so important? What role does the research play within the current body of research on the topic? In short, why is the paper important and deserving of coverage? Although many of these questions may have been answered in the news release, the role of the PR professional is to illuminate, to help educate the reporter about your client, to provide access to your client, to answer the reporter's questions, and to make recommendations as to whom the reporter might speak with at the company.
If you work in the investor relations area, you might call a Wall Street analyst or a mutual fund manager about the news, particularly if the announcement was made by a public company. If that person were convinced that the news was significant, the analyst might issue an internal note to her firm about the announcement and perhaps she might recommend purchase of the stock. She might also issue an external report supporting the same conclusion. If she is a fund manager, she might purchase the stock.
But what if the announcement is negative? What if a clinical trial has failed? To be prepared for negative news, or crisis management as it is called in the PR business, is a critical component of public relations. Develop a plan-before it happens, understand your different audiences, what their needs might be, and how to provide them with timely information. Your audience might be the company's employees, its shareholders, those who write about and follow the company, community officials, and so on. The message might be different for each audience. And while the temptation might be to put a positive spin on the announcement, one of the most important roles of the PR professional is to get the news out quickly and accurately.
In addition to the news that drives your day, a PR professional might write a brochure, devise a PR program or communications strategy, write a slide show for the investment community, or prepare a client for a meeting with the press or with the financial community. Your day could include speaker training, media training, or writing and producing a video. It could also involve finding a name for a new company, renaming an old one, or helping to create a corporate identity or logo.
In terms of a skill set, the public relations field can allow you to use your creative skills, your writing skills, your scientific knowledge, your knowledge of the biotech field, and so on. It is a field so varied, requiring so many different types of skills, that it is nearly impossible to be perfectly trained before entering the field.
Salary and Job Titles
Entry level positions start at around $25,000 for most large urban centers. A hardworking employee can expect to advance from this level within a year of starting the job. At the vice president level, the salary will be greater than $100,000.
At most agencies, progress is measured by client satisfaction, the ability to generate new business, and talent-producing creative work. Because PR involves a lot of juggling, you must maintain an air of calm at all times. The ability to multitask is important, and one must do this while paying attention to the many details inherent in the position. As you advance, you become responsible for larger accounts with bigger budgets and with increasingly sophisticated communications programs.
The alternative to working at a public relations agency is to work in-house at a pharmaceutical or biotech company. An in-house position may have many of the same responsibilities as does an external public relations agency. The job might involve responsibility for internal communications or product communications (news releases, communications with the media, etc.) with a greater emphasis on helping to position the story so that the PR agency can take it to a wider audience. The internal tasks might be divided into investor relations responsibilities and media or corporate communications responsibilities. Tasks such as writing might fall to the in-house person.
In smaller companies, you may need to be cross-functional. In larger organizations, an internal communications position might exist. Public affairs, crisis management, and governmental relations may also fall into the realm of the communications group. A large pharmaceutical company might employ 60 people in the communications area. The main difference, however, between an agency position and one in-house is that at an agency, one usually works with many clients on a number of projects. As a result, the in-house person often has a greater understanding of the company that she is working for than might an outside person.
In an agency, most newcomers begin as an account coordinator or junior account executive. If the candidate has experience in the communications business, it might be possible to begin as an account executive or senior account executive. In a biotech or other small corporation, one might begin as a manager of communications or as a writer.
Regardless of the position, you might take a pay cut if you are coming from academe. When I started in the business, I was told, "Your Ph.D. doesn't matter to us, you have to start at the same level as everyone else." So my first few years were viewed as further graduate training. It is important to focus on what you learn in the first few years, and not on the salary. If you are good, your scientific training will give you the push you need to move up the career ladder to the assistant vice-president and vice-president level.
Training
Training in public relations is a daily activity. There are few formal courses that one can take. Until recently few schools even offered courses. Now, one can get accreditation in public relations and can even be licensed by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the trade group governing the field. To become licensed, one must work in the public relations field full time for 5 years and one must pass rigorous written and oral exams. Because the accreditation was introduced in 1964, and because the industry has historically not pushed accreditation, few professionals are certified. Although the PRSA has made great efforts to license people in the profession, this has little impact on one's ability to land a job or an account. However, if one wants to rise in the PRSA hierarchy, licensing is critical.
But what if you have not had any formal courses and you are fresh out of a doctoral program? How long will it take for you to gain a working knowledge of the field? The answer is about two years. In that time, you may write and distribute many news releases, annual reports, and brochures. You may produce slide presentations, set up analyst meetings, and perhaps organize media tours or investor road shows. You will work on Web sites, navigate through a crisis or two, and write many public relations programs. The result is a feeling of confidence that you will be able to manage most public relations tasks. As you advance through the hierarchy, you will be able to handle more and more responsibilities. The more experience you have, the better you will be able to advise a client.
