State of PR recruitment – round-up of 2011 and what’s been happening, where
17th November 2011
Caution typified PR and corporate communications recruitment in 2010 but 2011 has been an entirely new ball game. There’s been growth! We’ve seen the return of the counter offer an indication that talented people have the confidence to move. In a round-up of what’s been happening in the sectors we handle, here’s what’s been hot and not for 2011.
HOT
Senior positions: In corporate, financial, consumer, digital and healthcare mid to senior level hires have been in most demand. In corporate, the movement has been at Account Director to Director level, with senior level positions more hesitant although consultancies will always be tempted by rainmakers. In healthcare, our consultant described the desire for Account Managers and Senior Account Managers as ‘crazy’! Technology hasn’t bounced back as much as other sectors at senior level with hiring at same level as last year. It was a different story at mid level where there was a significant uplift in the demand for Account Managers.
Demand for new business expertise within the agencies: Corporate and financial agencies have been crying out for financial services experience, as have corporate consultancies – with ‘asset management’ being the expertise of choice. Consumer generalists with business acumen have been in demand, more so than sector specialists.
In-house positions: The desire to go ‘in-house’ has been one of the defining trends of 2011 and remains the holy grail for many communications and PR professionals. Briefs have been very specific as there has been a desire to make safe hires and hire the ‘perfect skill set’ making the process slower than before the recession.
Most movement: In-house, particularly in the professional services sector and integrated corporate/consumer agencies. Digital specialists have also been hiring at a great rate but as bigger players integrate a digital arm, competition for clients will be fierce.
In-house widening the net: In-house professional services firms were asking for candidates outside their immediate field. For example, law firms wanting accountancy or banking PR’s, accountancy firms wanting agency staff, property firms looking to industrials – perhaps a sign that the professions are gearing up for bigger things in communications terms for 2012.
Junior level roles: hiring activity at this level has been steady this year both agency and in-house with a flurry in the Spring and Autumn – the juniors are back in business as teams are built up once again. This was not the case in 2010.
Start ups: It’s happening again: top level talent leaving established agencies to start up on their own, particularly in the financial and consumer sector. Whilst not great news for the incumbent agencies, it’s a great indicator that there’s a lot of PR business out there to be had (and we certainly couldn’t say that a year or two ago!)
Healthcare agency positions: One major exception to the moving ‘in-house’ trend is in healthcare, with agencies – particularly Medical Education – hiring much more than their in-house counterparts.
Integrated agency positions: Integrated agencies are faring well in comparison to their ‘traditional’ specialist counterparts in terms of desirability, a trend that is set to continue in 2012 and beyond. This is particularly true for digital specialists who wanted to widen their horizons.
Salaries rises are back: Some comms professionals feel they are behind the curve having not had a salary rise in the last two years (or something minimal). This year with more confidence in the market many moved to try and make up for the loss.
NOT
Complacent employers: They may have got away with it in 2010, where competing job opportunities were thin on the ground and the spectre of redundancy may have loomed, but employers who failed to invest in their existing talent pool may suffer the consequences…
Experience vs. Attitude: What’s more important?
9th November 2011
Senior hiring executives have been sharing their thoughts with Delyth Evans, CEO of our charity partner, ‘Dress for Success’ as to what makes a great candidate.
It seems that the received wisdom amongst those in the hiring hot seat is that it’s your attitude and enthusiasm in an interview that can transform you from a ‘maybe’ to a ‘must-hire’.
It’s a viewpoint which our own experience in PR recruitment supports. Having the mindset for success is the most important foundation for success in any job and clients who recognise this are rewarded with a better hire than those who simply focus on skill sets, experience or, even worse, more subjective reasons.
Here are some other things that we, recruiting companies and clients look for at interview (you may be surprised).
What’s Hot
- Employers and recruiters, generally speaking, don’t judge people solely on their CV, firstly because the CV may be embellished or skewed but also because two sides of A4 aren’t a true reflection of a candidates’ overall ability.
- Many employers only focus on the first half of a CV, so make sure that your personal and career history is given priority and compels the reader to want to know more.
- A candidate’s age is far less important than their attitude and outlook on life.
