Yesterday Stephen Davies tweeted @edelmanhr asking "In general what's the prospects looking like for PR grads this year given the economic climate?" with the response "@stedavies Well our application deadline has passed and we've had 250 applications which we're still reviewing :)".
I replied to Stephen's original tweet commenting that a lot of the companies that I had contacted didn't seem to have graduate schemes or roles available. Fortunately, Stephen being the kind chap that he is asked his twittersphere (2,019 followers at the time of writing) whether anyone had a grad role available for me. With a decent response a few people tweeted back with their thoughts and help.
This got me thinking about what companies do actually have grad schemes set-up this year. All of this is solely from my research but the only graduate schemes that I have found to exist on companies' websites are:
Edelman
Weber-Shandwick
Diffusion
Hotwire
Fishburn Hedges
Red
Lexis
Mandate (2008 application page)
Camargue
Shine (2008 application page)
Octopus (2008 application page)
Luchford APM
Halismann Taylor
Remarkable Group
And not all these are necessarily taking graduates on or have an actual "scheme" in place, they are just advertising that graduates should feel free to apply. I've probably missed some out (feel free to comment if I have). Some companies might not advertise their jobs on their website or provide details of a graduate scheme, one reason perhaps being that they want the graduate to show a bit of intelligence and perseverance to find the right way of applying for a job.
Some companies take students or grads on unpaid internships offering valuable experience like Wolfstar, Ketchum and Taylor-Herring but these aren't tailored schemes for graduates who've finished their degrees. As I've done quite a few work placements already I feel like I know the sector of PR I want to enter and the kind of companies I want to apply for so this extra experience, although highly valuable, isn't a necessity.
But it does make me wonder if PR would attract better candidates if their graduate schemes were detailed and advertised correctly. So why does PR not have the tailored graduate schemes that other industries do?
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6 comments:
I agree PR companies are not good at grad schemes. You look at the likes of Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCooper and they were ever present on my uni campus handing out smoothies and offering management training days just to make sure they were in the minds of students when it came time to apply to the grad schemes. The only PR company I've heard of doing anything like that is the Ogilvy Grads road show. PR could massively increase it's grad quality if it advertised a little more
@Adam,
I would say most agencies are looking for you to find them, and that brings me to @Paul's point - Deloitte and PWC have to have a campus presence because, by and large, they operate in very dull industries and that's why they offer good salaries - they have to.
PR is different because it's seen as glamorous (I don't get it either) and so graduates fall over themselves to get onto a internship or into a placement.
You two are lucky because you both understand that PR is hard to get into, imagine all of the graduates that finish University and go 'Oh, not sure what to do, PR might be fun'... It just doesn't happen like that.
Have a quick read of this - (http://rock-star-pr.com/how-to-get-a-job-in-social-media/). The commenters have some brilliant anecdotes!
The problem is the scarcity of large employers of PR practitioners.
You're looking at consultancies, but with a few exceptions these are small and medium enterprises, and can't justify formal graduate schemes.
The largest employer of PR practitioners is probably UK government; it would be worth looking to see if there's a graduate scheme at the Central Office of Information.
There is a COI graduate scheme and it's open until 3 March:
http://coi.freshminds.co.uk/
@Jed I agree that students are desperately trying to get into PR but students are starting to be pretty desperate for every industry at the moment. I still think that they'd attract a lot more potential applicants if they advertised like Deloitte et al. like Paul suggests.
@Richard Completely agree that it's to do with the size of the company. Nevertheless there are lot of large agencies which don't seem to have the tailored programmes that some agencies do have. And thanks for suggesting the COI, will definitely have a look!
I really related to your blog Adam. Last year I applied to several grad schemes with PR agencies, and all of the research was off my own back into them. I'm doing the same this year, having started on a MSc, but I'm often wondering what the value of a grad scheme is. After all a lot of agencies who run schemes, only offer jobs, for a year. I've got a final stage interview next week with a London (and national) agency who actually offer a job which isn't just for the year. I think PR companies need to start looking at longevity with their graduates, instead of taking on people for a year, as not knowing whether you are coming or going at the end of 12 months is bound to have an effect on your job performance.
Thanks for your insight Adam, it's great to see someone else out their thinks their is a lack of tailored graduate schemes, and that they are not promoted as well as they could be.
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