Brian Jenkins writes about education and careers in the public relations field, among other topics, for BrainTrack.com. He submitted the following guest post on employment opportunities in PR, which I think will interest many Teaching PR readers.
Employment Opportunities for Public Relations Specialists
How's the job outlook these days for public relations specialists? One of the top employment forecasters, The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), forecasts a 24 percent employment growth from 2008 to 2018 for public relations specialists, which is much faster than the average for all occupations.
The increasingly competitive international business environment has upped the demand for public relation specialists, particularly for those individuals who have international experience or who have a specialty. According to the BLS there is a big demand for PR specialists fluent in foreign languages.
In 2008 there were about 275,200 public relations specialist jobs. According to the BLS, the major job providing sectors are advertising and related services, educational services, healthcare and social assistance, government agencies, communication companies, and financial institutions.
Social Media
Social media has become an important tool in the public relations field. Public relations firms, as well as associations, charitable organizations, and corporations, are increasing their use of social media and, therefore, they need people who have expertise in using the different social media platforms. PR specialists with a bachelor's degree in social media and particularly those with a master's degree in the subject will likely have a competitive edge on the competition for some PR positions.
MBA programs, including MBA programs at top business schools, are integrating social media into their curriculum. Harvard Business School offers a program called "Competing with Social Networks." The London Business School has integrated social media into its MBA curriculum.
Yes, many public relations specialists have taught themselves how to use social media; however, most of them can enhance their knowledge and skills and increase their appeal to potential employers by taking a social media degree program. "Very often our perception of social media, and what we can and can't do using social media, is very much tinted by what we think our favorite person is doing - and our favorite person is usually ourselves," says Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "So it is about getting students to understand that the empirical skills are absolutely necessary, because whatever they think is intuitively correct, is probably about themselves, but nobody else."
The objective of social media education programs is to provide an understanding about the fast-growing, evolving world of social media from a marketing and public relations perspective. A degree (or even just some completed courses) will enhance a PR specialist's resume, especially those with little on-the-job experience.
PR and Nonprofit Organizations
A study conducted in 2008 of the 200 largest charities located in the United States, performed by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, showed that 89 percent of charitable organizations used some form of social media such as podcasts, blogs, social networking, message boards, wikis, and video blogging. The study showed that these large charities were ahead of companies and universities in their familiarity, usage, and monitoring of social media. 45 percent of the nonprofit organizations in the study reported that social media is a very important component of their fundraising strategies. Thus, this sector offers many opportunities for PR specialists with expertise in social media.
The employment growth forecast for public relations specialists is much higher than average. However, for entry-level jobs, the number of qualified candidates is projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to exceed the number of job openings. Being fluent in a foreign language and acquiring social media knowledge and skills by taking college courses can increase the opportunity of obtaining a position in the public relations field.