Interview with a Public Relations Professional was originally published on College Recruiter.
I have worked for four years as a public spokesperson for a medium sized manufacturing corporation. This is my first job out of college and I have been loving it so far. I help the company shape their image and message and then present it to the public so that they understand what it is we do.
On a personal level, I do a lot of different things for the company. Since I am relatively new, I do a lot of writing press releases or information for our website. This can get tedious, but it is fun to see it come together in one of our advertising campaigns or public outreach efforts. A lot of people think that public relations people just spin bad news all day, but this is quite untrue. It is mostly about establishing a report with the public in order to earn trust in us and our products. This report is always based on truths about our company, however. I have never participated in a campaign that distorted or violated the truth. I am glad to be able to clear that up!
On a scale of 1 to 10, my satisfaction is probably an 8. I greatly enjoy my coworkers and this field, but I would love for the chance to move up in the ranks and take on a more creative role. Of course, I am new to the company so I understand the need to work my way up. Regardless, I look forward to advancing in the coming years!
I got started in this line of work with this particular company by interning with them between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was studying communications at the time, and my internship here inspired me to change to a public relations major. I continued interning with this same company the next summer and received a job offer after graduation. I have been working here happily ever since.
One lesson I learned here that I did not necessarily learn in school is to never take people at their word. That sounds a bit cynical, but when you deal with the press and with people concerned with image, there tends to be a desire to dress up news and be a tad dishonest. Always insist on seeing the primary documentation for something yourself before writing up a piece or informing a reporter about it.
One of my favorite parts of the job is when I travel with a press team to a product unveiling or a press conference at a factory or plant far from headquarters. I love traveling and it is an exciting process every time. I am also particularly pleased when all the parts come together and we do a great release of a product. It is really fun to see everyone’s work come together. The people from the engineering, business, and press side of the company all come together to collaborate and watching us do well together is great considering the stress and tension that goes normally happens in a company.
My job can be moderately stressful when we have deadlines or new projects coming up, but in general I am okay with the amount of stress I deal with. The high pace keeps me interested, so I am fine with what little stress I have to put up with. My company is pretty good with benefits like time off, so I am able to relax when necessary. At this point I get four weeks of paid vacation, which I am happy. After five years with the company, which is less than a year away, this gets bumped up to five weeks!
A rough salary range for this position ranges from $40,000 to $60,000. With more experience this can increase considerably. To get into this field, a public relations, communications, or journalism degree is pretty much essential. While studying, you should also seek at least one internship. This is nearly as crucial as your degree. It gives you good contacts within a company and shows other companies that you have worked successfully in that kind of environment before. You need strong writing and speaking skills, in addition to the ability to understand office and business politics. The internship will do a great job of preparing you for office politics; in fact, that is the main purpose of it in my opinion. Taking additional English and writing courses could prove useful to you as well. An English minor or double major will really demonstrate that you have strong writing skills.
If I could choose what I will be doing in five years, I would definitely be at the same company within the public relations department. I would love to move up to being in charge of social media. It is exciting and fast paced, but is far less formal than working with the press.
This is a true story as told to JustJobs Academy which houses career interviews and job search advice for professionals in any industry. Visit to read about how to avoid interruptions at work and get promoted for your efforts in the office.