- Candidates who have taken a career break, most commonly taking time out to raise a family, aren’t precluded from the hiring process – far from it. The important thing is that the candidate can relate transferable skills learned during this time to the job role in question, such as organisational skills, time-keeping and budgeting for example.
What’s Not
- Attitude may be all important, but make sure it’s the right kind. A negative attitude, even a hint of one, has only one outcome – ‘one strike and you’re out!’ regardless of skill set or experience.
- A candidate who goes to interview without knowing what the job entails or what the company does will not succeed. Do your research!
- Senior candidates who have fixed or set ideas. Being able to demonstrate flexibility, team spirit and a desire to continue professional growth even at the highest levels will always be more appealing to clients than those who think they ‘know it all’ already.
- Senior level professionals who forget they need to ‘sell’ themselves and demonstrate their value as they’re used to their advice being taken and not questioned
- Employers rightly expect the candidate to be motivated to get that particular job. A candidate who indicates that their motivation is solely financial is not going to be successful. “I just want a job, I don’t really care what it is” will never win interviewing hearts over, either!
Why we love our jobs
Posted on 26th October 2011
We are always on the lookout for great networkers to join the works but, like PR, recruitment has a mixed reputation. We thought we would give you an insight into why we love our jobs.
- The role is a superb mix of relationship building, using all your resources and managing expectations
- It’s great if have an enquiring mind and enjoy finding out about people
- From banking to consumer brands, we meet fantastic people every day and get an insight into their world
- It’s highly satisfying – you get out what you put in – and if you are driven you can build a great business
- We love working as a team but you also have loads of autonomy and ownership
- Constant change – no two days are the same and it’s challenging
- It’s great to help build businesses and support people through their careers
- We enjoy giving advice every day on anything from salaries to interview technique
- We thrive on the challenge of matching people to opportunities and vice versa, so you end up being a demon interviewer and become adept at reading people
- It’s fun too!
Past employer interview questions and how to answer them
Posted on 20th October 2011
Interview traps can be hard to spot but we’d be amazed if even in the shortest of careers you hadn’t come across this ubiquitous interview hurdle: “Why do you want to leave your present employer?”
Whatever your true feelings about the company you are wanting to exit, under no circumstances should you wander in to the realms of rant, however tempting it may be. As a professional communicator charged with upholding corporate reputations, how you regard a current employer at interview will inform your potential future employers about what you may say about them – and their clients.
Do
- Stress the positives of the company (there must have been a reason you joined them in the first place) and why they were a good company to work for
- Tell them about any training or work-related experience you’ve gained
- When addressing the reasons why you want to move on, make them skills, ambition and values related, perhaps stressing that you are looking for a new challenge and what that means to you. Remember to relate what you are saying to the role and the company you are applying for, matching the advertised job description with the skills that you can provide.
- Take advantage of pre-interview coaching, a service that we provide to our candidates
Don’t
- Be tempted to rant about internal (and confidential) politics. The interviewer will gauge your discretion on behalf of the company / agency and its clients.
- Mention personality clashes – the interviewer may see YOU as the agent provocateur
- Use salary increases as the sole reason you want to move – this will not be viewed as sufficient motivation
It’s a rule of thumb that when it comes to being asked about present employers that, “if you can’t think of anything nice to say then don’t say it at all.”
Why volunteer? CSR in close up
Posted on 13th October 2011
As champions of best practice, we like to give credit where credit is due. Given the government’s desire to create the ‘Big Society’ and with less than a year to go before the Olympics, we wondered just how engaged the PR industry is with volunteering – a central tenet of corporate social responsibility.
The benefits of volunteering – to society and to the forward-thinking companies who put their money-where-their-mouth-is are manifold.
Christian Marroni, Head of Global Media Relations at the legal firm, Freshfields, says: “Our CSR programmes have shown to provide our people with job satisfaction, motivation and a real sense of achievement.”
Whilst Freshfields CSR activities include helping developing countries tackle issues such as poverty, child mortality and climate change by providing pro bono advice and work to Save the Children and Oxfam for example, closer to home the firm’s investment programme of 50,000 hours of collective community and pro bono work – in which an impressive 39% of staff have been involved – has, in Christian’s own words, made ‘tremendous differences’ to the causes the firm supports.
