David Willetts, the Universities minister, stated yesterday that the introduction of higher fees has discouraged significant numbers of students from applying.

The provisional figures published by UCAS in November showed that the number of students who applied for places at UK universities was 158,387, down 23,427 compared to the same point a year earlier.

Overall, applications are expected to be down by between 7-8%, when overseas students are included.

2011 saw the final year for which tuition fees were £3000. This year tuition fees  have moved up the scale to around the £9000 mark.

Most universities and colleges are expected to try to charge up to or close to the new limit next year. But some experts predict fees will fall for 2013 as demand drops off, particularly for less prestigious courses.

Sarah Spencer, academic director of the distance learning centre Oxford College, commented:

“Even taking into account last year’s surge in demand for university places, this is a sudden, and severe, drop in applications. It’s not a pretty picture. With many universities now charging £9000 a year for tuition, the cost is clearly scaring off many would-be students.

“It’s years since getting a degree was any sort of guarantee of getting a good job. Now university fees are so high that a three-year degree course is increasingly looking like an expensive gamble. Among our students, we have seen a steep increase in interest in vocational courses like BTEC Higher National Diplomas. Many calculate that these sort of applied courses will give them faster and more cost-effective access to the relevant skills that will improve their job prospects.

“As even the ivory towers of academia are buffeted by the chill economic winds, students’ fears about cost and the anaemic jobs market are combining to change the shape of higher education.”

Staged in the University’s Old Cinema building, the panelists included Richard Ellis, Communications Director at PRCA (stepping in last-minute for CEO Francis Ingham); Sally Costerton, Chairman and CEO of Hill and Knowlton Europe; Professor Trevor Morris, author of PR Today: The Authoritative Guide and ex-Chime Communications CEO; Lucy Laville; Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University and Cathy Bussey, Deputy Editor PR Week.

Firstly, for the sake of both background information and transparency, I think some context might be useful. I’m an Account Manager at Wolfstar PR, working in London. I’m originally from Leeds and worked out of the agency’s Northern HQ for around 18 months before making the move down to the Big Smoke.

I didn’t study public relations, instead I read English at Northumbria. I came close, very close, to applying for PR course – I looked into public relations degrees and even tailored my personal statement accordingly! I changed my mind at the last minute though and opted to study English for a number of different reasons. Firstly, English: reading, writing, critiquing etc. has always been ‘my thing’ and I felt it would still grant me applicable skills I could use to gain entry into the PR world.

Also, my Mum’s friend, a partner at a local PR agency, had told me PR degrees were ‘mickey mouse’. I experienced this sort of snobbery then, and continue to do so today and this was my main reason for attending the talk.

Employer understanding of public relations education was the focus of the discussion. Each panel member spoke for around 10 minutes, each framing their piece around this, and how the PRCA is seeking to challenge perception through partnering with twelve educational institutions to add value and improve the standards of PR courses.

I’ve worked with a number of people from PR degree backgrounds and they’ve been some of the most competent and astute practitioners I’ve ever worked with.  But equally, so have the people who studied English, Law, Marketing, Business Studies, Advertising…

It’s not just snobbery that exists around PR degrees; it exists around the profession as a whole. To some, PR isn’t and will never be a respectable profession – but that’s something I’ll come back to.

Outside of the marketing sphere, PR has a ‘murky’ perception. Some of the most well-known PR figures are Alastair Campbell, Andy Coulson and Max Clifford. They’re not famous for the right reasons though, instead they’re all known as spin-doctors, manipulators and behind-the-scenes Svengalis.

Within marketing, PR is often seen as fluff – wacky stunts, activity without hard business value and of course, boozy lunches a’ plenty daaaahling!

Think about this – when we see successful, ethical PR it’s a ‘campaign’; when it’s anything but ethical it’s ‘spin’; and when it’s downright murky, it’s ‘propaganda’.

Crikey, I’ve painted a bleak picture haven’t I?

Well, it gets worse. As I said before, PR isn’t actually a profession. I guess it depends on your definition of a profession, but isn’t a profession a licensed practice with restricted entry confined by qualifications based on rigid legal necessities and training?

I think so, but there’s nothing wrong with not having a ‘profession’ in the traditional sense. Would the same restrictions that confine lawyers, doctors and accountants work in PR? No, because universal restrictions in healthcare PR wouldn’t apply to celebrity. PR is a multi-faceted creative industry that houses practitioners from a huge range of backgrounds; it’s an industry that lives, dies, but ultimately thrives on its fluidity.

So, the PRCA partnering with educational institutions to improve the standard of PR degrees can only be a good thing. But surely that isn’t enough – I think there’s equal, if not more value in universities forming formalised relationships with local and regional PR employers.

Of course, the two aren’t mutually exclusive – in a perfect world, wouldn’t it be great to have a public relations degree supported by a national trade body and localised consultancies. Surely this combination of theoretical and practical contribution would be immensely valuable.

In my opinion the marketing and PR industry houses some of the best graduates, because it’s so bloody hard to get your foot in the door! This difficulty acts as a filter as those that aren’t prepared to go above and beyond the call of duty and work long hours for little money, ultimately fall by the way side.

So I thought it’d be appropriate to finish with some of things Sally Costerton looks for in graduates:

• The ability to recognize and respond to trends shaping our industry. Some of these currently include:
  • The influence of political campaign models, in using data to scientifcally shape and evaluate activity.
  • The ubiquity of smartphones forcing the ‘democratization of everything’ by giving everyone a voice.
  • Key qualities of curiosity, bravery, passion and of course, experience and qualifications.

Above all, Sally placed the greatest emphasis on ‘creativity’ as in an age where a campaign has an ‘innovation’ life cycle of eighteen months, there’s nothing more important than that ‘next big idea’.

