10 Yetis Insight Blog - What You Need To Work In PR

It’s that time of year when students are getting their A Level and GCSE results (that right there is my client, notgoingtouni, keeping me up-to-speed with the kids) and deciding what to do with their futures. Some may already have their future mapped out, with their five, 10 and 15 year plans, whereas others (and I remember being in this position) are staring blankly ahead wondering what they’re going to do. I mean, you’re only young and you’re expected to know what you want to do for the rest of your life?! That’s a lot of responsibility.

No doubt many young Britons will currently be trawling the internet trying to find something that catches their eye, something that makes them think “that’s the job I want” or “I’d quite like to try that industry”, so I’ve compiled a list of what I feel you need to be able to survive in the world of PR…

I want to start off with the obligatory joke that you need to be able to make a good cup of tea or coffee, but if you saw some of the cuppas I’ve made over my few years here, you’d be shocked! Although, in my defence, I don’t drink either tea or coffee, so I’m letting myself off with that one.

Team Spirit (and Independence too)

As with any role you need to be confident and comfortable working both independently and in a team. We have regular team meeting to discuss clients, we all share accounts so help each other out and we all pick up each other’s work when they’re out of the office – so you constantly need to be in the know with what’s happening with everyone’s clients, even if you don’t work on them directly.

That being said, a lot of your work will require you to write press releases, write features, keep an eye on the news for reactive opportunities and phone journalists – a lot of which you will need to do by yourself.

Initiative

Whilst we have campaign plans in place for what we’re doing for our clients over a one-month, three-month and sometimes even six to twelve-month period, we constantly undertake tasks that aren’t on the plan and it’s our job to have the initiative to do so. This is particularly true with the news, what with it constantly changing and new stories constantly breaking. If a story hits the news that is in some way related to our clients, we can issue reactive comments positioning our clients as the experts in the field – just one example of what won’t be on the plan and will just pop up as and when.

A good level of English

It doesn’t matter where you’re from (not so long ago we had a Welsh guy here in the office), but you’ll need to be able to string a decent sentence together, and understand what journalists may be asking of you. Not forgetting to mention that a lot of your role involves writing, so you’re going to need a good level of English in order to write what’s required of you, and to deal with clients on a day-to-day basis.

Confidence on the phones

It can be quite nerve-wracking making your first few calls to journalists, especially when you’re new to the role and you think everyone’s listening in on your calls to see how you do, but hold your nerve, be confident and journalists will want to talk to you. If they ask you a question that you don’t know the answer to, don’t panic, just tell them that you’ll find out the answer and get straight back to them. Have confidence in yourself and what you’re talking about, don’t waffle, get straight to the point and you’ll do just fine.

A thick skin

Journalists are not the enemy, they’re the ones that you want to kiss at the end of the week when you’ve struggled to get coverage for a client and just as you’re compiling a client report they let you know that they’ve ran your story and are giving you a link back to your client’s website!

That being said, journalists are just like us; they have good days and they have bad days. Sometimes they don’t mind PR’s calling them all day long to see if they’re going to run their story, and some days they just don’t want to talk to us. Some days you can be calling around journalists for a few hours and not actually get through to one journalist that you’re trying to contact – don’t let it get you down; it’s not a wasted few hours, you still tried!

Banter

OK, so this isn’t a must, but it does help. One of the things we strive to do is befriend journalists and make ourselves known to them (for the right reasons) so that they think of us when a story comes up that they need expert comments on, or they need some additional information for. Twitter is a great place to build on those relationships – don’t stalk them, obvs, but do try to strike up a conversation with them if there’s something that you both have in common, and then feel free to carry on the conversation when you pitch them a story, over the phone or via email.

A cool head

You need to be able to stay calm under pressure. One aspect of our job is crisis communications – whether that’s pre-agreed or sometimes not. Panicking in a situation will not only panic your client, but also lead to mistakes that could escalate the situation. Whatever is happening, you won’t be going through it alone, the whole team (Account Managers, the Head of PR and the MD) are there to help you, and take over where needed. But stay calm and you’ll be just fine.

This isn’t the be-all and end-all, but these pointers definitely help in the world of PR. You don’t have to have a degree in PR or journalism, you don’t need to have had work published elsewhere that you can show off, and sometimes you don’t need that much experience – as long as you’re confident and willing to learn and work hard. I came from an events