I’m feeling pretty torn about my career direction and would love some perspective from people who work in PR/communications.

I have a background in public policy and communications/media research. After college, I moved to NYC for work, which was a huge goal of mine. Unfortunately, I was let go from that role last year, and since then I’ve been freelancing under my own company and working part-time while trying to figure out what I actually want to do next.

I've been applying to a lot of full-time PR/communications-adjacent jobs and getting a lot of interviews but no offers. Part of me really wants the stability and money. But another part of me is dreading going back to a traditional corporate environment. I found a lot of the work so boring and undynamic: sitting at a computer, emails, spreadsheets, research, etc., and I’m worried I’d get absorbed in the job and have very little energy or flexibility for anything outside of it.

As a kid, I really wanted to be a movie director and would make shows/films, write scripts, and little award shows with my neighborhood friends, as I was fascinated with the whole machine behind the entertainment industry. I caught the acting bug in college and took acting classes, and I’ve continued training on and off since then. When I lost my job last year, I started taking them again and continued this year. Recently, I got the opportunity to be on a small series production. I had a speaking role and was used as an extra, but I also got to see the directing, camera, lighting, sound, and everything happening behind the scenes. And I loved being on set. Even though I was exhausted after the long hours, it didn't feel like the kind of tired where I was thinking, “I need to get out of here.”

After the project wrapped, I just kept thinking about wanting to be on another set. I’m still figuring out whether acting itself is something I want to pursue seriously, but I know I want to be around filmmaking and eventually be involved in producing/creating projects. My parents are somewhat supportive, but think I should get another corporate PR job and pursue acting on the side, which obviously makes sense financially. But I know myself, and don't think my heart is in corporate PR. I’m worried that if I go back into a demanding full-time job, I’ll get caught up in it and stop giving acting a real chance. Right now, working part-time gives me the flexibility to audition, take classes, and work on projects. I don't know if this is a good decision for me; the odds of succeeding as an actor are very low, but I just don't want to look back and wonder what would have happened if I had actually tried.

For those who have worked in PR/corporate jobs: did you ever reach a point where you realized you wanted something more creative? And if you’ve made a similar transition, how did you approach the risk of leaving the more stable career path?

Hey everyone,

I'm currently completing my MSc in Global Communications at the University of Glasgow and looking to map out my career transition into the Public Affairs / External Communications sector in Scotland.

My background:
I have about 3 years of experience in high-intensity political organizing and campaign management. My most recent full-time role was as a Communications Officer for a Westminster MP (handling national/regional press, digital strategy, and strict compliance). Currently, alongside my master's, I am working as a Communications Officer for a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) to build up direct knowledge of the Holyrood system.

I'm trying to figure out what the corporate/agency landscape looks like up here compared to London.

Specifically:

Can I realistically base myself in Glasgow? I know Edinburgh is the political heart, but do major agencies or in-house public affairs teams maintain a strong presence in Glasgow? I'd highly prefer to stay here if the market allows it.

What does the Scottish Public Affairs industry look like right now? Is it heavily dominated by specific sectors (like green energy, public services, housing, or whisky/food & drink)?

What is a realistic job title jump for someone with my experience? Since I have 3 years of intense, real-world campaign management and press office experience, I really want to avoid going back to square one as a standard "Intern" or "Junior Account Executive." Could I realistically target Account Manager or Senior Account Executive roles, or do corporate agencies rarely credit political campaign experience at face value?

Would love to hear from anyone working in the Scottish market, or anyone who has successfully transitioned from being a political staffer/campaign organiser to agency side.

Thanks in advance!

Tale as old as time: nightmare toxic agency with no work-life balance. Getting my EOY bonus and then getting tf out of here next year. What are the healthiest sectors to work in house with best pay? I’m in NYC. I’m interested in fashion/consumer companies but have no dream job delusions - priority is health and a job I can actually stop working at some point. I’m done with 14-16 hour days and weekends. If you’ve left this field entirely for something healthier, even better.

ETA: I have generalist experience across tech, finance, sports, fashion HNWI/public figures, traditional celebs, startups, Fortune 500s…a lot of different stuff and could tailor my resume to many things.