If you like what you read here, check out my blog at anthonydevenish.com and follow me on Twitter here: @ajdevenish.

News stories suggest that applicants are trading ‘softer subjects’ such as media studies and PR for more traditional subjects such as mathematics and engineering.

Personally, when making the choice about what course to study at university I can honestly say that nowhere in my mind was I making a choice between PR and mathematics or engineering, they’re so far apart that I can’t see a student who was thinking of studying PR before the fees went up would suddenly go “£9,000 for a PR degree? Oh in that case I’ll do mathematics instead”. So, in my personal opinion, the fact that PR applications have decreased and mathematics applications for example have increased is not related.

Also, there is a clear difference between media studies and PR and these shouldn’t necessarily be grouped together. Media studies as a subject is much broader than PR and does not necessarily have a clear career path which could be a reason for decreased applications. Applicants want to know that after spending up to £27k they will have a career at the end of it. Whereas with PR there is a clear career path; you study the degree, learn the skills and theory needed in the industry, gain work experience, graduate and apply for jobs in the PR industry. Media studies seems to be a degree for an applicant who isn’t entirely sure which area of the media they want to work in whereas PR is a degree for people who know (or think they know) that they want to work specifically in the PR industry.

A more realistic explanation for decreased applications would simply be that applicants are taking more time over their applications as it is a much greater investment and so applications will increase over the next few months after applicants have visited university open days and found out more about the courses on offer.

The free event which is organised by Leeds Media and Social Alchemy, Inspire. Create will combine an exhibition of budding creatives’ work with a series of seminars and workshops in a bid to support Yorkshire’s rising stars.

The exhibition will feature the work of 15 successful entrants from a competition that has been launched by the organisers.

The winners will be crowned at the event, with prizes including a paid placement at Leeds-based digital agency Brass and a new Apple Mac donated by communications agency Logistik, which is also offering an experienced mentor from its design department to offer guidance and support.

The exhibition is open to all full time media, digital and creative students, graduates and freelancers and is taking place on Thursday 27 October at The Faversham, Leeds.

Workshops and seminars will be held by representatives from some of the UK’s leading agencies, which are all based in the Leeds City region, including What !?, Engine Room Apps, Thompson Brand Partners, BrandNu, Clearsilver, Coolpink, Two Birds One Stone and Creative England (previously Screen Yorkshire) .

Nick Ramshaw, Chair of Leeds Media said: “Leeds Media is committed to helping develop, attract and retain the very best talent in our region. This is essential to support the continued development of our creative industries and this event is another example of the practical help Leeds Media is providing to ensure this happens.”

Michaela Laubscher, Director of Social Alchemy commented: “As a young person and a business owner, I’ve seen first-hand how difficult it is to break into the media industry.  Events like Inspire. Create. are important for breaking down barriers by allowing young creatives to meet their industry peers face to face.

“Our range of seminars and workshops will inspire students, graduates and freelancers to take the important next steps in their career – whether that’s getting a placement within an agency, or starting up their own.”

There are limited places still available for some of the seminars and workshops, visit www.inspirecreateleeds.co.uk for more information.

The eleven, in alphabetical order are: Bournemouth, Buckinghamshire New, Cardiff, De Montfort, Greenwich, King’s College London, Leeds Metropolitan, Lincoln, Manchester Metropolitan, University of the Arts and Westminster.

PRCA chief executive Francis Ingham said:

By linking up with eleven elite PR-degree awarding universities, we are creating a new quality distinction. Now we’re not saying that every single university that we have not affiliated with provides degrees without value. Far from it. But we certainly are saying that the eleven we have chosen to associate ourselves with are deeply respected by employers. We endorse them. Employers respect them. They are of guaranteed value.

For me it was such an important decision as it has a direct relation to the rest of my life.  Very scary indeed. So once (after about three months of changing my mind) I had finally decided that public relations was the perfect degree for me, I now had to decide where to study.

Reputation comes first

Soon to be a PR student: Jazz Chappell

I always knew that, regardless of whatever subject I took, I wanted to go to an accredited university for that subject, or one that was well known and highly regarded. I know that it shouldn’t matter too much, but in the real world, potential employers are going to look to the universities where they believe the best students come from. If it so happens that Kent has a good reputation for English students, why would they look anywhere else first? It makes sense, and so began my hunt to find a list of universities that were considered as some of the best for PR. So I would suggest this is a good way to begin narrowing universities down.

It became clear to me that the degrees approved by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) would certainly be a good place to start. Through their website I found a list of approved courses and looked into each one. This list makes the decision far more manageable as there is a set number of universities to look at, rather then the seemingly never ending pages from UCAS. There are other universities that offer public relations degrees that have not yet been accredited by CIPR; I did look at these also, so I didn’t rule any options out, and would advise you all to do the same.

So now you all know that the universities have good reputations, it is important to look at the differences between the actual courses and modules. Do they offer a year placement in the workplace? This will invaluable experience and the chance to put into practise all the theory you have learnt, whilst also making those all important industry connections. Do they offer a year studying abroad? Is this something that you could see yourself doing? Bearing in mind living abroad/ learning a new language makes you more desirable to a potential employer.

Location, location, location

Then it is good to know about the location of the university. Would you like to be closer to home or as far away as possible?  And without being clichéd, the nightlife and shopping facilities are always worth looking into also. It would be a good idea to have a look at any PR companies that are based in the city or near the university, as you will most certainly be encouraged to carry out work experience during your time there.

From this you should have a better idea of at least five universities that you think would be the best for you. It is all very well having gathered this information mostly from the universities’ individual websites or from their open days but remember the lecturers and staff aren’t the ones actually studying the degree.

