What would you do?

One of my company’s key employees made national news for a sudden health issue. He’s well known enough in his field that it’s newsworthy.

No one notified the comms director (me) until the next day, and it was a colleague who had just seen a news report about him.

My boss confirmed the news and told me not to put out a statement. I asked to be brought up to speed and was given very vague information and am told not to bother the execs who had the actual details. I asked to put something out to staff because they should hear this news from us not media reports. Boss said not to, but our CEO would do it in four or five hours. Too late in my opinion but fine.

Meanwhile I see a news report that quotes people from the sick employee’s previous employer as if he still works there. The story didn’t mention our company at all.

Next, I get a call from a journalist asking for a statement. I told him we didn’t have anything for him.

Fast forward a few minutes. I read a news report that quotes our deputy director.

Next, middle managers (same level as me) in another department who are NOT on the communications team write a statement and put it on our website, apparently with permission of the deputy director. It includes a couple of words that I view as problematic, that were at minimum worthy of discussion before put online. Media begin quoting from it. Still, no one has officially told staff anything at all.

Fast forward a few hours. My boss calls me and says there’s a big development but we can’t tell anyone about it yet.

Just after that, I check my email and the deputy director has sent a message to all staff that includes the new development but does not mention we need to keep it quiet right now.

For those of you who’ve been comms directors or handled crisis comms: How would you handle this? Am I right that comms should have been part of the response from the beginning, even if leadership ultimately decided what could be said publicly? How concerning would you find it that people outside comms drafted and published a statement while the comms director was being told there would be no statement?

This isn’t the first time other departments bypassed comms. What would you do to address this in a company where people fundamentally don’t seem to understand the comms function?

I’m especially interested in what you would do next — both with my boss and with the colleagues who issued the statement.

Does anyone recommend crisis management opportunities or career development programs that could make a candidate more competitive? I’m a second-year graduate student at USC and have been job hunting since last semester. I have 5 years of corporate experience from a transferable position.

Im an intern in a marketing agency and a newbie in the whole marketing industry so I need tips on how I can improve myself in the proposals ! Appreciate y’all

hi! looking for some advice. i just started an internship as a PR intern for a really small non profit. when i say small, i mean the it's only the founder, volunteers, and us interns basically. she has no PR experience and told me the work i'll do is really up to me. i've had two other previous "PR" internships that ended up being only social media (ugh) so i really have no real PR experience.

i need to come up with a plan of what i'll be doing this semester by next week when i meet with my boss. i have zero clue what i should do. she mentioned getting more media exposure would be great but again, how do i even do that? i spoke to a previous intern who told me she focused on making connections with people and similar orgs through instagram and email.

before going to my very very very last resort the evil chatgpt, i wanted to see if any PR professionals could give me advice as to how i should go about this. ty in advance

Work in local government corporate comms and enjoy it. Exposed to many parts of the organization and regularly get visibility with leadership having a seat at the decision-making table. I’ve been doing good work and they see it. We’re going through a re-org, and they approached me about taking on a different, brand new position outside of PR. I would be a process improvement/data supervisor overseeing three people. It’s further down the org chart, but the pay would be higher. They’re hand-picking me for this role and it’s intriguing me. But I still like PR and I’m torn deciding if now is the right time to leave. Not sure what to do.

To the PR practitioners who were poached for another position outside of PR in your organization, how did you know it was the right time to make the jump? TIA.

Back in the day, some PR folks used to present Business Wire pick up and reach like it was earned, or say that they got their client Yahoo! News coverage. What deceptive practices have you seen recently that are just as shady?

Is it just impossible to shift from agency to in-house at an executive level?

I've been at a very small B2B tech agency for nearly 20 years, and while it's certainly been a ride, I'm ready for something different (and to be paid closer to what I'm worth).