“Since 2001, our ‘Ready for Work’ programme has provided 180 homeless clients with work placements at the firm, 45% of whom have gone on to gain full time employment, 15 of them at Freshfields itself.”
It’s clear that for Freshfields, their CSR programme is a win-win, for the beneficiaries and for their own employees’ continuing professional development.
“Such activities are a good way to met colleagues and can help develop skills such as adaptability, communication and leadership,” he says.
The award-winning boutique PR company, Threepipe, provides another shining example of a company embracing the benefits of volunteering, allowing every member of staff two extra days a year to devote to their cause of choice. As part of their vision to become the best place to work in the industry, the company signed up to LeapCR, an innovative online volunteering platform which helps and encourages all staff to find fundraising and volunteering activities they would like to support.
Alishia Chitolie, junior account executive says, “I think it’s great that Threepipe encourages us to get involved in volunteering, and I especially love the fact that we’re allowed extra time off work to make it happen. I think it sends a message that they care about their staff and about helping to give something back to the community, and it’s really rewarding for the team members to get involved.”
We also know from our own experience at The Works just how mutually rewarding volunteering can be. Since 2010, we’ve been involved with ‘Dress for Success’, a rapidly growing charity which works to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, interview training and a network of support and career development tools to help women thrive. Our consultants volunteer to conduct interview training sessions and provide practical career advice on helping them get back on the career ladder.
Sarah Leembruggen, the Work’s co-founder, says: “We come back buzzing from our days at Dress for Success and when we are told that the woman we have trained have secured a job, partly thanks to our training, you can’t help but smile. We have made a real difference in someone’s future.”
Competency based interview questions and how to answer them
In this second posting in a series of blogs about common interview questions and how to answer them we’re tackling repeat offender number 2.
Nothing is guaranteed to strike more fear into the heart of the candidate as those that relate to competency, which in an interview situation are commonly disguised as ‘the scenario question’.
You know the ones. Open ended “tell me about a situation where you have….” questions. They’re questions, usually posed or forwarded by savvy HR managers, and are designed to show core competencies rather than technical knowledge. And there’s the rub. Whilst they may seem rather innocuous, they’re intended to demonstrate how you performed (or didn’t perform) in a crisis or challenging situation. For the unprepared candidate, the capacity for trip ups is huge – even for the most experienced PR professional.
However, by anticipating any of the questions below (or variations on a theme), and having the answers up your sleeve, the scenario or competency question can actually be a power for good: a platform from which a candidate can show themselves off in the best light.
It may seem obvious advice, but listen to the question – really listen, and, using the examples you’ve prepared pre-interview, answer accordingly. Don’t rush. Take your time to answer. But by breaking the open ended question down into four components: ‘aim’, ‘execution’, ‘results’ and ‘evaluation’, the competency based question can actually provide you with some structure to what could other-wise be a very open ended question.
Here are a few examples in our ‘rogues gallery’ of scenario questions. As with every interview question, being able to provide measurable statistics or markers with regards to evaluation will earn you valuable brownie points in the eyes of the interviewer. Think ahead and think SMART.
- Describe a situation where you have renegotiated an increase in fees with a client. How did you justify this?
- Describe an example of how you influenced senior management to implement one of your own ideas. How did you validate that this idea could improve business performance?
- Describe how your team has developed through your leadership. How did they change?
- Describe a situation where you have given negative feedback to someone more junior than you and someone more senior than you.
- Describe a situation where there was very little possibility to motivate a team you managed, perhaps no pay rises for over a year, or no bonuses for example. How did you overcome these challenges – and how do you know those measures worked?
- Describe a situation that you have dealt with where there was an underperforming member in your team.
- What is the biggest ‘crisis’ situation you’ve dealt with and how did you tackle it? What were the specific challenges you had to overcome, internally and externally? What went well? With the benefit of hindsight, what could you have done better?
Whether you love them or loathe them, one thing is certain: competency based questions WILL get asked. You just have to be ready for them.
Tricky interview questions and how to answer them: Part 1
When a candidate recently reported being asked a very uncomfortable interview question that required shedding light on her private life, it got us thinking. Why, after the rafts of legislation aimed at preventing discrimination are seriously dodgy, inappropriate and occasionally, downright illegal questions still popping up across the interview table?
