PR is a growing industry around the world. Business leaders are recognising the impact of reputation on a company’s bottom line, especially in the age of purpose-driven businesses since Black Lives Matter, COVID and cancel culture. PR is also merging with other disciplines like marketing and advertising.

But with the thriving industry comes a lot of competition. Hence, a good way to grow your career in PR is to be proactive about it. If career growth is important for you, you can start by building a personal professional development plan for yourself. At Curzon, we offer each of our consultants a personal professional development plan based on their self-assessment. If your employer offers one, it is great — otherwise, you can always create one for yourself.

Read more: Top courses for PR and communications professionals

Answer questions such as what you want to achieve in the next 6 months, 2 years and 5 years. Then think of your career from a “portfolio perspective”, says Samantha Seewoosurrun, Founder of the CIPR Network in Mauritius. What skills, network and work experience you’d need to have to achieve those goals? Then proactively seek out or create those opportunities, working backwards from your short-term and long-term goals.

Here are some of the effective ways PR professionals often advance in their careers:

10 ways to grow your career in PR

1. Mental resilience

There is a mental health issue in the industry with a 2019 industry study by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) finding that 32% of communications professionals have suffered or been diagnosed with poor ill health. Working in PR is stressful with constant horizon scanning, a 24*7 global news cycle and always-on social media.

So a key skill to be able to have a long and successful career in this industry is to take care of your mental health and wellbeing. Your PR career is a marathon, not a sprint. Take regular vacations and time out for yourself to avoid burnout.

It is also important to build your mental resilience by being kind to yourself. Building and protecting the reputations of businesses is a stressful job that sometimes depends on a number of factors outside your control, such as prior management practices and company culture before you were brought in to manage a crisis. If a campaign didn’t work out as you intended, don’t blame yourself. Pick yourself up, dust off and move on.

During the times of increasing globalisation that leads to crisis and uncertain situations, it is critical life skills such as positive thinking and emotional

regulation over PR skills that would help you ride the wave.

2. Sector specialisation

“PR covers a range of sectors, so it’s worth investing some time in understanding the sectors that you are interested in. Is it consumer PR, or corporate PR or development PR?” says senior consultant Ishara Callan.

Sector specialisation means you go and work on PR for companies in that particular sector. If you have sector expertise, you’d be paid more than a generalist because you would skip the whole learning curve of understanding industry jargons and bring your relationships with journalists who cover that sector.

Sector specialisation should be based on your area of interest and experience. While you may experiment with different sectors initially, as you work in more senior rules, you would need to niche down.

3. Channel expertise

It is often advised that you gain experience across the broad field of PR when fresh out of college so that you can figure out what you like and where your strengths lie.

Once you figure it out, aim to develop a strong competency in one area of specialisation. For example, it could be media relations, public affairs, change management, crisis communications, social media, etc. Achieving competency in one or two areas of super specialisation would make you “close to indispensable”, says Kiran Ray Chaudhuri, co-founder of 80 dB Communications to PRMoment India.

4. Getting a mentor

A mentor helps you with career advice, feedback and sharing the right contacts and job opportunities. They help you unlock your potential.

A mentor should be someone whose work you admire and who is interested in helping you be the best version of yourself. Check if they have the skills you want to learn and if they support the idea of mentoring. You can find these mentors by searching for professionals on social media, checking out the speakers at industry conferences or being part of industry bodies like CIPR that may help you with networking. Mentoring is also available as part of coursework in training programs in some university and professional development courses such as Taylor Bennett and Oxford Foundry.

5. Gaining work experience

The first step to a career in PR is landing your first job. This will help you learn a lot — from core PR skills to knowledge about what you are interested in and where your strengths lie.

Educational qualifications might sometimes be not enough to land that job. In such a case, you can volunteer to gain some exposure and have some work samples. Working as an intern at a PR agency also provides a foot into the door.

“The best way to develop your skills is by joining an agency,” says Ishara. But if your interest lies in working with one specific company, you can apply for entry-level PR rules at companies.

Regardless of whether you join an agency or work in-house, you will learn a lot on the job with practical experience and by seeing how others around you do things. That is why it is best to work with companies and agencies that are strategic in their approach and are on top of industry trends such as the integration of PR and marketing. It would make you “more marketable when you’re ready to move on,” writes Eileen Sheil, executive director of corporate communications at Cleveland Clinic, in PRWeek.

6. Digital marketing

In the current environment, PR professionals need to have at least some digital and technical skills, from social media, SEO and Google Analytics to video editing, email marketing and paid ads.

The rise in social media has driven integration between PR and marketing. If you are able to advise businesses on these aspects, you would have an edge over others.

An aspect of digital marketing also involves being able to use PR tools that help you manage and track your efforts. Such as social listening tools like HootSuite.

7. Business acumen and strategy

A sure-fire way to gain a seat at the top table is to be able to tie your work to business results. It is to be strategic in your work, think in terms of campaigns that start with research, strategy and planning and end with execution, measurement and evaluation. Each PR campaign you work on should be to achieve some business goal.

You should be able to speak the language that the C-suite understands, talking about the impact of your work on a company’s bottom line. Getting better at the skill of analytics and measurement can help with this.

Qualitative research is equally important. Instead of presenting your work as a tactical service, showing how you turned customers into brand advocates would be more impressive.

As you advance in your career, you would be responsible for project management including staff management, budgets and providing strategic counsel. Honing these skills as well as prioritising and time management are important to reach that level.

8. Personal brand

Becoming an influencer is no longer just for celebrities. To progress in your career, you need to do your own PR by building a personal brand. Just as you would for your client, showcase your best results, offer thought leadership commentary, apply for speaking engagement and submit your work for awards.

Read more: 10 Ways Top CEOs Build Their Personal Brands

Maintaining a regular blog or regularly updating your social media posts helps with gaining visibility, showcase expertise, build connections and brings opportunities. It is because recruiters would search for you on social media and Google before setting up a meeting. Also, companies want to work with people who can become spokespeople because of their large and engaged network. Your audience and network is an asset that would put you ahead of others.

9. Networking

There is a “hidden job economy”. It refers to the jobs that get filled via references and recommendations, without ever being made public or posted on job boards.

In any industry, but especially in the PR industry, what career opportunities come to you depends a lot on who you know. Hence, building your network by going to conferences, engaging with social media posts of your peers and being available to help others when needed would be worthwhile.

Read more: Top conferences for PR professionals

10. Communication skills

This goes without saying, but developing and getting better at core skills such as communicating or presenting with confidence and clarity, storytelling to connect with an audience and being able to convince people through your writing or speech are necessary for career growth.

As you climb the corporate ladder, you would need to be equipped with skills such as planning and presenting highly complex presentations, handling highly complex negotiations and client engagement, owning and directing the development of complex communication plans, among other things.

Conclusion

You can advance in your PR career by proactively and strategically seeking out and filling in the gaps in your network, skills and work experience that you need to reach those career goals.

Curzon PR is a London-based PR firm working with clients globally. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Business Development Team [email protected]