Speak to the students currently on the course. They’ll tell you their thoughts, and most of the time, will be brutally honest. They have been through it too; they know what worries they had themselves and will tell you what they like most or least about their PR course.

I found that an easy way to do this was through Twitter. As most PR students have an account it was relatively easy to find students on the course, I then politely direct messaged them asking their thoughts so far. Simple!

By this time I had a good idea of where I wanted to go, the last piece of advice I would offer is to actually go and visit the universities. They are your future homes for the next thre or four years. Get a feel of the place and the surrounding area; you will know whether or not it is right for you.

I found that these were all aspects that helped me choose where to go, and can be related to anyone. I wanted a university with a good reputation and employability prospects whilst at the same time being in an enjoyable place to live. I can’t see why any prospective PR students would want anything different.

At the end of the day the choice is completely up to you. It comes down to personal preference and you cannot let any others sway your opinion, but do your research and speak to others on the course, the decision will be a far easier one to make.

This is not only due to the recent recession and an increase in people attending university, but also the sheer number of students wishing to progress in a professional career such as PR.

Media, and specifically PR, are popular career destinations for today’s graduates. Public relations and media careers are known for being relatively glamorous and, crucially, these professions accept unrelated degrees such as Media Studies and English Literature. So as a result, once the graduation ceremony and ball are over, a huge number of graduates begin clamouring for that elusive PR job.

This desperate rush for the “easy” careers (as some undergraduates deem them) has serious consequences. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. At a graduate level, there is a massive supply of labour, all clambering for a limited number of PR jobs.

So what can students and graduates do to differentiate themselves from their rivals?

From grads to riches

Sarah Murray: glad to have a good job in PR

Sarah Murray, account executive at PR and marketing agency MCC International, describes her route into PR:

“I graduated in 2009, slap bang in the middle of the recession.  The job market was in such a dismal state that our lecturers and tutors were encouraging us to go travelling for a year or apply for jobs in supermarkets and coffee houses in order to ride out the recession.

“Many of my fellow students followed this advice and saved up quickly, working in pill-packing factories to buy their plane tickets to adventure. I, however, wanted to hit the ground running. I feared that all I had learnt would just disappear, not to mention that sleeping in hostels in malaria-ridden countries just wasn’t for me!

“In order to tackle what seemed to be the biggest shock of my life, I jumped in at the deep end. I moved straight into a flat in Southampton, a city which seemed to have plenty of small retail jobs that would tide me over and got a full-time job in Pret A Manger. This paid the bills, but was rather disheartening work, so I applied for every job possible.

“I signed on with all the recruitment agencies in the local area and registered with jobs websites, setting the goal of applying for five positions every day. This was a heartless task and a discouraging one, following my fun days at university. However, I kept trying and managed to get a temporary job in Southampton Solent University in the finance department. This was a real breakthrough and allowed me a better wage and a chance to keep applying for jobs in the industry that I studied in.

Lucky break

“Throughout an internship, networking is key. I kept in touch with all my old PR work-placement contacts and tried to gain as much experience as possible. I’m not going to lie and say it was a breeze working and studying full-time, but it was definitely worth it in the end.

“As I came to the end of both my course and internship, I decided it was again time to look for a job in PR. I had done as my tutors and lecturers suggested and filled my year after graduating with work experience and learning, so hoped that all my hard work would pay off in the form of a job in PR.

“Sure enough, the first one I applied to hired me and now I am working as an account executive at the international PR and marketing agency, MCC International.

Adventure junkies

“Many of my classmates did not have such luck. The majority decided to delay working full-time by going travelling for a year or two. Many of them haven’t returned yet, hooked on sunshine and adventure. One friend came back and managed to get a job at Champion Communications in London, which saw her land on her feet – she was one of the lucky ones. Another went on to secure a job as a PR and marketing assistant in Southampton, until the recession caused mass redundancies in the company. The good news is after a shaky start she is now working for a PR agency in London.

“One of my close friends found getting a job in PR impossible so started applying anywhere in a sporadic fashion with no success. So she decided to work in an estate agency showing properties. She has recently been head hunted and is now moving to London as an estate agent.

“Another friend now works in Tesco on the tills and has resigned herself to the fact that there are no graduate jobs out there. She is saving up to move abroad and hopes that she will find something overseas.

“The job market has shrunk with all the recession cutbacks and the majority of jobs are now found in big cities such as London and Manchester. PR graduates are having to look into alternative jobs until a preferred position opens up in a company or settle for a completely different career. I’m just glad that I managed to differentiate myself from others and stand out when it comes to the job application process.  With the change in tuition fees, the job market will change again and hopefully, make it easier eventually for graduates to get jobs in their chosen profession.”

Ben Smith is managing director of PR commentary and careers site PR Moment.

With the government contemplating reducing funding for universities, the financial strain on students is likely to increase and the average student starting university in 2010 is expected to graduate with £24,702 of debt.

A long term debt sentence

Once again this year, students are proving more realistic than their parents when it comes to paying off their university debt with 34% of students predicting they will graduate with over £20,000 of debt compared to 19% of parents.

49% of students estimate that it will take them over 10 years to pay off their debt and 8% believe they could be in debt for over 20 years.  With such a debt sentence upon them, some 18% of students said that they would put off or postpone doing postgraduate studies due to the extra debt entailed.

The worry of unemployment

55% of students are worried that they will not be able to find a job on graduation, due to the effects of the recession.  With the worry of debt levels on graduation, some 32% of students have said that they would prioritise a higher paid job over their career vocation to help pay off their student debt and, of the 27% of graduates who would consider taking a gap year before university, 11% would do so in order to help their financial situation on graduation and 9% would do so to put less of the strain on family finances.

