Okay, I want to be a dog trainer, but Mrs. Albert prefers to work with humans. 
More specifically, the PR industry. What are some different ways that she can do that?
As of right now, the only method we know of is “Work like a dog for an agency and get experience.”
Thanks!
Well luckily PR is not the kind of job most people want to do. It’s what they do until a more desireable writing job comes along. So if she has clear writing skills and a very outgoing personality, and seems to truly wish to stay in the industry, she shouldn’t have too much trouble landing an entry-level type position.
In other word, “Work like a dog for an agency and get experience.” How else do you get into any field?
I beg to differ. I did PR for 20 years and it’s still a necessary (if smaller) part of my job description. As we say, “You don’t need to know math and it doesn’t require heavy labor.”
There are three ways to get into PR:
Do an internship and work like a dog.
Take a volunteer position with a non-profit organization and work like a dog.
Major in PR (or something close to it) in college, graduate, get an entry-level job and work like a dog.
Perhaps we can be a little more specific in our answers with a little more background.
PR was my first “real” job after college – after doing the customer service dealio for 9 months. My degree is an Anthropology, I have never worked for no pay (other than at charitable type things short term) and while I did have an internship in PR, it was during high school, a 6 hours/week after school thing. I was basically a file/mailing clerk.
So I wouldn’t call your list a hard and fast rule.
Working for a major book retailer, I guess I knew more than the average number of people doing PR & Publicity “just 'till…”
PS - PR pays well but it’s bastard younger cousin, Publicity, doesn’t. At least not in the book publishing industry. You wouldn’t believe what major publishers pay their publicists (hint: beans).
I majored in PR. I did all three of the above. Consider looking into expanding your idea of what PR is.
• One internship was in the Office of Public Relations at the university I was attending. I worked like a dog, and learned a tremendous amount. This gave me the experience to handle another internship, which was
• at a Fox television affiliate in Cleveland. I did all kinds of things, from attending events dressed up as a Fox character (I fit in the Bart Simpson suit), writing press releases, planning, organizing and hosting special events. I worked like a dog, but not my dog.
Then I worked customer service for a car rental company, which gave me a few people skills, mostly those of diplomacy. That was useful.
Just about every corporation has some form of advertising/marketing/pr department. A PR degree could have you writing company newsletters or putting together rah-rah teambuilders for the HR department.
Now I work as an editor, but I’ve found I use my degree every single day of my life. Good luck!
I’d say she should keep in mind that the parts of PR that are fun are when you are working with happy members of the public that the organization serves. The parts of the field that pay well are when you are dealing with unhappy members of the public. The parts that pay really well are when you are dealing with very unhappy members of the public in a very high profile situation (think London Metropolitan police recently, Tylenol during the poisoning scare, Firestone tires, etc.)
Thanks for your replies! I appreciate it.
Mrs. Albert has been working at Disney for 7 years in various roles, including Editor of a Security Newsletter and College Program Recruiter for the entire Northeastern United States. She’s got plenty of good, appropriate experience.
She has just finished her Masters Degree in Corporate Communications Technology. Now, she’s looking to be a PR person for a gov’t agency, such as NASA or a local government.
It seems that “Work like a dog” is going to be her agenda. Since she already does that, I’m confident that things will turn out well. The thing is, we’re not sure which particular organizations will fit for her.
We’ll see!