I want to work in Public Relations

A public affairs mentoring scheme will run from September 2022 to April 2023 - find out more at sign up before 31st July 2022

Public Relations (usually referred to as PR) involves communicating a message to one or more of the different target audiences an organisation wishes to influence in a positive way. It may also be known as Corporate Communication.
PR professionals use a variety of media and communication channels to build, maintain and manage the reputation of their clients. They may work for a single organisation, such as a business, charity or public sector body or in a PR agency, working with a variety of different clients. In-house PR staff are often referred to as PR officers while those in agencies are known as PR account executives, but job titles are not consistent.

• Job profile of a public relations officer from the Prospects website
• Job profile of a public relations officer from the TARGET Jobs website
• Job profile of a public relations account executive from the Prospects website  
• Overview of PR graduate career path and desirable skills from the Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GBR)

Getting In

To succeed in PR, you need to have excellent written and verbal communication skills, to be hard-working and able to deal with a number of different tasks at one time, creative, determined, persuasive and persistent. Presentation skills are important. You need to be versatile and adaptable with a good eye for a story and the ability to craft content. You need to be interested in business and understand that agencies need to make profits!
Competition for entry-level posts is strong so you need to do lots of research into what PR involves, follow PR employers, publications and professional bodies on social media and gain work experience. This is often available through internships – for graduates  or undergraduates. Many people enter PR after experience in journalism , advertising or marketing.

Experience is important and volunteering can be a good way to gain this, for example by helping a local charity to promote their fundraisers on social media, see www.do-it.org for opportunities in Kent and across the UK. You could also write for Inquire or join the Kent Student Media Society . Other examples of work experience can be found on the Prospects site https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/public-relations-officer