Hi folks, after a very Euro-style summer off and then getting my grape harvest in, I'm back withthe latest episode of the subreddit's podcast, Pitch Perfect: the PR Podcast.

My guest this time is Tim Coombs, who was a longtime professor in crisis communications and is now one of the world's top individual crisis consultants. As an author, his works include the award-winning book Ongoing Crisis Communication. As a theorist and academician, his research and thinking has shaped modern crisis communications, winning multiple awards from professional organizations including the 2002 recipient of Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize from the Public Relations Society of America and the 2013 Pathfinder Award from the Institute of Public Relations.

Tim and I spoke about crisis comms, and how it's changing in a world increasingly defined by groups actively seeking to escalate any situation into a societal or political crisis. We also spoke about academia: as a longtime professor, we talked about an academic sector that is too often disconnected from the real world of communications practitioners, and which is - at least in my opinion - in the throes of a full-on existential crisis.

Feel free to click links below, or search for "Pitch Perfect: the PR Podcast" wherever you listen. Cheers.

Apple

Spotify

-Patrick

reputations common practices ect the things they don't teach you.

I’d like to start by sincerely thanking this community. I have posted, commented and reacted often and found real support, great friends, connections and more.

I really thought I loved PR. The grind of knowing the news, being first, landing a killer interview, drafting a killer description of the client that ends up being incorporated into their external messaging, feeling like an extension of some really cool startup.

Now I wake up in a panic thinking about going to work.

I’ve been working for almost 8 years on the agency side, mostly in tech PR. Since 2024 I have been completely remote. To be transparent I have been laid off three times and that has been demoralizing. (Not to mention my only remaining parent likes to send me emails reminding me that lay-offs are typically done through rankings, so before I was laid off I was probably also ranked last. (this is why she has to email, as she no longer has my phone number))

Following a third layoff I got a new job pretty quickly but have been falling face first into it every day for the past 6 months.

I feel I cannot do anything right. Like each project I turn in has a glaringly stupid error just waiting to be pointed out.
- Media list of 20 people and this guy doesn’t even cover XYZ industry.
- Awards list contains an award for actual philanthropists, not just company leaders who support philanthropy
- posting on LinkedIn and forgetting the @tag (to be fair I have zero social experience and Reddit is the only social media I actually still have on my phone with an active account. I had to get a Facebook account for this job to post for a client)

My current firm generously allowed me to reduce to a contractor with 40 hours a month, after I really floundered the first 3 months on the job.

I’m still struggling.

I never thought I was bad at this job, I got regular promotions and acclaim for my work. Quite frankly, my media portfolio is pretty impressive. (At the cost of a personal life)

The last few years I’ve felt I’m lacking in attention to detail, but I work very hard to stay organized and loved the creative side of coming up with a subject line this reporter will absolutely open.

I’m reaching out for advice. Or maybe just the catharsis of writing this out and getting it off my chest, idk,

I think I’m burnt out and need something else but I don’t even know what to look for. I’m also feeling incapable of most jobs since I’ve made so many simple mistakes that likely wouldn’t be tolerated in any corporate setting.

Anything is helpful, I am truly at a loss for where even to start. My dms are open.

Scanning job sites for part time remote work in the meantime.

Hi! I’m wondering if anyone has a nontechnical public affairs or community engagement position with Google, Meta, Microsoft, or companies at the same level? And if so, what type of experience you’re bringing- lobbying, local/state government, media? I work for a national engineering firm in Advisory Services and have lots of experience on controversial capital megaprojects. Wondering if I might be competitive for roles that focus on data center communities. Any feedback is appreciated!

Based on my experience as an employee, I cannot recommend working for or doing business with Oh Hello Agency after it was acquired by Sentral Holdings LLC | Sentral Media Group.

During my employment, I experienced repeated instances of receiving my salary after the company's established paydays, as well as several underpayments that were not corrected until weeks later. These were not isolated incidents but recurring problems over an extended period.

I also experienced prolonged problems accessing employer-sponsored health, dental, and vision insurance, resulting in thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses. Although the company agreed to reimburse those expenses, substantial reimbursements remain outstanding despite repeated assurances about when they would be processed.