Parental sacrifice

Parents are still prepared to make financial sacrifices for their children to help them through university.  23% of parents questioned said they would sacrifice their annual holiday, 21% a new car, 13% home improvements or extensions, 13% early retirement and 12% moving to a bigger house.

But is it worth it?

Meanwhile, new research from YouGov reveals that over half (52%) of British adults think that too many young people are studying at university.

Younger generations are more likely to think that more students should be granted a place at university, with only 44% of 18-29 year olds saying that too many people are studying at university compared to 61% of those British adults over 60 years old.

This year, 160,000 school leavers are likely to miss out on a place at university.

Marketing: merits its own road sign (see below for credit)

It’s a question I considered in 2006 when I was researching PR courses and came across an article on the internship experiences of Bournemouth University PR students – 70% of which, the article said, were marketing related.

Job listings and the ratio of marketing to ‘publicity studies’ students at university (it’s about eight to one) gave the figure credibility although I cannot vouch for its accuracy. However, it made me think.

I set myself a personal goal: to study the language of marketing to complement my PR studies. After further research, I subsequently enrolled first on the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Professional Certificate in Marketing and, a year later, enrolled again on their (degree level) Professional Diploma in Marketing.

Was it worthwhile? Is there a value in PR students studying marketing? I believe the answer is yes.

A study of marketing is, in part, a study of why organisations exist: namely to sell products or services. If you read one of Seth Godin’s books – and they’re easy to read – you should get the idea.

Differences and distinctions

Before I go further, though, let me be clear: marketing is not PR – nor is PR a part of marketing.

There are aspects of marketing that have no obvious equivalent within PR. Some aspects have parallels but may be more pronounced within one discipline or the other – Marketing Research and Information for example (think of MORI) is arguably more established within Marketing. There are also areas of confusion – the obvious being between ‘PR’ and ‘Marketing Communication’.  I’ll focus for a moment on how Marketing Communication interacts with PR in my experience:

At its core ‘marcoms’ involves the development and implementation of a communications mix in which ‘public relations’ may be one aspect – alongside the likes of sales promotions, advertising, personal selling and direct marketing. Marcoms is not – therefore – just about PR.

Similarly the reference to PR is very narrow – the marketer almost always means social media management and brand recognition. The reality is that one aspect of marcoms may overlap with one aspect of PR – although if you are part of a small team tasked with doing both this, subtlety will probably be lost.

PR is recognised within the CIM as operating at different levels. At a tactical level it’s about the ability to write a competent press release (to ‘sell’ a story or product) – which is when PR is most often considered to be ‘just a part of marketing’. At a corporate level, PR operates in areas such as crisis communication and corporate social responsibility.

The latter being an area that Sir Paul Judge, CIM president, spoke about at my graduation; marketers he said – and by extension companies – ignore CSR at their peril. The opportunity is there for PR to stake its claim.

So what can PR students expect from a marketing qualification? Over and above the conceptual understanding of what constitutes marketing – and the fundamentals of product, place, promotion and price – a number of topics will be covered. More extensive details can be found on the CIM website but to highlight some key areas:

• Qualitative and quantitative research including questionnaire design (in detail), focus groups, face to face interviewing and demographics;
• Buyer behaviour, brands and influence models;
• Marketing agencies – how to prepare a brief for agencies and how best to manage them;
• Permission marketing, stakeholder management, relationship management;
• Budgeting;
• Segmentation, targeting and positioning;
• Market planning and the product life cycle;
• Macro and micro environmental factors;
• Market fragmentation and communication channels.

Some of these topics – typically those covered at the marketing certificate level – reinforce what may be covered by a PR course; others are unlikely to be covered.

Studying marketing, as with any study, involves commitment – about 160 hours worth of contact time for the certificate and the same again for the diploma in addition to the private study you will undertake. And my advice would be to plan on doing both if you really want to comprehend what marketing is.

What about social marketing?

If you haven’t got the time ask yourself whether public sector organisations like the health service or law enforcement agencies sell messages – ‘sneezes spread diseases’, ‘justice seen, justice done’.  Then ask yourself the question:

How do charities sell ideas? Do charities even sell ideas?

It’s a question first raised by G. D. Wiebe in 1952 when he asked: “Why can’t you sell brotherhood like you sell soap?” The issue was developed by Kotler and Zaltman in 1971 and today the University of Stirling and the Open University collaborate on the topic that today is known as social marketing. The OU published an excellent book called simply Social Marketing in 2008.

Studying marketing invites a different way of thinking – it invites you to focus on the goals behind your messages. My experiences within industry point toward PR and marketing being different methods of accomplishing different goals but with the same big picture in mind. They’re allies and not dissimilar – which unfortunately invites people to group them together. So, despite their differences, PR and marketing are often inseparable. Which is why I believe understanding both sides of the coin is valuable for PR practitioners.

Photo from Dr Stephen Dann‘s photostream on Flickr (Creative Commons)

The on- and offline worlds have been buzzing lately with talk about the dearth of suitably skilled candidates for the increasing number of digital PR roles. Indeed, this is a topic that everybody seems to have an opinion on.

Ben's blog: 'Social Web Thing'

PR Week has picked up on this issue, finding that only 6% of CVs mentioned social media, with fleeting mentions of Twitter, Facebook and blogging. It appears that despite the growing ranks of people with PR degrees and professional qualifications there is an industry-wide digital skills gap.

Given the explosion of internet usage over the last decade, social media has been catapulted from the preserve of geeks to part of people’s daily lives. This widespread adoption has meant organisations are keen to harness social media’s vast potential to communicate with consumers. Despite many people using social media every day, there is a shortage of people with the right blend of skills and knowledge to make it work for a client.

Having acquainted myself with the main arguments and formulated some initial thoughts, I decided to enlist the help of industry colleagues and academics to see what they thought about the digital skills gap – and how it could be bridged.