Working in communications, those doing the hiring (particularly PR and Marcomms agencies) are better than many other industries at knowing how to elicit information without straying on the wrong side of anti-discrimination law. We’d also like to stress that rogue interview questions ARE only being asked by a naughty few. But, as our candidate feedback demonstrates, there remains a significant proportion of interview questions that aren’t so much designed to help a candidate shine at interview as leave them wondering just what they would be if they were biscuit (we kid you not).
In the next few weeks, we’re going to be helping you to handle the most tricky interview questions so that whatever you’re faced with, you’ll be able to show yourselves off in the best light.
First up, interview question offender number 1:
“Do you have, or are you planning to have children in the near future?”
The good news about this potential can-of-worms question is clear: your interviewer is breaching sex discrimination legislation and you are in no way obliged to answer this.
Our suggestion would be to smile, raise an eyebrow, perhaps, and counter by saying, “You’re not allowed to ask me that, are you?” We feel this strikes a balance between cutting off the line of questioning without ruining your rapport.
Job done, right? Well, not necessarily. You see there’s a whole world of difference between those interviewers who are genuinely out-of-step with appropriate interview questions and their legality and those mavericks who ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’: rogue employers who are savvy about discrimination but perhaps not about ethics, so will try to elicit the answer by other means, the scoundrels! We’re talking the wolf in sheep’s clothing of interview tactics. For them, the question may be dressed up as:
“Tell me about your partner / background”, in the hope that you may lead them right up the path to nursery furnishings.
Again, these type of questions are interview no-no’s. There’s no law against finding out what makes an interviewee tick, but steer your interviewer to more neutral territory – and remember, the law is behind you. An interviewer shouldn’t be asking personal questions to try and determine whether you are married, or about your culture and (non-career) history, either. By all means provide information that will demonstrate that you are fit for task, but there’s no imperative to furnish it with insights gained from your personal life.
Click here for further information about discrimination in the recruitment process. If your interviewer continues to pursue avenues they shouldn’t, then they could be facing an Employment Tribunal, or action from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
We find that’s usually enough to quiet even the most persistent interview offenders…
The PR Career Satisfaction Barometer – How do you compare?
Just how happy are you in your career? If you were offered the ‘perfect’ role, would you leave your current position – and if so, when? Who do you consider to be the ‘hot shot’ agency at the moment? These are just some of the questions we posed to over 650 PR professionals across the entire PR and communications spectrum, evenly split between in-house employees and those in PR consultancies, with some surprising results (which may explain why PR Week’s recent coverage)
On the whole, PR professionals seem a rather satisfied bunch when it comes to their careers, with 80% believing themselves to be ‘OK’ to ‘very happy’ in their current role and slightly more in-house professionals rating themselves as ‘generally happy’ compared to agency employees. Encouraging news indeed, particularly given the waves of redundancies and pay freezes of recent years.
That said, although just over a quarter (28%) of PRs are actively looking for another position, a whopping 60% would consider a ‘perfect’ role if approached. If that isn’t a stark warning for employers to look after their existing talent, we don’t know what is. Financial PR agencies should also be warned: of all the sectors, the difference between agency and their in-house counterparts was the most striking. Those employed by financial PR agencies were the most keen to move on with 44% ‘actively looking’ for other roles, whilst only 15% of those employed in in-house positions confessed they were looking for greener pastures.
When asked what were the principal reasons to move on, over a quarter (26%) of our respondents cited not being challenged in their current position as the most likely reason, followed by unsatisfactory pay (18%) and poor leadership (9%). However, the reasons for moving on depend largely on seniority, with 22.5% of juniors citing unsatisfactory pay as their principal reason for wanting to leave compared to 30% of seniors who cited being ‘no longer challenged’ as their main motivating factor in looking elsewhere.
And, whilst financial PRs might be the best rewarded when it comes to the monthly pay packet, it’s those in the Tech/Digital and Social Media sector (whose salaries are, generally speaking, on a par with those in corporate comms or healthcare) who are the ‘happiest’ in their careers according to our industry-wide poll. Those working in corporate PR agencies reported as being the least happy, although 73% of those polled still considered themselves to be OK to very happy.
