Work Life

PR is changing so quickly that what students learn today in college may be outdated by the time they land their first job. Still, there are concepts that are unlikely to change despite this fast-moving industry, argues Edelman VP Amanda Sapp. Making sure you are authentic in your storytelling, speaking to audiences not at them and having passion for what you do will serve you well at the start of your career and during every stage that follows.

In just a few weeks, hundreds of social media-savvy professionals will descend upon the W Atlanta-Midtown hotel for The Social Shake-Up Show. And in this personal account, author Chris Strub details three interactions he had at a past Shake-Up—including one with the show’s late founder, Robin Fray Carey—that forever altered the course of his career.

It can be hard for someone who works in public relations or communications to admit that they’re not that great at schmoozing. It would seem that these things go hand in hand, but striking up a face-to-face conversation with a stranger is its own skill set, and we aren’t all naturals. If you’re attending a professional event, you should make the most of your time there, as with any other aspect of your working life. Being a wallflower won’t move the needle, so keep the following four things in mind and do the accompanying exercises to set yourself up for success.

Something we’ve observed at PR News in recent years: We don’t see “PR” in job titles quite as often as we used to. One reason may be that so few communicators today are restricted to traditional PR functions like media relations and crisis management. In 2017 they are tasked with so much more, from content creation and social media management to email marketing and brand development.

Research links low job satisfaction for PR pros with ethical conflict at work and distrust in leadership. Would you jump ship if you realized your company’s core values don’t align well with your own? Steph Curry, in an interview with ESPN, said he would. While most of us lack Curry’s financial security, we can take solace in trends indicating how values increasingly drive business decisions and serve the bottom line. For example, CSR programs please consumers who want to feel good about brands. And young professionals in particular expect to find a sense of purpose and happiness at work. Below are a few ways to increase your job satisfaction.

With several months left before the chill lifts for much of the country, it can be easy to slip into the winter blues during the work week (that is, unless you’re joining us in sunny SoCal next week at PR News’ Digital Summit & Crisis Management Boot Camp, Feb. 23-24 in Huntington Beach, CA). To ease your winter blues, we asked PR News’ Twitter followers to share the mantras and inspirational quotes that help them stay motivated.

“Almost all firms are over-servicing,” Gould says, though small ones, with yearly revenue of $3 million or less, are the major culprits. This largest group of firms often lacks sophisticated time-management systems (one he recommends is ClickTime) and a chief financial officer (CFO) to oversee, interpret and analyze the data such a system produces.

“When people are under so much pressure to process information, the result is an unstoppable flow of data, an overloaded mind and consequently an analytical mindset,” LEWIS founder and CEO Chris Lewis writes in his just-published book, “Too Fast to Think: How to reclaim your creativity in a hyper-connected work culture.”

The diversity of knowledge needed in our profession continues to expand. We’re strategic advisors as well as communicators. As such, I’m seeing a greater need for continued learning. When I was in journalism school, I was required to take one marketing class. That’s right, one. Not that regression analysis is part of my day-to-day, but that class gives me more insight now than it did then. Communications is a business. A strong business education is critical to success.

What are your toughest challenges? What would help you do your job better? The Conference Board asked those questions of CMOs and CCOs who said analytics and silo busting two important topics.