PR industry must be positioned well to attract top notch talent, say experts

The public relations industry has evolved tremendously and grown by leaps and bounds over the years. There is hardly any industry or corporate today that does not use PR today. This is in addition to having an internal corporate communications team. The demands and challenges for PR agencies have also increased manifold, especially in an always-on digital world.

Thus, the demand for skilled PR professionals has also gone up. The PR industry has been facing a talent crunch for some time now. While there is no dearth of freshers who want to join the PR industry, they are often not well-trained to take on the demands of their role. T top it all, the digital transformation, especially brought on by the global pandemic,  has really scaled up the need for managing online reputations more skilfully as the dynamics of social media have brought in an entirely new behaviour.

The PR industry is hovering around Rs 2,500 crore, according to some reports and the industry outlook seems very bullish as from here the industry is only likely to grow. The career here is not just from the agency side, it could be from the clients’ side as well, who are always on the hunt for good managers who can manage the brand reputation of their organisations. Painting a good and positive image of any corporate is the ultimate goal of any leadership team across sectors. It is this good image that draws talent to all these organisations.

Brand managers today play an important role unlike in the past and they are allocating separate budgets for PR campaigns. Many of the managers are not looking at PR as an integrated communication, but instead are asking agencies to suggest standalone PR strategy for their campaigns. Brand managers are also seeing the effectiveness of the tool and which clearly is marking the signal that the industry needs talent and we need to encourage, guide and show the aspiring PR professionals their growth path in this industry. The industry body needs to clearly charter a plan with a long-term vision to attract more talent who are serious about a career in PR.

While talent is one area that the industry is worried about, the PR industry also needs to move few steps forward to do more action-oriented PR for the industry in a more systemic manner to encourage the professionals to join the profession and clearly show them there is a bright future in the industry. A very focused PR campaign needs to be planned to encourage PR students to pursue their career in the industry. While today there are several educational institutes who are churning out PR graduates, but no one is sure how many of these institutes seriously guide and talk about the career that the industry offers. This will definitely give them a better perspective to choose their career in PR and stick with it. The fatigue levels grow very fast in the industry, which needs to be addressed to bring that attrition rate down and show them the bigger picture about the industry. While this is a huge challenge for the agencies, they need to find some solution that will illuminate the eyes of PR professional who are aspiring to take a career in the PR field.

Tarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner, Nucleus PR, who is associated with several PR bodies, remarked, “For an industry that excels at creating stellar reputations and solving business challenges, including talent retention for all our clients, we have been terrible at doing that for our own community. Most professionals with 15+ years of experience in the industry would have stumbled upon it by chance, including myself. Though things are looking up. We as a community are just about starting to do #PR4PR for our own industry. I personally started this journey about 8 years ago with the formation of PRPOI – a PR community that focused on solving and answering questions from PR professionals across designations. The intention was to create camradrie, share information and upskill together encouraging more talent to remain in and join the industry. And it worked. Slowly, we grew to about 10k+ strong vibrant community that connects on a regular basis to discuss and debate relevant issues with practical advice. We argue and debate, but love every bit of it.”

She further said that each and every one of us can do our bit to create a positive reputation for the industry, demystifying it and encouraging more talent to join by simply talking about our positive experiences in the industry along with the bad on social media; go back to our alumni and address PR, encourage marketing forums and media friends to address and talk about PR as a vertical. “Together, collectively we can make so much of a difference to the reputation of the field that benefits the existing talent and potential one as well,” she added.

Aman Gupta, Founder, SPAG Asia, and Managing Partner, FINN Health Practice Asia Lead, noted, “Today, Public Relations is considered to be one of the most diverse and exciting career paths for anyone who is keen to enter the communications industry. Employment for public relations specialist is projected to grow 11 per cent from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all other occupations. Public Relations helps us to master the art of communicating with different stakeholders of a business starting from the CEO to the media to government bodies to consumers. Public Relations is a profession that helps build connections that eventually contribute to further not just one’s career, but also offer support in crucial times. Opting for a career in Public Relations is challenging, but it can help an individual to develop a range of skills that will not only prepare them to become better in the industry but in the long run, eventually teaches them the life skill of managing different sets of people around them. A job in this sector sharpens the creativity, professionalism, and patience of an individual.”

He pointed out, “This is an era of start-ups that are continuously thriving to grow big, and PR is an essential tool in their growth journey. Not only start-ups, but after the pandemic, health and technology have boomed so much that there are ample employment opportunities in these sectors. The demand for PR professionals will never die out because the industry is continuously evolving with time. This industry is comparatively paying much more than what we see in other parallel sectors. Apart from the salary scale, it gives you enough recognition as well – awards and recognition like 30 under 30 or 40 under 40 have recently culled out young PR professionals who are assets to the industry and from there, one can really go upwards and onwards, there’s no looking back.”

Sudipta Gupta, Vice President – Human Resources, The PRactice, noted, “Most aspiring communication professionals make career choices without knowing the depth of what a career in Public Relations can give. The Public Relations industry is at an interesting stage showing a lot of growth and this must be positioned well. Today, even the Values and Culture of an organisation are important factors that prospective applicants consider while making decisions about their career.”

Adding further, she remarked that at an industry level collaborating with academia, educating and creating awareness is the need of the hour. Creating customised courses, mentoring students, breaking the myths of Public Relations, and giving students exposure to life in a Public Relations firm are ways to overcome this gap and encourage more youth to take up this profession.”

Public Relations is indeed a lucrative career option – one with immense learning, career growth and exposure. Packaging the skills, opportunities that this industry can offer aspiring talent needs to be taken up on priority.