Who does the teaching?

I kicked-off by asking who should teach digital PR skills. Andy Barr, owner of 10 Yetis spoke about the need for the worlds of academia and business to work together:

‘There needs to be a combined effort that starts with the universities giving their students a basic understanding of social media and SEO that the student is then encouraged to take further themselves. Finally, internships and on-job training can polish those skills.’

Marshall Manson, director of digital strategy at Edelman was pragmatic and stressed that PR skills are acquired over time: ‘In my experience, academics are good at teaching principles and lousy at teaching practicalities. So most of the training is going to have to be done by employers.’

Karen Russell, associate professor of public relations at the University of Georgia replied on my blog that attaining social media skills is an ongoing process: ‘Social media skills can’t be taught in a day, or in a class. The tools are always changing, and we all have to respond — or in some cases, we have to change the tools. My point is that professionals, educators and students are all responsible for teaching, and learning, social media skills. Every day.’

Wanting to challenge industry figures to ‘put their money where their mouth is’, I asked specifically what digital skills they would like people to have.

Stephen Waddington, managing director of Speed Communications recommended social media platforms that people should use. ‘If you’re new to PR, you need to build your own social networks on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. And you need to develop content on a blog platform, Flickr and YouTube. Likewise if you’re in PR and want to stay in PR you equally need to learn how to use digital techniques to create and seed content’.

To gain a public sector perspective, I contacted Simon Wakeman, head of communications & marketing at Medway Council. Simon is something of a trailblazer having successfully integrated social media into a council communications strategy.

Simon was clear what he prizes in new recruits: ‘A strategic understanding of the impact of social media on communications, as well as a working knowledge of the key tools and an understanding about how to manage the reputational risks from social media. Ideally candidates will also be able to articulate how social media can be incorporated effectively into a multi-channel campaign.’

Stephen and Simon are both involved with the recruitment process at their organisations, so their comments should prove valuable reading for any budding PR student or graduate.

Recording achievement, personal SEO and creating a positive digital footprint are topics that interest me – I know from personal experience what a tremendous platform they can be. So I was curious to discover how digital skills should be demonstrated to employers.

Impressing employers

Stephen once more shared practical tips on how to impress a prospective employer: ‘It’s the old adage. Show me what you’ve done, don’t tell me what you could do. Build out your own social networks and use a blog platform, Flickr or YouTube. I am constantly astonished at the number of PR and journalism students that aren’t sufficiently motivated to experiment with these new forms of media. I would always choose someone who had made the effort versus someone who had not’.

PR jobs on Twitter

Simon was equally clear how a prospective employee can impress: ‘By managing their own personal digital PR well! The best demonstration of digital skills is by having an effective web presence of their own’.

Andy warned of the pitfalls: ‘We would never discourage people from talking about their Twitter and Blogger experiences, but if you do, make sure they are filled with interesting content rather than a hastily drawn up account to try and tick an interview box.’

Andy concluded: ‘A really good starting point for people looking to demonstrate their understanding of social media is to check around the web to make sure there is nothing damaging written about yourself on the web. Many recruiters I speak to check out potential employees on Twitter, Facebook, and community forums’.

There are clearly many questions that still need to be answered regarding the PR community’s digital divide. Paul Simpson, untiul recently a public relations lecturer at the London College of Communication offered what could prove the start of a solution:

‘My own experience tells me that the digital skills gap within existing PR practice seems to be such that it further underlines how useful such a profession-led, higher education offer might be, providing opportunities for existing practitioners to dip in, and share their experiences of PR with students while they brush-up on social media skills they may have fallen behind on.’

For PR education to have real value, the content has to be frequently refreshed so it can be applied in the real world. As previously mentioned, this is a topic that everyone seems to have an opinion on – and the main characters in this story – business and academia – need to sit down with the CIPR and other industry bodies to discuss how this debate can be taken forward.

My only hope is that this discussion can be had sooner rather than later, otherwise the digital divide will continue to grow.

Ben Cotton now works for the Edelman digital PR team, Spook Media.
The transcripts of the interviews for this article are available in full here.

Stuck indoors

The reason I was stuck indoors smelling like a bad takeaway? I had decided to pass up on being a student that year and watch my career-minded friends begin their university lives without me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to university, it was the fact that I didn’t have a clue what to do if I went, and I was worried that I’d choose the wrong course if I rushed into it.

The irony is that I took a year off to decide what to do, didn’t do any of the travelling adventures or work placements with amazing companies you’re supposed to do in a gap year, and when I did go to university, realised I was on the wrong course after all.

Wasting the summer stuck in an uncomfortable office with people who were interested in little other than garlic bread motivated me to make a decision, and after several lunch hours spent trawling through university websites, looking at course after course, I decided on Public Relations at Leeds Met.

A student at last

As university was a new concept to me, I imagined it with the naïve stereotype so many others do: night after night of drinking and waking up with your shoes on, followed by days spent in the library writing essay after essay. Thankfully I escaped the first of the two as I wasn’t living in Leeds full time, and more to the point couldn’t think of anything worse than a night involving dressing up as a cartoon character and drinking concoctions of alcohol that always appear to be a shade of dark brown.

The second stereotype of essay writing, however, I was quite prepared for. I had achieved my highest graded A-Level in Communication Studies as a result of the course content being mostly focussed on individual writing projects and enjoyed it above any other subject.

So when people said PR wasn’t what they were expecting and I said it wasn’t either, we weren’t always on the same wavelength when they were referring to the Sex and the City box set as their only PR experience and I was referring to Communication Studies.

However, the Writing for PR module in my first semester did offer some similarities to what I was expecting, and is possibly the reason I achieved my best grade here and enjoyed it more than the others I studied that term. Come semester two, I saw my motivation and grades take a drop.