There were also some results which confirm what we’ve known for the past two years, such as the desire for agency staff to secure an in-house position, perhaps because they’ve been overservicing whilst being under-resourced during and post recession. The in-house comms role is still regarded as the Golden Egg, professionally speaking.
In addition, it is clear that the more senior your role, the happier you are. ADs to MDs in an agency and PR managers to Head of Comms in-house are happier than those in mid-level (AMs in an agency/PR officers in-house) and junior roles (AEs in an agency/PR executives in-house).
Seniority is also a factor in how aware an employee is of their company’s values and how engaged they feel with their employer as a result, with a strong suggestion that improvements in internal communications are necessary to build awareness and better engage junior and mid-level staff. 90 % of those polled were aware of their company’s values and how it impacted on their motivation yet a far greater proportion of senior staff classed themselves as being ‘very aware’ of and ‘very motivated’ by their company’s values (73% and 52.5% respectively) compared to junior and mid level workers (45% and 29% respectively).
As for the future of the economy and how it will impact on your sector, it seems that although the financial markets are in tailspin and the direction of George Osborne’s economic policy under ever-increasing scrutiny (even by members of his own party), most PR professionals are optimistic about the UK’s economic future, with only 17% believing the situation will worsen in the next 6 months. However, breaking the results down into sectors, we found that corporate and technology were the most optimistic, with a third reporting that they expected the economic situation to improve over the next six months, whilst those working in the financial services sector were more pessimistic, with over a quarter (27%) expecting the economic situation to worsen in the same period.
Read on to find out more about our exclusive results…
How happy are you in your role at the moment?
- 80% of all PR professionals are ‘OK’ to ‘very happy’ in their current role.
- Slightly more in-house professionals rate themselves as generally happy than agency employees (84% to 76%)
- Within agency practice, Tech/Digital/Social media are the happiest, with 85% being ‘OK’ to ‘very happy’. Corporate agencies are the least happy, although 73% are ‘OK’ to ‘very happy’.
- Those in more senior roles (ADs to MDs in an agency and PR managers to Head of Comms in-house) are happier than those in mid-level (AMs in an agency/PR officers in-house) and junior roles (AEs in an agency/PR executives in-house).
If you are looking for a move – what is the prime reason?
- The overall most common reason for wanting to leave is no longer feeling challenged, cited by 26% of respondents. The next most popular reason was unsatisfactory pay, at 18%. Poor leadership was then cited by 9%.
- 19% of agency employees want to move in-house, whereas just 1% of in-house workers want to move to an agency.
- The top reason for juniors and mid-level employees wanting to move was dissatisfaction with pay, cited by 22.5%. Of seniors, 30% said that they were no longer challenged.
If you would consider a move, when would you like this to be?
- 28% are actively looking for new roles; however, 60% aren’t actively looking but would consider a ‘perfect’ role if approached.
- Financial PR agency employees are most keen to move on: 44% are actively looking. At the other extreme, only 15% of in-house professional services PR employees are looking for a new job.
How aware are you of your company values and goals? How engaged do you feel with your employer and its goals?
- 90% of PR workers are aware of their companies’ values and goals, with a similar amount actively caring about them and motivated to contribute.
- A far greater proportion of senior staff was ‘very aware’ and ‘very motivated’ (73% and 52.5% respectively) than junior/mid-level workers (45% and 29% respectively).
How would you rate your company’s performance within your market at the moment out of 10? How would you rate your own performance at the moment out of 10?
- Those in Tech/Digital/Social media agencies rated their own companies’ performance the highest, with a mean rating of 8/10. In-house financial services employees were the most critical but still gave an average rating of 7/10.
- In-house employees in sectors other than professional/financial services rated their own performance the highest, at 8/10.)
How do you expect the economy to be 6 months from now?
- Overall, only 17% of PR professionals thought that the economy would be worse in 6 months’ time.
- Those in corporate and technology PR agencies were the most optimistic; a third expect the economic situation to improve in the next 6 months. Those working in-house in professional services businesses were the most pessimistic, with 27% predicting the economy to worsen in the same period of time.
Which agency springs to mind first as the hot shot PR agency of the moment?