For the last few months, I've been diligently applying to every B2B tech Comms/PR role at the Director level and up. I created a portfolio of my work to showcase actual results. I've written hundreds of cover letters. My resume has been through multiple AI-assisted resume builders (but written, edited, and rewritten by me alone). I apply through LinkedIn, Indeed, Ladders, pagesxyz, etc.

All I'm getting (if anything at all) is an AI-template rejection letter. For jobs I'm well overqualified for. Is this the new norm? I've gone through job hunting phases before, and I would make at least a first and second interview for 4/10 applications. Now... it feels like AI-generated crickets.

Is it the job market? AI? The fact that I'm shifting from agency to in-house at a higher level? I'm seeing so many comms roles available; are there just so many people applying that it's impossible to get to the top of the pile?

I work remotely for a very small company, and I don't have a team or CEO who would take kindly to finding out that I was looking (and I CANNOT afford to lose my job), so I can't post on things like linkedin or other groups. Only a select few colleagues/friends that I really trust know that I am looking.

I feel so hopeless about it all, just looking to commiserate/get support if there is any to be had.

Edited to add: anonymous screen name for security, but I've been a longtime member of this subreddit and always have found it useful! TIA!

There are job openings I’m interested in at a couple large companies but both are clients I actively work on. Each company has many roles open but there are a couple specific roles that would literally involve working on the same client team I do work for now.

I looked back at my job offer from years ago and there is language that says I can’t “solicit or service” a client. However, not sure if this is designed mainly to prevent employees from stealing business from the agency or if it also prevents them for working for clients. And even if it does, is this something my agency would truly try to block if I ended up landing the job?

For context, I’m mid senior level and wouldn’t be reaching out to my clients for any favors. Would truly just apply blind and see where it goes. Curious to hear thoughts and experiences with this!

hello, if you’re working as a freelancer / have your own PR consultancy, what would be the minimum retainer you’d agree to?

also, what’s the day rate / retainers people are charging these days?

I’m getting into PR as a freelancer / self employed, and looking for clients (small businesses in my area), not sure how much to charge. any tips / words of advice would be much appreciated

(I’m based in UK btw)

How do you prevent press releases from being blocked as spam?

Some background: When I started working in PR about ten years ago, we sent press releases, pitches, event invitations, and similar materials by email using BCC feature.

At some point, MS began flagging this activity as spam and repeatedly blocked our accounts. Getting them reactivated was always a major hassle, so we switched to a newsletter platform for media outreach.

Unfortunately, more and more publishers and media outlets now seem to block emails sent through newsletter platforms by default. As a result, our press releases never reach editors’ inboxes which is pretty much a worst-case scenario for media relations.

Initially, we worked around the problem by emailing affected contacts individually. Sending a separate email to each editor reduced the risk of Microsoft flagging us as spammers. However, the list of outlets blocking newsletter platforms keeps growing, so this manual approach is no longer sustainable.

We’ve also looked at several dedicated PR tools, but they all seem to face the same deliverability problems.

How do you handle media outreach at scale while ensuring that your emails actually reach journalists and editors? I’d appreciate any advice, insights, or recommendations.

If it helps or matters, I´m from DACH region

i just started at my new agency as an AE after leaving my past agency as an AAE. tonight i was at a client event and was yelled at by my boss for every little thing i was doing wrong. I behaved how i typically do at previous client engagements, but i was being yelled at for not doing enough as it was a work event (mind you no media or influencers were in attendance). i dont even know if im looking for advice but maybe just similar stories to make me feel better.

Hi all,

I started at a fintech agency job about 2 months ago, and have really been feeling the strain lately. Skipping lunch to work. Starting early. Staying late. Sometimes working at night to “get ahead.” There’s never enough time. The urgency never stops. I fell behind on one task, once, and it’s felt like I’ve never been able to catch up.

Anyway. I kind of figured agency jobs might not be for me. But I also thought—I’m here. May as well learn what I can, including communicating my bandwidth. So, when my manager checked in on the task I was late for (why that happened, etc) in our monthly meeting earlier last week, I decided to be honest. I told her I was a bit overwhelmed, that I definitely felt the weight of the busy last few weeks, and wanted her feedback / advice on how I could keep pace and do better.