As most students will know, each semester of a degree is differnt from the previous one, presumably to keep the subject open to various angles and sectors for the many areas of interest within PR. The problem for me was that the subjects taught got further away from my interests each term, and even though I didn’t clearly know what these were, I realised I was enjoying the academic modules more than the business ones, yet the emphasis on these became more apparent each week.

Some academics say university is about preparing you for work, and admittedly it should include this, otherwise graduates would arguably be untrained, but for me the course had completely lost its academic focus and now seemed to revolve around business models and preparations for running your own company. But what if that wasn’t what you were interested in?

When I started university, everyone was asked their reasons for studying for a degree. While most people stated their belief that it would lead them to a better paid job or valuable career, my reasons were mostly for personal achievement. It turned out reasons like this also motivate studying for personal interest (something I should have realised before I started), therefore being programmed for successful business wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

What I also realised is that whatever your reasons for studying, if you don’t have the motivation to do so – or anything to motivate you – then you won’t succeed.

Another important factor contributing to motivation, I found, was the people you spent most of your working time with. Several people in the first year admitted they were only at university for the nightlife or as a way to get out of working full time (most of these weren’t still there by the second year).

Typical students

‘Typical’ students are one of the few stereotypes I did see at university, though few of them ever showed up. What are you supposed to do when you’re ready to gain good grades by producing quality work when you’re told you have to work with others like this?

The visions of mountains of essays were quickly replaced with mountains of other’s work when it became apparent most modules required the same element of group work.

The benefits of this are obvious and are there for everybody: the students are able to distribute work between them, playing on individual’s strengths and weaknesses to create a strong team, while tutors are able to save themselves valuable time in marking four or more students work at once in roughly 20 minutes, rather than the long process of reading through individual essays.

However, the benefits which students gain are only viable when you have a good team, similar to a business working well with the right people to work within it. And when 75% of your team doesn’t show up, or worse, when you’ve never heard of them they attend so little, it results in one of two scenarios. The first is simple: you fail, or else do very badly and get judged for being unable to work as part of a team by your tutors. Or second, you do four people’s work and when you do receive the grade you aimed for, so does everyone else who had very little input.

The other downfall of group work is that you need to be flexible to everyone’s working styles. Some people work best under pressure while others prefer to have a finished assignment weeks in advance of the deadline. Of course university is often not local for everyone. Group work distributed over Christmas and Easter holidays is either not thought through very well, or meant to convince everyone to stay at university for their ‘break’. How exactly is a group supposed to meet to practise a presentation when everyone in the group lives in opposite corners of the country?

With the basis of PR being focussed on communication, I wondered why the tutors weren’t communicating with each other, and realising they were all giving us exactly the same tedious work.

Not the business

In January of my second year I read the titles of that semester’s modules to myself which may as well have been ‘business, business and more business’: not totally off the subject of PR but not quite on it either. So when I said to a friend jokingly during the introduction of one module, ‘if every module is assessed by group work again I’m leaving’. I did honestly think I was joking at the time, but two weeks later I’d attended them all and genuinely not been interested in a moment of it.

When I told my friends I’d decided to change courses, one of them replied, ‘I wish I had the guts to leave’, and slowly it became apparent nobody really enjoyed PR like they had in the first year. Since then a few others have decided to leave too, for different reasons. Some feel they should broaden their areas of knowledge if they’re going to graduate in a recession, while others have just decided on a completely different direction. One thing we all had in common though, was being able to agree that communication is the key to not only successful business, but a successful degree, and that’s something that was lacking enormously.

Now I’ve chosen to study a degree focussing on more than one area, and one I had originally looked into while at college, with the ability to choose your own modules and make the programme suit you.

I had a fantastic time at Leeds Met and leant some invaluable lessons while making some great friends, but overall the most important thing you can learn at university is what you need to get out of your degree and how to make it work for yourself if you’re going to succeed.

Overall a record-breaking 465,000 people are applying to begin a degree this September, including a significant increase in the number of older applicants, official figures reported.

The number of applications from over-24s rose by 12.6% and the 20-24 age group increased by 12.9%, the figures published yesterday by the university application service UCAS revealed.

A last-minute boom in applications in the run-up to the December deadline is thought to have been triggered by people wanting to use academia to escape the recession and be better qualified by the time the jobs market picks up again, moving the competition for places to university in addition to the job market.

Vice-chancellors warned last night that with a 7.8% increase in undergraduate applications therefore 34,000 more than last year, students face the most intense competition in years.

Jerry Swerling, director of Public Relations at Annenberg, said he is seeing an overall increase in international student applicants from countries such as India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Canada, Argentina and Finland. “These students want to come here, learn about Public Relations, get internships, and then go back and build the field,” Swerling said. “We’re trying hard to position our program to have global perspective.”

Swerling also said the majority of Chinese international students are applying to the Master’s course in Public Relations because they want to learn the skills needed to help develop China’s slowly emerging PR industry.

”Students might be showing increased interest in the PR profession because it has not been as negatively affected as other industries have been by the recession”, Swerling said. He attributed this to companies looking for more efficient ways to communicate their messages to the public. He also said that, because of the increased need for skilled PR practitioners, the recession might even be increasing the profession’s level of support and credibility:

“Public Relations is a field that is thriving, even in difficult economic times,” Swerling said. “In the short term it’s going to be difficult, but in the long term this is probably the best environment that the PR profession has ever enjoyed.”

My final year dissertation was a good opportunity for me to explore this further. I eventually decided on the question: ‘Why is public relations an attractive career choice for women?’

There seemed to be a lot of research to show that public relations is dominated by women – but there was little or no interpretation as to why this is. So I decided to find out.

