Reaching the fork in the road.

Hi all,

Its my last blog post (already?!) and my time in Curtin University is soon coming to an end. Besides worrying my head over how to write my PR final report, I've been thinking a lot about the future and what paths are available to me in the world of PR.

The decision is never an easy one because there are so many great firms out there and that's just the agencies I'm talking about. There are still wonderful opportunities to work in-house with really exciting companies in a myriad of industries.

Of course, I spoke about this topic at length with a few friends and colleagues and even acquaintances in the field of PR. Most of them have similar opinions that its best to spend the early years of your PR career in an agency setting because the pace is so much faster which speeds up your growth as a communications professional and increases your wealth of knowledge depending on which industries you've been working in.

My associate director said to me that agencies are always hiring because the PR practitioner is considered a revenue generator in an agency where as in an in-house setting, communications is a cost centre. I guess that would be a comforting thought in a way.

I've known for awhile now that I would like to try out technology PR because I'm a bit of a tech nut in some ways though I wouldn't exactly call myself hardcore. I have an opportunity to try out for an in-house position at a great technology company whose products I can truly say I believe in, or I could stay in the agency scene and build a ton of experience in technology which wouldn't be too bad either. Weighing the pros and cons of all the options isn't easy. Making that choice to stay in the agency scene would mean I need to invest a minimum of 2 years in order to make it to any sort of significant level of experience, and 5 years if I wanted to move over to in-house at a management level. But who knows? I might like working in an agency setting and stay even longer.

I guess my learning point from all of this is to not limit your options. Figure out where you see yourself to be further down the road or where you're aiming to be, talk to your colleagues and friends in PR and find out what are their opinions, take each one of your options and consider them carefully and try to match what your goals and aspirations are to each of these options. Sometimes it requires a period tough training in order to reach your goals. A friend from Hill & Knowlton once told me that H&K was the best training ground she's had from the beginning of her career even though it was tough as hell. She said it really moulded her and trained her up as a communications professional and she was thankful for that.

I hope everyone has managed to learn a little something from the 4 posts which I've put up and that it has helped you in some way. Thanks to everyone for reading! See you around!

Aaron Wilfred
14375051
Curtin Singapore