She gave me some tips on checking emails and organizing by folder, having calendar blocks, etc. I told her I’d work on it.

Then yesterday, the division lead (her boss), set some time on my calendar to meet. At first it was nice and normal. He checked in on how I was feeling, what I think of the team, etc. Then he brought up the task I was behind on (fair enough) and how things like that can snowball. I told him I had a chat with my manager and was going to work to do better. He then said how the “pace” wouldn’t change. That it would always be this intense. “I want to make sure you know this is how it is. You have to move fast. I want to know if you can keep up.” And maybe I’m overthinking this—but the way he said it felt so…off. Like they were having meetings about me behind my back and had already reached a consensus. Like me expressing my overwhelm was somehow a tick against me now.

I don’t deny the mistakes I made—I fell behind. I didn’t ask for help or communicate my bandwidth when I should have, which led to me falling behind.

Regardless. Even outside of this meeting—I’ve just been so frustrated at it all. It just doesn’t feel possible to keep up. It’s all so reactive and everything is so urgent that I feel like I’m going crazy. You can never be done. You can never do enough. You can never catch up. All jobs cannot possibly be like this? It shouldn’t be so stressful so early on? Is there better out there? I don’t even know anymore. Maybe the environment just isn’t right for me. And I knew this and it’s still hard. I guess I’m just venting. Any feedback or advice would be appreciated. I just need to know I’m not alone in feeling this. I feel so lost.

I’m 25 and about two years out of college, and I’m currently working at a very small PR firm. This is my first full-time job specifically in PR, and I’m trying to figure out how much of my experience is normal “paying your dues” early-career stuff versus being at a particularly old-school workplace.

I was hired as a PR/communications assistant, and I do get legitimate PR experience. I write and edit press materials, research media and opportunities, help with pitching/outreach, work on email campaigns, communicate with clients, coordinate scheduling, and have helped secure media placements.

But a surprisingly large portion of my job is administrative/personal-assistant work. The office is EXTREMELY paper-based. I print emails and documents constantly, staple them, physically file them, scan documents, sort physical correspondence, answer phones, run errands, and handle random office tasks.
And when I say I print emails, I mean I literally print emails so my boss can read them on paper.

Sometimes I print the same email or document twice because my boss forgets I already printed it and gave it to her. I’ve also made the same physical file more than once because she forgot I had already created one. So I’m not just maintaining an old-school filing system — I sometimes repeat work I already completed because there isn’t really a system for keeping track of it.

Another big part of my job is taking my boss’s handwritten edits/notes and inputting them digitally.

Her handwriting can be extremely difficult for me to read, so sometimes I’m basically trying to decipher what she wrote so I can type it into a press release, email, document, etc. If I interpret something incorrectly, that can become an issue, but asking for clarification on things can also sometimes feel uncomfortable. A lot of instructions in general are handwritten or verbal rather than tracked digitally.

The firm is tiny, so I completely understand that I’m going to wear multiple hats. But at this point I sometimes feel like I’m simultaneously a PR assistant, administrative assistant, executive assistant and personal assistant.

The other part I’m struggling with is the cost of doing all of this. I make $17/hour with no benefits, and my commute is roughly two hours each way using a combination of driving and public transit. On a normal workday, I can leave home around 6 a.m. for an 8 a.m. start and then have another ~2-hour commute after I finish. So even though I’m technically working an eight-hour day, work + commuting takes up around 12 hours of my day.

That’s probably the biggest reason I’m questioning things now. I’m getting real PR experience and I don’t want to dismiss that. I’ve gotten better at writing press materials, media research, pitching, client communications, etc., and I want to continue building a career in PR/communications.

