Public Relations Specialists

A Day in the Life

When you first decided to pursue a career in public relations, you imagined that you would end up working as the spokesperson or press liaison for a high-powered public relations firm or major corporation. After all, much of the recent growth in the public relations industry has been concentrated in these sub-fields.

If you had chosen to work for a public relations firm or corporation, you might have been expected to meet with legislators and government council members as well as representatives from corporations and trade associations. You would have had to advocate passionately on behalf of your organization's cause and make clear distinctions between your employer or client and its competitors. You also would have been expected to work late into the evenings and on the weekends. Interstate and even international travel would not have been uncommon.

As it turned out, you chose to take a job as a public relations specialist with your local mayor's office. Since you care deeply about the medium-sized city in which you grew up, this occupation has fit in nicely with your existing interests. With a fairly regular work schedule and little overtime, it has also allowed you to live comfortably and spend adequate amounts of time with your family. The only trade-off has been slightly lower pay than you could expect to receive in the private sector.

Even as you rose through the ranks to become the mayor's personal press secretary, your work schedule hasn't varied by much. On a typical day, you arrive at city hall by 8 a.m., greet your coworkers and get ready to face the day's tasks.

Much of your job involves writing press releases about various milestones or initiatives that concern the mayor's office. Although there is another employee in the office who also writes press releases, you like to tackle the more important jobs on your own. Today, you must craft a succinct brief about a new recycling initiative that the city has launched.

With years of experience behind you, it takes you just 15 or 20 minutes to craft a concise two-page release that can be printed in the local newspaper and on the city website. You immediately email your finished release to the city's IT department and send off a separate copy to a contact at the municipal newspaper.

Next, you gather up your papers and dash off to a breakfast meeting with a private development company that wishes to build several hundred units of housing on your city's riverfront. The project would be a huge boon for the local economy and could significantly improve the city's regional and national image. As such, you're keen on impressing these folks.

At the breakfast, you give a clear, focused presentation that outlines the transportation connections and natural amenities of the site that the company is considering as well as the tax breaks that your city is willing to provide in exchange for a fixed construction timetable. Since the land across the river belongs to a different municipality that often competes with your city for such development projects, this is a particularly high-stakes presentation. Judging by the sustained applause that you receive from the development group, it's clear that you nailed it.

After leaving the meeting, you're bombarded by reporters from local media outlets. Since you've developed amicable relationships with many of these people over the years, you're willing to answer a few questions. You end up holding an impromptu parking-lot press conference that lasts for more than 15 minutes.

Before lunch, you attend a quick meeting with a few key employees in your department. For the past few weeks, they've been working on an ad campaign that's designed to entice tourists from the surrounding area to spend a weekend in the city. After providing some constructive input, you head back to your office for lunch.

You spend most of the afternoon working on another speech that you'll need to give at an upcoming meeting with your state's legislators. Since you'll need to give this speech at a conference in your state's capital, you're a bit nervous about it. If you don't make a good case, the legislature could enact a law that would enable the creation of a larger port facility in a city some 80 miles downriver from yours. This could render your city's port obsolete and hurt the regional economy.

To ensure that the speech is perfect, you remain in the office until after 6 p.m. After all, you don't like to bring work home with you. Although your job is physically and emotionally demanding, you're glad that you can work as a public relations specialist without sacrificing the quality of your personal life.