Public relations has not always been dominated by women and in 1983 Bates explained how some worried about the impact of an increased number of women in the industry. “If women become a majority in public relations, the practice will be typecast as ‘women’s work’”.

The shift in balance towards women has led to much stereotyping. Frohlich and Peters’ study reveals how “the evolution of a ‘PR bunny’ stereotype adds a negative touch to the image as ‘natural born communicators’”. This negative stereotype surrounds women working in the industry and makes it harder for them to prove themselves through their work.

This is having an unfortunate affect on the public relations industry as explained by Doe: “PR babes whose qualifications lie in their looks rather than their brains…they’re costing companies credibility”.

I wanted to find out if those working in public relations (so-called ‘PR bunnies’) recognised the importance of PR as a profession and not just as an excuse to attend glitzy parties and drink copious amounts of champagne. I had my suspicions that the media may have had an impact on this view of the industry through programmes such as ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ and ‘Sex and the City’. A UKTV Gold blurb about ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ says:

“if you thought PR was all about, champers, parties and free lunches – err…you’d be right. Well if Ab Fab is anything to go by”.

To set about answering my research question I decided to undertake some primary and secondary research. The secondary research supported the assumption that there are more women working in public relations than men (CIPR, 2008) and that there are many more females enrolling on public relations degree courses.

The primary research involved questionnaires and interviews and revealed some interesting observations.

So how do you see public relations? Maybe you view it like one female graduate working for a consultancy, as “communicating, socialising, problem solving and glamour”.

Or maybe you have a more realistic view of PR and the way in which it is portrayed, similar to that of one male respondent working in-house: “I think the general perception of PR is that it is more suited to females and their qualities, especially in terms of networking etc. This is not necessarily the way that PR is, but it is often the perceived view.”

I do not think that public relations has totally moved on from its perceived glamorous image and the need for its workers to be ‘good communicators’. In turn these features of the business are highlighted through the media, forcing people to think a certain way about the industry.

Once people have this stereotype in mind is hard to remove, therefore women believe that they have the personality to suit the industry and are attracted by the more glamorous side of it and tend to disregard the mundane, businesslike aspects of the job.

This stereotype has done some damage to the public relations industry, but with good education – through the evolution of public relations degrees – future generations of PR practitioners will have a more realistic image of the industry before they start out and will be able to articulate this to the general public.

If you, as an undergraduate public relations student, take anything away from this article let it be this quotation by Kate Nicholas:

“I’m sure that anyone who recruits is familiar with the eager-beaver letters from Edina Monsoon wannabes, whose sole concept of PR has been forged by watching reruns of Absolutely Fabulous. These letters invariably include the term ‘creativity’ at least three times and wax lyrical about how much the writer likes ‘working with people’ – a phrase that constitutes career death in PR.”

Bearing this in mind will help change the perception of the public relations industry as it appears that the image being portrayed by the media is incorrect and out of date. It’s not quite as glamorous as they make it out to be, but it’s also more important to the world of business.

Photos by Victoria Louise Crampton

References:

Bates, Don (1983) A Concern: Will Women Inherit the Profession? The Public Relations Journal, 39 (7), 6-8

Bernstein, Jack (1986) Is PR Field Being Hurt By Too Many Women? Advertising Age, 57 (7) 66-67

Chartered Institute of Public Relations (2008) Information about the CIPR and the Public Relations Industry. [Internet] Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Available From: www.cipr.co.uk/News/factfile/index.htm [Accessed 4th February 2008]

Doe, Tamasin (2008) Fashion PR: The Unprofessionals. [Internet] The Independent on Sunday. Available From: www.independent.co.uk/news/media/fashion-pr-the-unprofessionals-506520.html [Accessed 13th January 2008]

Frohlich, Romy and Peters, Sonja (2007) PR Bunnies Caught in the Agency Ghetto? Gender Stereotypes, Organisational Factors, and Women’s Careers in PR Agencies. Journal of Public Relations Research. 19 (3) 229

Nicholas, Kate (2005) That People Person May Be Your Next Boss. [Internet] PR Week. Available From: www.prweek.com/uk/search/article/528545 [Accessed 10th October 2007]

UK TV Gold (2007) Absolutely Fabulous. [Internet] UK TV Gold. Available From: www.uktv.co.uk/gold/item/aid/528040 [Accessed 6th January 2008]

The three year BA (Hons) degree course is closely aligned with and partly taught by the University’s Journalism course, to teach the relationship between two industries.

The course offers level one students the opportunity to visit a number of established PR teams in London during a three day visit, including Lexis PR, Halpern and fashion brand Warehouse’s in-house department.

Falmouth has introduced the course at a challenging time for business, in a bid to help people gain secure employment through well-developed skills.

Course leader Jon Cope said: “Our aim is to produce immediately employable graduates who are particularly strong writers, able to think creatively and critically about public relations and the PR industry. We would also be delighted if the course helped the PR industry in Cornwall and the South West to grow.”

An international campaigns module gives the degree an element of difference from others as students are partly taught via web conferencing with a Brazilian University, showing the use of technology for learning.

The importance of combined academic and industry work is stressed during levels two and three of the course, when students take part in five-week work placements to further their chances of gaining employment after graduating.

Details of the course can be found at www.falmouth.ac.uk. As a new course, it is not yet eligible for CIPR approval.

Name:

Work title:
Senior Lecturer and Course Leader, BA (Hons) in PR & Communications, Southampton Solent University 

Qualification(s): 
BA (Hons) International Relations, University of Virginia (USA). Masters and Doctorate in International Relations, St Antony’s College, Oxford University.  MCIPR since 1988. 

Academic experience: 
I’ve been at Solent University as a part time lecturer for three years. I now lead the course and am working to develop a BA (Hons) in Corporate Communications, as well as a PR Pathway for a BA (Hons) in Online Communications.

