Public Relations demands the creativity of advertising and the business savvy of management consulting. While there are an increasing number of institutes in India offering PR as a specialization, excellent writing skills, common sense, good analytical skills and an ability to use all the research tools available in today's information-rich world are all essential prerequisites.
A successful public relations professional must be able to tune into the external world of an organization to discover issues and opportunities and identify adversaries and allies. So intellectual curiosity and active listening skills are important, complementing formal research.
Responding to issues and critics, tests one's communication and counseling skills under pressure. Public relations professionals must communicate with a broad range of audiences and constituents - from customers to competitors, shareholders to politicians, employees to environmentalists. Because their interests are rarely aligned, their motives little understood, it is often left to public relations to resolve conflicts and ambiguity through communication. You will find yourself applying insights from your Psychology and Sociology courses along with the skills of your English or Journalism or Mass Communication courses.
Employees are a particularly important facet of Public Relations. Their productivity is directly affected by how well they understand the client's business and their role in executing that strategy. Internal communication helps to build that understanding. And since employees also make an all-important first impression on customers and are the face of the company in the community, they need that understanding and commitment to be good ambassadors. In an age of eroding loyalty between company and employees and tremendous competition for talent, company public relations staffs are increasingly looking for good communicators with schooling or backgrounds in organizational development and industrial relations.
In practicing media relations or investor relations, it takes a knowledge of business to hold one's own, with a reporter digging for a story or an institutional investor with millions riding on the nuances of the explanation of a recent company event. A public relation professional's creativity and selling skills are tested daily in trying to obtain coverage of events.
If a company has built solid relationships over time with its constituents and the media, the job is infinitely easier. That means helping investors, customers and the curious public with their information needs about the organization. It means helping reporters on deadlines with quick research, leads to sources or a creative story idea. So counseling and customer relations skills are equally important.
Starting a Public Relations Career
Career paths in public relations follow two tracks, either through positions in a company or non-profit organization or in a public relations firm. Increasingly professionals find themselves moving back and forth between the two during their careers. The difference is whether one has a single client - one's own company - or works on several clients at an agency.
Working in a company you will give you a strong, firsthand grounding in business and organizational dynamics. The advantage of starting out with a PR firm is that you get maximum exposure to many industries and fields of public relations.
Wherever you start, you'll be doing similar projects. You'll be taking inquiries from reporters and other public and then researching and providing responses. You'll be drafting press releases and articles for internal publications. Often you'll be involved in creative sessions to develop strategies for a story that needs to be covered or to figure, which reporters, activists or governmental officials need to be informed about an upcoming event, and gradually you'll be involved in making the pitches to those audiences. If you're in an agency, you'll help in developing new business presentations and eventually will be asked to participate in presentations to clients.
