U.S. News Names PR One of 50 Best Careers of 2010

by lisa ~ December 28, 2009

U.S. News & World Report has named the public relations profession “one of the 50 best careers of 2010.” It said the field should see “strong growth over the next decade.” In fact, it claims that PR jobs are expected to increase by 24% from 2008 to 2018.While U.S. News gives a fairly accurate description of the tasks typically performed and the qualifications needed, it doesn’t offer any advice that would allow a neophyte to jump into a PR career. So I’ll take the reins from here.

My first advice is to choose your specialty - entertainment, publishing, high tech, etc. After being a business/financial reporter for several years, it was easy for me to transition into financial PR.

Learn everything you can about your chosen specialty. Read the trades and memorize the names of the biggest movers and shakers. Yes, I read PRWeek but I also read the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist, and other more technical publications. It’s actually more important for me to know what’s going on in the credit markets than to follow the ins and outs of personnel trading amongst the big-name agencies.

Meet the reporters who cover this beat and treat them with respect. I can’t emphasize strongly enough the importance of this advice. Assuming you stay within the same specialty your entire career, you will speak to the same reporters for decades. Yes, they move around but you should make an effort to stay in touch with them, even if they change beats. Although the lead fixed income reporter at Dow Jones may move to Bloomberg next week, chances are you’ll still need that contact at some point in the future.

Further your education whenever possible. If it’s important to your client that you understand more about social media, take a class. If you work for a smaller shop that requires you to have broad-based skills, make yourself indispensible.

After several years in financial PR, my employer offered to pay for an advanced degree. In 2007, I obtained my MBA in marketing from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business. Courses in survey design and administration were useful but the overview of business operations - from accounting to business law - has been invaluable.

Some agencies state emphatically that they only hire generalists. With dozens of clients spanning numerous fields, this makes sense. But I’ve been successful in focusing my skills around financial PR. Even as an entrepreneur, my clients are overwhelmingly related to financial services. It’s an area where I’m uniquely qualified. In other words, my clients hire me because I’m a specialist.

So my advice to those looking to start a career in PR is to find an area that interests them intensely and then pursue it doggedly. They’ll be much happier in the end.

Lisa Tibbitts (Lisa.Tibbitts@Me.com) is the principal of Tibbitts Creative, a public relations and marketing service that emphasizes corporate communications. She has an extensive background in financial services and an MBA in marketing. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FinancialPR.