There are many opportunities in the field of public relations. It can almost become overwhelming. I'd like to talk about the different opportunities today, and I'm going to start off by first defining what it means to work in a public relations agency versus a corporate communication job. It is important to understand the orientation of public relations and what that means to your day-to-day routine. I'm going to just provide an overview for you enough to orient you to the job market and to what position might be right for you. For your reference, I have included a couple of articles that may help you dig into what agency life would be like, or what working in a corporate communication role would be like. We'll circle back on this in the next module, where we look at different jobs. Let's begin with agency public relations. There are different types of agencies, global conglomerates like Adelman, Porter Novelli, and Ketchum, for example, that are owned by holding companies. There are independent agencies, local agencies, specialized agencies, and the list goes on and on. As you know, the field of public relations is very broad. So it's really up to you to narrow down what opportunity is right for you. There are some positives to agency work. You will be exposed to working with a variety of clients. You might work with a bank, restaurant, financial company, or startup. Agencies work with different clients on different projects. For the bank client, I might be doing some media relations work for an upcoming merger, or for the restaurant client, I might be redesigning the website and running their social media. It's a different project for each client. In recent years, the economy has turned into these project-based relationships and we don't always stay loyal, meaning new business development is critical to agency life. You'll also be on the cutting edge of tools and resources. There's more opportunity for training and job growth in agencies. You must be able to learn quickly and multitask. You'll be surrounded by other PR people, meaning you'll be challenged. There's also negatives to working in a public relations agency like the media seeing you as a barrier to a client. It takes a lot of work to maintain those relationships with journalists. You also will have multiple bosses at different levels within an agency. Salaries tend not to be as high as in corporate communication for the lower levels, hours can be long and grueling, but young people tend to gravitate toward agencies, so work is fun and vibrant, but you are busy billing every hour possible to a client. Just to give you an idea of the biggest and best agencies, here's a list of the front runners. These are examples of global agencies in public relations. Some of these do more than PR, maybe double in advertising or digital, for example. I think it's important to look at the client list, think about the internal culture, and really understand what these agencies are like. Reading job postings is one way to learn about the agencies and their different specialties. Now, in comparison, let's talk about corporate communication or sometimes you'll hear in-house public relations. Let's start again with the positives. Corporate jobs tend to have higher salaries but fewer positions, so fiercer competition. You'll have access to senior executives and interact with different parts of the company. You are the brand storyteller, so you are able to dig in deeper and tell better stories. It's much easier to forge relationships with media when in corporate communication, it's easier to build trust. For example, if I work at the North Face, I'm all about telling the North Face story in different ways to different audiences and focusing on initiatives like CSR or internal communication and employee relations. There are some negatives to working in corporate communication. Like your boss most likely will not be a communication or PR specialist. So you have to do a lot of education in your role as to why communication matters and that PR management function. You'll have less exposure to new techniques, and so to keep up, you'll have to educate yourself. There are limited advancement opportunities and less time spent on traditional public relations activities. Some people like corporate PR because it allows them to focus and go deep. Life also is a little bit less hectic in corporate PR. Now, of course, that's not always true. But work-life balance tends to look much better in the corporate world. Ultimately, this is something to consider as you begin to look for opportunities in the field of public relations. Now, to give you some examples of corporate communication, here are a list of large corporations in the Denver area, which is where I'm at up in border. Most cities have large corporations of various kinds, and within these companies, there is a communication department. It might also be in the marketing department, but hopefully not. The size of the communication department depends on the brand. Thinking about the North Face, there are different subsets within communication, so digital, social, maybe even certain initiatives or programs that they're working on. Some big companies have so much going on, it's imperative to have a large team to handle the load. Then in most instances, these companies also employ an agency to help with certain projects and to be on call for crisis communication. It is easy to get hung up on where to work. Agency, what agency or corporate communication, what organization or brand. Instead of focusing so much on the where, I'd encourage you to think about your own skill set and what it is you want to do every day in a job. I read job descriptions all of the time, just to educate myself on what skills are desired by employers or what trends are happening right now in hiring. Reading job descriptions illuminates what you like and don't like about different positions and helps you decide where you want to sit in the field. Public relations is such a growing field, one that right now has so many opportunities available. Think about your own strengths and what you bring to the job. I have no doubt there's a perfect position out there for you.
