What PR Agencies Require of New-Hire Junior AEs: Here’s the Inside Scoop

By Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSALooking for a PR job or soon to be? You’ve come to the right place. I have insider information that will help you get what you want quicker than others. It builds on what I and other veterans in the field know. Most important, it’s based on what agency heads themselves told me earlier this year when I did a survey for Gould Partners on “What PR Agencies Require of New-Hire Junior Account Executives.” Those responding were a cross section of GP’s national database of hundreds of firms. Roughly 54.5 percent were from agencies with revenue under $3 million, and 30.9 percent with revenue from $3 million-$10 million.As one might expect, most of what agencies require has always been thus, but there are always a few obvious differences based on current trends and issues affecting agency management and success.  The survey I did included five questions. Here are the results:Q1: Preferred minimum education: Nearly 97% of PR agencies want a bachelor’s degree as opposed to a Master’s degree, but that’s probably because the question asks solely for the minimum. One agency emphasized: “At the entry level (junior AE) we are looking for self starters that are curious about our world. We prefer if they have had a PR internship and understand the basics or have some experience but [we] care less about major in college. Most folks here do not have PR degrees – we prefer to have folks from many disciplines.”Q2: Preferred degree major: With a choice of seven majors, the three most important were public relations (92.86%), journalism (73.21%), and marketing (64.29%). Mass communication came in fourth (50%). No one added “other” majors.Q3: Preferred basic job skills: “Writer” was the clear first (92.59%) with “Media Pitcher” a close second (88.89%), and “Researcher” third (59.26%). Researcher in this instance means someone who is good at finding and analyzing information, not someone who is a professional opinion researcher.  Writing, a perennial issue in PR as well as in K-12 education, elicited the usual clichés: “Please get them to have good writing skills! That is so important and yet missing in most college grads” and “Strong writing skills are our first priority in a new hire.”Q4: Preferred knowledge: For their three choices among eight, the agencies picked Social Media Practices (88%), PR Practices (69%), and Marketing Basics (60%). Business Practices came in a close fourth at 58%).  The emphasis on social media practices reaffirms the growing dominance of social media in today’s PR marketplace.  The need for greater knowledge of business was expressed as follows: “Most . . . students are graduating with little to no business skills” and w e need students to take at least one or two business classes.”Q5: Preferred personal attributes: With a choice of five of eight attributes, the respondents chose articulate (83.93%), motivated (82.14%), strategic thinker (69.64%), cooperative (55.36%) and client centric (51.79%). One respondent interpreted cooperative as “team player,” a better term for future surveys on this topic.Other required skills include public speaking, presentation delivery, creative writing, storytelling, digital and video capabilities, and “out-of-the-box/online thinking.”  Technical skills like proficiency with Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel were also listed.One agency provided a detailed description of its new-hire philosophy: “We look for a diversity of skills, we don't want all traditional PR experience, but what else does the talent bring to the conversation? Where they have lived, worked, volunteered? How up to date are they on trends, digitization, economic and global issues that will be discussed with clients? What's their Rolodex look like? What do they read, what events do they/have they attended, what knowledge to they have on brands and the perception of those brands so we know how they think?”In general, new hires need to have most, if not all, of the above job requirements when they walk through a prospective employer’s door. As one agency stressed: “We do not have time to teach remedial PR, and many skills cannot be taught if a core competency does not exist after four years of college.” So, come prepared. Make a match that will last a long, long time.For further information, visit https://gould-partners.com.[author]About the Author: Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSA, is senior counselor at Gould Partners, PR agency M&A specialists and management consultants. He specializes in assisting social media and digital PR and marketing agencies to merge with larger firms in exchange for cash, equity, executive responsibility and more. Don also teaches at New York University and runs private and public writing workshops in the U.S. and internationally. [/author]