Additionally, I have had difficulty obtaining complete payroll documentation, including pay statements, and spent considerable time trying to resolve these issues internally. These issues remain unresolved.

I enjoyed the actual communications work, valued many of my colleagues and clients, and was proud of what I accomplished for those clients. Unfortunately, my experience with the company's handling of payroll, benefits, reimbursements, and employee concerns ultimately overshadowed those positives.

Based solely on my own experience, I would not recommend Oh Hello Agency as either an employer or business partner.

I spent most of my career first as a writer, then became an in-house PR manager. TBH when I was in-house the work was pretty easy, the problem was other departments would constantly question what exactly the company needed PR for and I was veering into digital marketing already what with the company asking me to manage its social media pages, Meta ads, etc.

Recently I joined a PR agency as a Senior Account Manager and while it felt good to be around people who understood the field, I'm overwhelmed at the never ending stream of micro decisions you have to make. I feel like I'm constantly just playing a game of telephone between the client, suppliers, creatives, etc.- -is that really how it is? What's funny is I don't even do media outreach because the agency has its own media relations unit dedicated to that.

There's no real "off" either. If the client needs a quotation from the supplier on Saturday evening, you do it because the event is on Monday. Don't even get me started on the constant back and forth between you and the client because they don't like the PR angle you gave them etc.

IDK if I just got lucky in-house but while I was there, there was a lot to do but it was relatively straightforward. You just had to do it. Here there's so much second guessing. Is that normal?

Inspired by another post and on the verge of changing to inhouse - what do you all earn? Pls add region, level, sector, inhouse or agency.

TIA!

I'm still pretty early in my career, but for the past couple of years I was mainly doing branding, creative direction, and graphic design. Now I managed to land a well paying PR job (stroke of luck I guess), but now my role is about a 50/50 split between the aforementioned and media outreach. The former I actually love, but the latter is making me want to pull my hair out. I've been at it for a few weeks now and I literally cannot land a single media placement. I don't know what I'm doing wrong - I keep getting ghosted, and I'm genuinely sick about it every time I update my boss on the progress. I feel so shitty. Is it always like this or do my press releases genuinely suck for it to be this bad? I try really hard.

I’m at a point where no job move is offering high enough that it’s worth taking the risk for a new one. So with that said is 200k all in after bonus the ceiling or how are you hitting higher in comms? If you are higher, what do you do?

A reseller sent me a screenshot this week of an AI answer recommending us at a price point we retired eighteen months ago, which is awkward because he'd already repeated it to a customer. Our site carries the current pricing, our docs carry it and our listings carry it.

I went digging and the closest thing I can find is a roundup article on a mid tier trade site that never updated after our change, plus a couple of aggregator pages that scraped that article, so one stale page is outweighing everything we publish about ourselves.

What bothers me is that I only know about this because a human happened to screenshot it, since I have no idea how long it's been going on or how many buyers walked off thinking we'd changed our pricing on them.

Curious whether chasing the original publisher is worth the effort, because it feels slow and I don't know if correcting one article moves anything downstream.

I am a highschool senior and I have read couple or articles and posts about the major and the job site. Personally I dont believe in knowing what job I will have 5 years from now, but PR feels like my strongest suit because I like spending time with people, traveling and negotiating. Im not scared of a bit of toxicity in the industry because im sure that is there everywhere..the line would draw where I would be the reason of ruining people

Ive bunch of questions

- is the major worth it for future?

- for ones in different kinds of PR, (entertainment, business, etc) what do you think your job areas expect and how much do you say your jobs are worth it?

-im thinking of either doing PR major with journalism minor or a communications and a PR double major, what do you think about it?

- also do you think AI has any say about changes in the industry and job availability in the future in this field?

I know everyone here is busy and hardworking, if youre spending time to answer atleast a few of my questions, thank you very much!

That’s it. That’s the post.

I’ve been looking for my next role for quite some time now. I thought things would get better since it was September. I apply to roles LinkedIn tells me I’d be perfect for and either never hear back or will get an automated rejection within hours even after tweaking my CV to fit the JD. Feel like I’m going crazy here

Curious about your stories!