These are the consultancies that came in first place –
Full Service – Edelman
Financial – FD
Corporate – Blue Rubicon
Consumer – Freud
Technology – Hotwire
Healthcare – Virgo
Public Affairs – APCO
Counter offers – should I stay or should I go?
In the ‘tug-of-war’ for talent, it’s a truism that good people are hard to find. But it’s equally true that good people are harder to keep hold of. As the PR world emerges from recession faster than many other sectors and competition for ‘good people’ hots up, it’s not surprising that we’ve seen the return of the ‘counter offer’.
And return it has! Four months ago, counter offers were most likely to occur between legal communications teams but with more private sector agencies winning business, the phenomenon has now spread across the board to include corporate PR, particularly in the financial services sector.
We’re not just talking counter offers between a current employer (understandably wanting to retain talented staff they’ve trained and invested in) and another potential employer, but bidding wars between three or four employers all keen to secure the best hire.
Without doubt, the main driving force behind this round of counter offers is money. Talented individuals, frustrated by the recession-enforced career inertia of the past two years are now chancing their arm at interview(s) primarily to boost their salary.
Arguably, some of the candidates we’ve seen who have ‘won big’ at counter offer are those who were genuinely underpaid. One agency candidate even doubled their salary whilst eventually staying with the original employer. Doubling salaries may be exceptional, but it’s been our candidates’ recent experience that significant pay hikes are a factor again.
However, as flattering as a counter offer is employers and candidates should proceed with caution.
National surveys of employees consistently show that of those who accept counter offers, 50 to 80% voluntarily leave their employer within six months of accepting the deal largely because of un-kept promises and the reasons other than salary why they were looking to leave haven’t gone away.
To ensure you don’t become one of those statistics, it’s worth asking yourself the following questions: “Will your loyalty be in question by remaining in the job, especially if future redundancies are likely?” “Is the counter offer just a stalling tactic to avoid short-term inconvenience or a genuine desire to progress you career?” “Will this preclude next year’s bonus?” but most importantly of all, “Do the proposed improvements eliminate the reason you went for a new job in the first place?”
Finally, you also need to think about not burning your bridges. If you turn down a job offer then you may not be considered for a role at that company in the future as it may be viewed that you messed them around.
Changing your PR sector
Recently The Works Search and Selection has noticed that an increasing number of people, particularly at the junior end of the spectrum, are keen to change the sector of PR they work in.
Because of the financial cost of recruitment, post-recession employers can be quite conservative; they want the ‘perfect’ candidate, ideally with highly relevant sector experience and contacts. People changing sectors therefore represent a risk.
Don’t lose hope though; think about the transferable skills you can offer employers. Superb core PR skills are fundamental to a successful transition, and those you’ll need to stress include:
- Writing – Read relevant press releases to get an idea of how to adapt your writing to suit a new sector; practise the style until you get it right!
- Dealing with the media – You probably won’t have many contacts in your new sector, so focus on your knowledge of how to deal with the media and make sure you know who your key future contacts are likely to be.
- Client handling – Use your experience to demonstrate your ability to liaise and advise at senior level and to build strong client relationships.
- Time management – Juggling a heavy workload and several clients is a key element of any PR role which you should already be prepared for.
- Social media – If social media is vital to your new sector, you MUST understand how it is used, be using it yourself, and have an opinion on it.
Whilst a broad range of relevant skills is helpful, it is just as important to demonstrate an active interest in your chosen sector. If possible use some of your holiday allowance to gain some work experience so that you can be sure it’s the right move for you. Make sure you’re always up to date with stories on PR Week or Gorkana, as well as following the news and journalists in the publications relevant to your new sector.
Changing sectors also carries with it financial implications. In remuneration terms, financial PR pays the highest, followed by technology, healthcare, corporate and finally consumer. If you are in one the higher paid sectors you MUST be realistic about your expected salary. Your recruitment consultant can advise you on average salaries at your level.
Apart from all of this, to be able to make a successful transition you have to be able to demonstrate passion for your chosen sector – as with any interview your future employer needs to buy in to you, and in this instance, even more so than someone with relevant experience. Think of ways you can demonstrate your interest, for instance, maybe you could start writing a blog about the news in your chosen sector? If you do, bring a copy to your interview to wow your interviewer and put you one step closer to getting that dream job!
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