PR professional

Job Responsibilities for a public relations professional or communications specialist include to plan (& attend) events, interview clients and community members. They also write/edit/publish press releases, attend meetings, develop (or redevelop) websites. Some of their most important work is to maintain relationships with clients, manage social media sites, media outreach/relations, and network. Other tasks include to design (& distribute) marketing materials, and crisis communications.

I currently work at a public relations (PR) firm. While I do perform all of these tasks, I also do a lot more. The PR firm I work for is a small company of just three people (the owner, her business partner, and myself). Some of our clients include government run offices so part of my job is to follow all of their protocol, generate monthly reports for financing and grants, help with their website, and attend a lot of meetings.

One of the most important parts of this job is to network and effectively communicate goals and ideas between yourself and the client. In order to work as a PR professional or communications specialist, you have to be outgoing, organized, hard working, flexible, and patient. Even though it is part of the job to provide counseling and guidance on how certain things should be done (design, colors, fonts, when to release things, public statements, etc) you also have to be willing to let the client take the credit. I have written countless blogs, stories, press releases that no one even knows I have written—the client takes the credit. The most important thing to remember about this job is that you are essentially the (mostly hidden) voice of whatever company or client you are representing so you have to act on their best behalf.