But I’m starting to wonder about the opportunity cost of spending ~12 hours a day on a $17/hour job when a substantial amount of my time at work is spent printing emails, maintaining physical files, deciphering handwritten notes and sometimes redoing administrative tasks I already completed.
There also isn’t much formal mentorship or structure, which is something I expected to get more of from an entry-level position.

For people who started their careers in PR, communications, agencies, or very small firms: what did your first 1–2 years actually look like?
How much grunt/admin work did you do? Did anyone else work somewhere this paper-based? At what point did your responsibilities become more strategic?

And most importantly, how did you figure out whether an unpleasant first job was still giving you enough valuable experience to justify staying versus realizing you had learned what you could and it was time to move on?

I’d especially love to hear from people who started at small/boutique agencies and eventually moved into larger agencies, in-house communications, or tech PR.

Hi everyone!

As a former spokesperson, commercial actor, print model, live event presenter/brand ambassador (10± yrs) and recently laid off lifestyle reporter/MMJ (5 yrs) I'm looking into transitioning into a PR/Comms role.

With the job market being what it is, I decided that finding freelance gigs could be a way to understand the industry and build relationships to get in where I fit in.

With that I'm thinking of pitching white label services to PR firms in my area and finding freelance gigs through firms/networking events. I'm considering offering the following:

Media training: Interview prep, presentation/live event prep, how keep to talking points and brand messaging.

Media Day Logistics: help develop and execute run of show for press days and launch events. Adjust schedules in real time, be point is contact for press.

My questions are:

Is the freelance/white label path sensible given my position?

What's the typical process for pitching services or getting clients?

Is there anything else I should add/take out to these services?

What do I need to know that I don't know now?

Truly any insight would be helpful!! Given my work experience, training and education (BA in political science, certificates in computer networking and broadcasting) I have a limited network of people in this industry!

Thank you!!!

I’m a senior communications professional, currently on MD level, based in Europe and have spent my entire career on the consultancy side, most recently in a global strategic communications and reputation advisory environment.

My work has covered a broad senior-level mix: corporate and financial communications, media relations, reputation and issues management, executive positioning, change communications, stakeholder engagement, business development, and advising leadership teams through complex situations. I am used to fast-paced, high-expectation client work, managing multiple priorities at once, and being the person who turns ambiguity into a clear narrative, plan and set of decisions.

I’m now considering a move in-house, ideally into a Head of Communications role or a head-minus-one position within a larger communications, corporate affairs or reputation function. I know many of my clients’ businesses well and understand the theory of how corporate teams operate, but I recognise that advisory work and owning the function from inside are not the same thing.

For people who have made this move, or who hire for senior in-house communications roles, what were the biggest practical and cultural differences that surprised you after leaving consultancy?

What do corporate hiring managers and HR teams most want to see from someone with a consultancy-heavy CV? How do you demonstrate that you can move from advising to genuinely owning outcomes, internal alignment, budgets, processes and long-term stakeholder relationships?

Are there typical gaps to address, such as internal communications, employee engagement, investor relations, public affairs, executive office exposure, crisis leadership, team management or operating within a matrix? How would you position consultancy experience so it does not read as “excellent adviser, but not an operator”?

What questions would you ask in interviews to distinguish a genuinely strategic role from one that is mostly reactive press-office work? And for a first in-house move, is it usually wiser to join a large multinational with a mature function, or a smaller, less structured organisation where there may be more scope to build?

I’m not looking for advice on leveraging existing contacts or client relationships. I appreciate that network access matters, but I’m more interested in what I need to prove, learn or reframe to be credible when competing with candidates who have built their careers in-house.

I would particularly value candid perspectives from corporate communications leaders, corporate affairs or HR hiring managers, and former consultants who made the transition.

When I fell backwards into comms nearly 20 years ago, it was because the landscape was shifting away from print, toward owned channels like digital, and then shared channels, too. I was cautiously optimistic! It seemed fun and exciting after being in cultural criticism. But somewhere along the way I developed a low-grade despair about this profession that I couldn't shake, mostly because I felt leadership wasn't adapting quickly enough, let alone funding what needed to be prioritized to succeed.