Professional experience: 
I’m an American by birth but I’ve lived over half my life in the UK. I’ve had twenty years’ plus experience as a practitioner, working mostly in-house but with some agency experience. My career has included public affairs, marketing communications and PR for financial services and professional organisations. I’ve worked for the Stock Exchange, the FSA and the British Bankers’ Association. I’ve been a Head of Parliamentary Relations twice, a Director of Corporate Communications twice, a CEO once, and now offer consultancy to clients. I’ve traveled all over the world and worked in some pretty exotic places, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Ukraine and Russia. I am an accredited coach specialising in top team development, performance improvement and change management.  

Teaching philosophy: 
Inspire students with passion and enthusiasm, based on my own experience. There’s nothing like explaining crisis PR by using as an example the day my boss was arrested at dawn by the Serious Fraud Office! As a university, we need to equip students with the means to succeed and prosper. I like to think that my blend of practicality with intellectual challenge helps students make sense out of it all.

Research interests: 
Public policy advocacy, issues management, CSR and ethics.

Interests outside work: 
I live in an 18th century thatched cottage in a beautiful rural Hampshire village with my husband and two Labradors. I ring church bells, indulge in ballroom dancing classes (love Argentine Tango!) and am writing my first novel, set in 15th century Italy. If I won the lottery, I’d spend far too much on long haul travel, fine wine and books. 

Why did you become a lecturer?
I stopped working in the City of London to find time to enjoy life and give something back. I was approached through my CIPR contacts to cover for a lecturer for six weeks. I took to it like a duck to water, and enjoy it immensely. It’s challenging, intellectually interesting and makes a difference to the quality of other people’s lives.  

What do you most like / dislike about your current role?
Like – the fact that this is communication that changes lives, and if you get it right, you can see the difference it makes to the way students grow in confidence and skill.  If I had to grumble about something, it would be students who sign up for a tutorial and then don’t show up. 

What is your proudest achievement?  
That’s a toss up between being one of the first American women to win a Rhodes Scholarship in 1977, and having a successful and happy marriage for 28 years. On second thought, my husband has made more of a difference to me as a human being than anything else.

What is your greatest disappointment? 
Not starting my novel ten years ago.

How has public relations changed during your lifetime?  
When I started there were no university degrees in PR. And, to be honest, if there had been, I wouldn’t have done it because the reputation of “PR” wasn’t very appealing.  I think the profession has become more respected over the last twenty years, as people begin to appreciate how communication is a strategic management tool and an essential skill of government. 

How do you envisage it developing in the future?
I worry that PR will be split in half. Too many practitioners will be side-tracked down the route of tactical ploys, technological gizmos and other “tricks of the trade”. The other path is into the boardroom, where communication really makes a difference. I’ve seen how a good PR and Comms professional can change the business fundamentals for an organisation, in a way that the accountancy and legal professions do. CIPR membership, Continuous Professional Development and Chartered Practitioner status need to be directed toward this kind of professional communicator, rather than the “spin doctors” who hog the pages of PR Week. We need better PR for PR…

Name

Work title:
Programme Leader, MA in Public Relations, De Montfort University, Leicester

Qualification(s): 
MA in Mass Communications, University of Leicester.  I was recently awarded a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and am currently working towards my PhD.

Academic experience:
I’ve been at De Montfort University for two years and set up our MA in Public Relations.

Professional experience: 
A journalist before moving into PR (for publishers Oxford University Press), I subsequently spent six years in corporate communications roles with Royal Mail and then swapped to the agency side, working in senior consultancy positions in the UK and Iceland.

Teaching philosophy:
Don’t be afraid to academically challenge your students, but ensure that you give them the tools that aid understanding and help them work effectively.  Be prepared to spend time with students beyond formal teaching – one-to-one tutorials can really make a difference.

Research interests:
PR and gender; how people working in media occupations use social media technologies.

Interests outside work: 
I lived in a ski resort for three years where I could snowboard every day; now I’m back in the UK I get my kicks from fell running and road cycling instead.  

I spend far too much time travelling round Europe with my husband where we climb, walk, buy wine and fail to send any postcards to our relatives.   When I am forced inside I read, listen to Radio 4 and mess around on the Internet in the interest of research (honest).

Why did you become a lecturer?
In 1999 I was invited to present a careers lecture at Loughborough University, loved it, and wanted to do more.  Consequently, I became increasingly involved in PR coaching and training and ultimately chose an academic career because I was – and still am – motivated by constantly learning, understanding and applying knowledge.  

What do you most like / dislike about your current role?
Dislike?   Nothing, although I wish the University was closer to the railway station – it’s a long walk in the rain.  Like? Every day here is different and I have some great students and colleagues who can make me laugh, think, explore new ideas and surprise me with what they do and say.

What is your proudest achievement? 
When I achieve something I always think that if I could do it, it couldn’t have been that hard – as a result, I’m always looking to the next challenge. 

What is your greatest disappointment?
Every Wednesday at running club when I can’t keep up with the fastest men!

How has public relations changed during your lifetime?  
While working at Oxford University Press a colleague took sick leave after being accused of splitting an infinitive in some brochure copy – I don’t think that would happen now.  However, in those days PR practice tended to lack rigour and took a ‘one size fits all’ approach. There is now a greater appreciation of the underlying theories, issues and problems behind the practice of PR. 

How do you envisage it developing in the future?
I hope that the developments in PR education and professionalism will result in practitioners being seen as advisors rather than tactical paid helps (which still happens!). The industry’s future is in the hands of today’s new practitioners – if they understand the wider contexts in which PR is practiced and appreciate the ethical issues involved, the industry will develop. If not …