As a specialist, you might work only with the media on biotech accounts. As a generalist, you might work on investor relations, media relations, or you might even write annual reports for a variety of firms that range from financial service companies to entertainment companies. It is like the difference between being a liberal arts major in college and choosing a major for an advanced degree. While larger PR agencies prefer generalists, the smaller, boutique agencies and the corporations prefer the specialist. To become a specialist will make you very employable in a single profession. However, if there are few jobs in that field, you might have fewer options.
As a Ph.D. you will find it easier to get a job as a specialist, because you have a specific area of expertise that few other people have in public relations. In fact, this is your key selling point. If you are a Ph.D., you probably enjoy the field you have specialized in and you want to stay close to the profession.
Where Do I Go To Find Out About PR?
There are many directories where one can learn about public relations companies and their specialty. The most famous of these is O'Dwyer's Directory of Public Relations Firms. It contains a directory of all United States agencies and their specialties. It also contains a listing of their clients. Conversely, you can look up the client you might like to work with and find out who represents them. The names of the appropriate contacts, vice presidents, and other relevant individuals are listed, as well as phone numbers, addresses, and listings of branch offices. This directory can be obtained in the career center of most libraries. The PRSA in New York City has a large research library that can be used for a fee.
O'Dwyer's also publishes a directory that lists communication officers in major American companies. This directory can give you a feel for the type of communications program a company has-how many people are employed in the department, who is the contact person, and so on.
How Do I Prepare For A Job Interview?
It is important to do your research before the job interview. Make sure you view the company's Web site and that you have a keen sense of the company's mission and its direction. Try to find out as much as you can about the company-read the annual report, look at brochures, try to learn if they have won any awards, look up the background of the person who is interviewing you: are they in Who's Who? Have they received any awards? What is their reputation? Has anyone written about them? You might also want to conduct a Nexus search. This is a computer database search that allows you to view articles written about a person, company, or subject.
The only way to impress a potential employer that you are serious about a communications job is to demonstrate your breath of knowledge about the PR field and the specific knowledge you have about their company-its communications strategy as you see it. That, and establishing good rapport, will likely land you a second interview and possibly even a job offer.
Remember, you goal is to get your foot in the door and to find a job where you can learn as much as possible. Be persistent. One Ph.D. recently got a job with us only after numerous interviews. He maintained that he could learn PR and that he was so motivated that he would start at any salary at any level. He had researched the profession and he had spoken with a number of headhunters in the field, whom he identified through newspaper ads, and he narrowed his search to one agency. With that kind of sales pitch, we had to hire him.
The Personality Profile
To be successful in communications, it helps to be an extrovert. Type B personalities-the calmer personalities-are better suited for this profession. Remember, you will find yourself in many crisis situations and you will have to maintain calm. On the agency side, there is a crisis at every turn, and the ability to maintain one's cool while attending to the many details of a difficult situation is a personality trait that the job demands.
The profile is slightly different when you are in house. It represents the opportunity to learn a lot about a single company-to fully understand the drug development process, to be a spokesperson for the organization. While you may not have to attend to the volume of potential crisis work, you have to be able to navigate through the corporate structure. Your job and your responsibilities may have a greater likelihood of change as the organization evolves. A drug that is not approved by the FDA can have a severe impact on job viability in the public relations area, which is often viewed as the most expendable department in a company.
To deal with this type of change you need to be flexible and to look for opportunities within an organization where you can add value in crisis situations to help a company rebuild. PR requires a number of skills, many of which cannot be learned. You need to be extroverted, gregarious, personable, decisive, and a good and quick writer and you must demonstrate confidence and a sense of control. While other skills are helpful, including knowledge of the industry, business acumen, and knowledge of science, personality and persona count enormously.
Unlike lab work, where you often work in isolation, PR is a group-oriented profession. In an agency, there may be many individuals focused on different areas. The "gestalt" requires interaction among the group- brainstorming, sending proposals to the client, and distributing actions among the group. You seldom work in isolation.
A corporate setting may have similar strictures and a hierarchy of approvals may be required before action is taken. In smaller companies, you are able to go directly to the president with a proposal.
Difficulties and Pleasures
"Stressful" is a word that is used frequently to describe public relations and for good reason. Why is it stressful? To balance so many projects at different levels all at once, and to attend to so many details simultaneously, knowing that one dropped ball can cause incredible chaos, can take its toll.
In an agency, each client thinks they are your only client. Crises always occur at the worst possible time. Chernobyl happened at 1:23 A.M., Three Mile Island occurred just after 4 A.M., and the Exxon Valdez accident happened shortly after midnight. A client does not care that you might have five other news releases to get out, all of which are very important to other clients. The Food and Drug Administration doesn't consult with you about when they will approve-or reject-a product.
But if you can manage and if you like a challenge, PR gives you great opportunity for creativity. Unlike the lab where there is a procedure for everything, PR is an open universe. There is no science. There are precedents, but few hard and fast rules. It gives you great latitude and the chance to try new ways of doing things. While there may be certain formats, certain ways of writing, it is in no way as rigorous as science. In fact, in PR creativity is at a premium. The best professionals are the ones who are the most creative.
But what is creativity? Many people imagine that Public Relations is like advertising. People get together and dream up an ad campaign and brainstorm lots of ideas. In public relations, the ability to have this sort of brainstorming session can be limited. Creativity in public relations is the ability to help maneuver clients out of difficult situations: a drug fails in clinical trials; a CEO resigns; a competitor releases a study that questions the viability of your drug; or, on the positive side, your client just got published in Nature so you need to decide what to do. There is a limited number of options, and you have to consider that you might have to deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission or with FDA regulations. Within these guidelines, however, there is room to deal creatively with various audiences: the general public, investors, physicians, the scientific community, and so on.
Where Do I Go To Find A PR Job?
One of the best places to find a job these days is on the Internet. There are lots of jobs listed on Job Trek and on other university postings. Also, some public relations agencies, such as Noonan/Russo, biotech, and pharmaceutical firms, also post jobs on their home pages.
Still, the best way to find a job is to do a little research. Look through the O'Dwyer's listing of PR and communications positions in the library. Do as much research as possible and then send a pitch letter to the firm in which you are interested. Be specific about why you want to work there. Why are you interested in them? Why does your background make you a good fit?
Another way to find a job is through the old network system. Attend some of the investor conferences. Get to know people in the industry. Perhaps you could visit with companies and inquire as to what type of skills they require. Then you could build up your r6sum6, either through course work or as a volunteer.
Finally, you could read the classifieds in major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The PRSA local chapters also post jobs in their state newsletters as does O'Dwyer's PR Marketplace. Information on all these publications is available through the PRSA.
And be persistent!