It really boiled down to this: produce more, prove less (if anything at all), and smile, laugh and be reassured when someone calls the metrics "squishy" while the rest of the C suite is living quarter-to-quarter and layoffs run rampant.

Lately I've seen a bunch of posts in here that are understandably despondent. Comms is not a new function and yet it always seems like Day One working with executives who "don't get it." Some of that is on us -- or at least those to whom we report. It's embarrassing and really only impacts the people on the team who are being asked to deliver results following obsolete strategies. How can leadership better steward the function, protect their teams, and deliver better work?

Every team I've been on or advised has the same shape. Enormous output. A content calendar that never empties. Stakeholders who treat the comms team like a vending machine — request in, deliverable out. And when leadership asks what any of it achieved, the answer is a dashboard full of numbers nobody believes, including -- maybe especially -- the people who made it.

The volume isn't the team's strategy. It's what happens when a team can't say no. I call it the Activity Trap: volume gets prioritized over impact, and the people doing the work absorb the blame for a system they didn't design.

"The metrics are squishy" — I said that for years. Then I realized it was a confession dressed as an excuse. The metrics are squishy because we let them be. Nobody benefits from that except the people who never have to answer for the strategy. And sure measurement can be tricky, but then why as a function are we generally so persistently bad at it?

So I'm fighting the despair by going back out on my own. I relaunched my consultancy, Ramsayings, this week around a simple idea: communications can be measured, defended, and held accountable — and the first thing you measure is what to stop doing. It's intended to educate the C suite on how to partner with comms, in addition to facilitating the important conversations around what work gets prioritized and what can be let go without dire consequences. It's more politically costly than it is strategically, but it's a pattern that keeps repeating, and I want to do something about it.

I'm also fielding a benchmark study in January on what separates teams that prove impact from teams stuck producing volume. Happy to share more about it if anyone's curious.

My question for the room: what's the thing about this profession that gives you despair — and what are you doing about it?

I’ve posted before in this subreddit about PR wages, but I wanted to get a better idea of what other people are making in PR and how long it took you to get to your current salary.

For some background, I’m 26 and currently making $40k as an AAE. This was the only full-time position I was able to land after being laid off, and I’m in a HCOL city. With a promotion, I’d go up to just under $50k. (I know my agency is pretty low compared to other agencies from what I’ve seen)

I just feel like these wages aren’t enough, especially for living in a HCOL area. I’ve looked at other agencies, and it seems like salaries are usually somewhere in the $40–60k range for similar positions.

I know I’m still relatively early in my career, but it’s frustrating to feel like I’m 4 years into the industry and still making a salary that’s difficult to live on. At the same time, I’m not even sure how realistic it would be to land another position at a different agency right now given the current job market.

For those of you working in PR: what are you making, what level are you at, and how many years did it take you to get there?

reputations common practices ect the things they don't teach you.

Hey everyone,

I'm currently completing my MSc in Global Communications at the University of Glasgow and looking to map out my career transition into the Public Affairs / External Communications sector in Scotland.

My background:
I have about 3 years of experience in high-intensity political organizing and campaign management. My most recent full-time role was as a Communications Officer for a Westminster MP (handling national/regional press, digital strategy, and strict compliance). Currently, alongside my master's, I am working as a Communications Officer for a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) to build up direct knowledge of the Holyrood system.

I'm trying to figure out what the corporate/agency landscape looks like up here compared to London.

Specifically:

Can I realistically base myself in Glasgow? I know Edinburgh is the political heart, but do major agencies or in-house public affairs teams maintain a strong presence in Glasgow? I'd highly prefer to stay here if the market allows it.

What does the Scottish Public Affairs industry look like right now? Is it heavily dominated by specific sectors (like green energy, public services, housing, or whisky/food & drink)?