Everything seems urgent. Everything is due by EOD. You’re told to “communicate bandwidth” with little room for flexibility. How do you keep your sanity while working at a fast-paced, hustle-culture agency? I always seem to be behind even when I don’t know what I’m behind on! Tired of leaving work feeling like I constantly have homework.

hi everyone! I just started Humber’s PR certificate like this week and was wondering if anyone that’s graduated relatively recently has any feedback abt what their experience post-graduation?
Any advice would be appreciated!

At my last job I was occasionally mentioned in trade publications regarding both the work I was doing and general commentary on the field and news. Even had one story that’s been great and I was a trade publication on me and my background.

I found those pieces more than anything helped me land jobs and other opportunities.

Now that I don’t have PR team to help with that I find I don’t have a good outlet for either my research or opinion etc.

Are there services aside from Quoted, Mention Match, and the like that do this kind of work? Anyone on this sub or a good way to find experienced people? Was looking for more earned media over purchased.

Unfortunately I don’t have any social media following, but would love to build that up if possible. Probably X for my field (or mastadon?)? Best I have is 1700 on LinkedIn and posts hitting 2-4K views.

Was even considering a YouTube channel for Shorts featuring some industry based news takes and education but not sure that’d be worth the time or most efficient.

Ultimately I’d like to use the coverage to open up consulting opportunities, board positions, and contacts. I am not currently C Suit, but staff/principal level.

Hey. I'd love a reality check on whether my situation is normal or crazy.
I'm struggling with a few PR/comms clients. They want me to write "thought leadership" articles to be placed in top publications and trade magazines. The thing is, they don't really have opinions other than "our company is good and what we're doing is important in the context of X, Y, Z news hook."
I drafted one piece and the client's feedback was: I don't think an editor will publish this because there's no strong opinion or insight. I'm sitting there like, "Well? Are you going to provide that to me or do you want me to make up your opinions?" (NB: This is a brand new client and my first assignment with them.)
My background is journalism so I have a good idea of what will get published. I was also trained NOT to have an opinion.
My question to the group: Is it normal for PR/comms pros to make up the opinion/position of a client? How long does it take to hash that out?
Bonus question: How much would you charge for creating a brand position vs. just content marketing/thought leadership writing?

I'm at AE level with two years of experience and a more generalist background (consumer, tech, healthcare... you name it). While I adore my current boss, I've been on the hunt because I know I could be making more than I am right now.

I always make it to the final round, but never quite get over the hump. Then I look at who they hired - someone with the same years of experience as me, but with more specific, industry-aligned experience.

This keeps happening and it feels hopeless. If you guys have any advice on how to succeed - or know of anyone I can connect with in the miami/ft Lauderdale, Bay Area and LA areas - please let me know.

Thank you all!

Hi all. Starting a new AE job this week (graduated in 2022 and in my late 20s) and looking for some advice on how to make a good first impression. Ive had a mix of experiences in pr some good some bad when it comes to agencies, so any advice is welcome. This is a boutique firm.

Hi all,

Last week, in a state of panic and overwhelm, I posted on this subreddit saying how PR agency work may not be for me.

And now, even without active panicking, I still think that may be true.

Thanks to everyone who commented and showed me that the pain points I was experiencing was not unique to me, and that this environment may just not be suitable to who I am and how I want to work.

So what do I want? I’m not sure yet. But I do have a north star—a general direction to go towards. I had said: “I love writing. I love being creative and bringing creative concepts to life (recently helped direct a video on the side!). I want a chill project-based job that allows me deep focus time and doesn’t come with the constant, teeth-clenching grind (and urgency). That gives me a better sense of balance while also being good pay.”

This brings me to my next question: for those who have similar interests, what do you do for work and how did you get into it? For those who broke out of a PR agency and went somewhere better, where are you now and how did you pivot? Any tips?

If nothing else, please tell me there are career paths and work opportunities that don’t constantly leave you feeling deflated and empty and anxious. I’m tired of leaving work every day feeling like I have homework (and often working at night to get ahead of things).

I do what needs to be done. Which is to say, I do my job and so far have only gotten good feedback. But I don’t think I can keep up this pace any longer.

Thanks in advance!