In some situations, every hire is a crucial decision. When you own a boutique PR agency and need to add one more to your staff of four (a 25 percent increase in salaries!), or if you head up marketing at a startup where each additional employee has serious implications on the company’s burn rate, you must find a stellar public relations professional or you can’t justify hiring anyone at all.
Some of the members of PR Boutiques International, seasoned owners of boutique PR agencies around the world, agreed to provide their own tips for finding the best employees. This post is the first of a two-part article on the state of the job market for public relations professionals, and how to look for and hire top PR talent.
Which jobs are hardest to fill, and where?
The challenges you face in filling a PR position depends on where on the globe that position is, what it entails and what level of experience it requires, such as a beginner right out of college, versus a mid-level employee. According to Paul Furiga, chief storyteller, founder and CEO of Wordwrite Communications in Pittsburgh, “In this area, it’s very difficult to find young people just entering the job market. It’s simple economics — there are always more entry-level jobs, even in a poor economy. Now that the U.S. economy is hot, there’s more competition and more willingness for young people to job hop. Also simple economics: negotiating a bigger salary for entry jobs is much easier because the amounts involved are smaller. As well, for employers, the risk of making a mistake with an entry-level hire is much less than with a senior hire.”
Kai vom Hoff, managing partner, vom Hoff Kommunikation GmbH in Düsseldorf, explains that good PR professionals are harder to find at every level than ever before in Germany, and employers know that and do everything they can to keep good people. “To make it even harder for PR agencies, working for companies seems to be more trendy now among young people,” he says. “Our strategy is having early contact with high-potential students at universities, getting good interns who want to be trainees, regularly visiting job markets and summits, talking to potential applicants and publishing regularly. We focus on recruiting the best young people right out of university, training them and seeking opportunities for growth so they will be happy to stay with us.”
Durée Ross, president of Durée & Company in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., notes that while she does have a hard time sometimes finding mid-level people, experience level is not as big a challenge as suitability for a PR agency position. “Not everyone is built for an agency environment,” she explains.
Wendy Marx, president of Marx Communications in Trumbull, Conn., is another agency owner who feels that mid-level people are hardest to find. “It’s easy to find people with limited experience and very high-powered (expensive) folks, but the in-between level can be difficult,” she says.
Says Tarunjeet Rattan, partner, Nucleus Public Relations in Bangalore, India, “It is very tough to find good people in the Indian PR industry. There is a huge talent gap in the mid-management level.”
Comments Fred Russo, account director at Botica Butler Raudon Public Relations in Auckland, New Zealand, “Good account managers and account directors know their worth and aren’t afraid of change. The solution? Reward them accordingly so you don’t have to find one.”
Ellyn Caruso, principal of CarusoPR in Chicago, offers industry-agnostic seasoned PR counselling services. As a result, she explains, “Candidates absolutely must possess solid critical thinking and writing skills coupled with the ability to do a deep dive into new subjects that help us quickly align and stay in step with our clients’ products and services. For a boutique firm where we wear multiple hats, it can be difficult to identify strong candidates for entry-level or junior positions, which is why we rely nearly exclusively on a more senior-level team to deliver the results our clients need.”
Tips for sniffing out the best public relations professional
General tips
- “Like investing in a relationship, a courtship period for a new hire is a big advantage to see if there are synergies and if the person is a good fit,” comments Shalini Singh, founder, Galvanise PR in India. “Some of the traits required in a good PR employee can’t be judged effectively during interviews. That’s why I recommend hiring with a three-month probation period.”
- “I suggest trying a finalist job candidate out with a specific task on a freelance basis,” suggests Marx. “For example, if you need a writer, have them write you a brief article. Did they meet the deadline? How well did they interact with you and your team? A real assignment will give you a clearer idea of how someone will perform.”
- “Research, research, research and get referrals. Talk to people!” exclaims Russo. “Find out who’s underpaid in a similar field, like publicity or marketing, and is looking to make a leap.”
- “It’s really helpful to talk to people who have worked with candidates — and not necessarily the ones they used as references,” comments Lee Weinstein, president, Weinstein PR, in Portland, Ore. “There’s lots to be learned from colleagues who have worked side-by-side with a candidate, and that just takes a little research.”
Predictive analysis tests and personality tests
- “We use personality tests because they not only assess the candidate, they also indicate how well the candidate will mesh with the other team members,” says Ross.
- Adds Furiga, “We always start with a predictive analysis tool (we use The Predictive Index) to ensure that candidates are wired for the job we’re trying to fill. A person who’s going to spend 75 percent of their time talking to reporters is typically much more outgoing and assertive than someone who’s wired to spend eight hours a day in a garret turning out great blog posts. It’s important to know that before you interview.”
Other tests
- Most employers give writing tests to candidates for a public relations professional “We give writing tests to junior candidates and ask for writing samples as well. Resumes and cover letters have to be flawless,” explains Ross.
- “We have candidates write a plan for a hypothetical launch,” says Rattan. “I also give them hypothetical crisis scenarios to understand their response time in a real-life situation.”
- “We sometimes provide some data for the candidate to turn into a research release,” comments Russo.
- Vom Hoff’s agency in Dusseldorf tests all candidates for linguistic skills during the interview process, “as well as confidence and professionalism,” he adds. “Sometimes we assign them a practical task and ask for a well-structured solution, which the candidate presents after a short preparation. We ask for the candidate to provide a compelling argument to back the ideas presented.”
- During her years as a boutique agency owner, the author of this blog post gave entry-level PR agency job candidates three written tests. First they were asked to write a news release about the launch of a new product, The Egg. This could be interpreted any way the candidate wanted, so it was a test of creativity as well as writing skills. Second was a grammar test. The third was a general knowledge test, asking the candidate to identify each name on a list of about 20 famous people from history, politics, the arts and current news, and to identify the significance of five or six important historical dates. This test’s objective was to avoid hiring someone who would embarrass the agency when talking to clients or the media because they had no idea who Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Clarence Thomas are, couldn’t identify Robert Frost as a poet, and didn’t have a clue about what happened on December 7, 1941. Many candidates have good resumes and come across well in interviews, even some who graduate from very prestigious schools, but they still fail the general knowledge test miserably.
Part two of this article will cover tips for getting the most out of interviews with candidates for PR positions, including some excellent questions to ask a public relations professional and warning signs that you really shouldn’t hire someone.