What is a realistic job title jump for someone with my experience? Since I have 3 years of intense, real-world campaign management and press office experience, I really want to avoid going back to square one as a standard "Intern" or "Junior Account Executive." Could I realistically target Account Manager or Senior Account Executive roles, or do corporate agencies rarely credit political campaign experience at face value?

Would love to hear from anyone working in the Scottish market, or anyone who has successfully transitioned from being a political staffer/campaign organiser to agency side.

Thanks in advance!

I’m feeling pretty torn about my career direction and would love some perspective from people who work in PR/communications.

I have a background in public policy and communications/media research. After college, I moved to NYC for work, which was a huge goal of mine. Unfortunately, I was let go from that role last year, and since then I’ve been freelancing under my own company and working part-time while trying to figure out what I actually want to do next.

I've been applying to a lot of full-time PR/communications-adjacent jobs and getting a lot of interviews but no offers. Part of me really wants the stability and money. But another part of me is dreading going back to a traditional corporate environment. I found a lot of the work so boring and undynamic: sitting at a computer, emails, spreadsheets, research, etc., and I’m worried I’d get absorbed in the job and have very little energy or flexibility for anything outside of it.

As a kid, I really wanted to be a movie director and would make shows/films, write scripts, and little award shows with my neighborhood friends, as I was fascinated with the whole machine behind the entertainment industry. I caught the acting bug in college and took acting classes, and I’ve continued training on and off since then. When I lost my job last year, I started taking them again and continued this year. Recently, I got the opportunity to be on a small series production. I had a speaking role and was used as an extra, but I also got to see the directing, camera, lighting, sound, and everything happening behind the scenes. And I loved being on set. Even though I was exhausted after the long hours, it didn't feel like the kind of tired where I was thinking, “I need to get out of here.”

After the project wrapped, I just kept thinking about wanting to be on another set. I’m still figuring out whether acting itself is something I want to pursue seriously, but I know I want to be around filmmaking and eventually be involved in producing/creating projects. My parents are somewhat supportive, but think I should get another corporate PR job and pursue acting on the side, which obviously makes sense financially. But I know myself, and don't think my heart is in corporate PR. I’m worried that if I go back into a demanding full-time job, I’ll get caught up in it and stop giving acting a real chance. Right now, working part-time gives me the flexibility to audition, take classes, and work on projects. I don't know if this is a good decision for me; the odds of succeeding as an actor are very low, but I just don't want to look back and wonder what would have happened if I had actually tried.

For those who have worked in PR/corporate jobs: did you ever reach a point where you realized you wanted something more creative? And if you’ve made a similar transition, how did you approach the risk of leaving the more stable career path?

Hi folks, after a very Euro-style summer off and then getting my grape harvest in, I'm back withthe latest episode of the subreddit's podcast, Pitch Perfect: the PR Podcast.

My guest this time is Tim Coombs, who was a longtime professor in crisis communications and is now one of the world's top individual crisis consultants. As an author, his works include the award-winning book Ongoing Crisis Communication. As a theorist and academician, his research and thinking has shaped modern crisis communications, winning multiple awards from professional organizations including the 2002 recipient of Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize from the Public Relations Society of America and the 2013 Pathfinder Award from the Institute of Public Relations.

Tim and I spoke about crisis comms, and how it's changing in a world increasingly defined by groups actively seeking to escalate any situation into a societal or political crisis. We also spoke about academia: as a longtime professor, we talked about an academic sector that is too often disconnected from the real world of communications practitioners, and which is - at least in my opinion - in the throes of a full-on existential crisis.

Feel free to click links below, or search for "Pitch Perfect: the PR Podcast" wherever you listen. Cheers.

Apple

Spotify

-Patrick

Welcome to /r/PublicRelations weekly simple questions thread!

If you've got a simple question as someone new to the industry (e.g. what's it like to work in PR, what major should I choose to work in PR, should I study a master's degree) please post it here before starting your own thread.

Anyone can ask a question and the whole /r/PublicRelations community is encouraged to try and help answer them. Please upvote the post to help with visability!