unicornnews: Industry down on PR degrees

We here at Unicorn Jobs are always going into universities to talk about careers in PR – on account of our graduate careers website – and one of the questions we’re always asked is whether or not a degree in public relations gives you any advantage when applying for a first job in the sector. Given there are often PR students in the room, our diplomatic answer is “not necessarily”. We then follow it up with something along the same lines as this Ask The Unicorn piece here.

But at future events we might have to be less diplomatic, given that a survey of PR agency chiefs by the Public Relations Consultants Association has just reported that 34% of those questioned not only don’t look for a PR degree when recruiting grads, the fact a candidate specialised in the subject at a degree level might even put them off.

The good news for those PR hopefuls currently at university is that most of their future employers do consider a degree of some kind as important, with 70% saying having a degree was more important for new recruits now than fifteen years ago. 23% said a PR degree made a candidate more attractive.

Responding to the findings, PRCA Director General, Francis Ingham told reporters: “PR Leaders increasingly see our profession as a graduate-led one. That’s good for the industry, and shows how we have matured. The industry of 2009 is vastly different to the industry of fifteen years ago, when the UK was emerging from the last recession”.

On the less than enthusiastic response to PR degrees by the members of his PR Leaders’ Panel, Ingham continued: “What is intriguing is how agency heads view PR degrees. There is clearly concern that some of the courses out there do not equip graduates with the necessary skills to do their jobs. As an industry, we need to take a long hard look at the quality of courses available – some universities offer excellent PR Degrees, but now is the time to be honest with ourselves, and to recognise that others do not. That’s a hard fact to swallow, but it’s a fact nonetheless. Equally, we need to recognise the importance of on-the-job training and post-graduate education. That is why we have launched our own PR Diplomas aimed at equipping PR professionals with the tools they will need in their agency careers”.

Speaking up for the academic sector, Trevor Morris, Visiting Professor of Public Relations at the University of Westminster said: “As more and more people with PR degrees become senior players I am sure that the prejudice of the minority will reduce. Having said that I would expect and hope that there will always be room in the industry for people with a broad range of educational backgrounds. PR isn’t and never will be an exact science”.

To be fair to Morris and his fellow PR lecturers, it is true that media degrees – once frowned upon by many employers in the media – are now enjoying increased credibility as students of the eighties and nineties, who studied on some of the earlier media courses, rise to senior positions in media organisations. Most PR courses are even more recent innovations, and Morris could be right that as the PR grads of yesterday start to become the PR Leaders of tomorrow the answers to the ‘merit of a PR degree’ question will probably change.

Posted Friday March 13 2009 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: PR Education & Training