PR In The Second Decade: 2011 & Beyond

As we complete the first ten years of the century and plough (literally) into the crisp, virgin snow of the next decade, I use this year’s events to inspire my top five predictions for the industry over the next few years.

1. Wiki-up and smell the petroleum. Having witnessed the abysmal PR flop that was the BP crisis, and the complete dirty laundry airing that is the ongoing Wikileaks scandal, even staunchly immovable megalithic companies and ex-public sector dinosaurs will wake up to the fact that hardened arrogance is no longer a survival strategy under withering online global consumer criticism. Result: further investment in reputation management PR, channelled to those with a successful record of online engagement, and even the most b2b orientated companies seeking consumer PR expertise. This may see the break up and overhaul some old established PR agencies that until now have relied on these huge clients for fees and are yet to grasp the digital thorn properly, merely adding social media elements to traditional PR plans. Potential next victims of a PR disaster black hole: Rolls Royce for failure to address consumer concerns over their engine problems, Eurostar (again) for this week’s handling of biblical waiting queues in arctic conditions.
   


2. Video on Demand, or else. The BBC has gone all MSN Video this year, with everything from instant eye witness coverage of failed terrorist plots in Sweden to a soundless three minutes of video showing a boring snow covered driveway in dullest suburbia. Youtube has become the great visual library of the world. Even PR Week has hauled itself into the digital age with frequent online video. PR agencies will have to fight for this slice of marketing budget against battle hardened digital marketers from Silicon Roundabout. Better get on with it (or hire said digital marketers). People like pictures, preferably with a pumping soundtrack and a comments section at the bottom. For the attention deficit teenagers with Playstation thumb who are the adult audience of the next five years, there is no other way to communicate.
   


3. Eds, you lose. Despite an imminent implosion of the Liberal party and the break up of the Lib-Con pact, the Labour party fails to get any meaningful messages out to a broader audience due to its rejection of the PR tactics adopted to great success by New Labour, instead returning to its ‘core values’. Ed Miliband resigns his post and David steps in, but nobody remembers who he is anymore. Continued infighting in the face of huge global events make them look even more out of touch.
   


4. The Matrix: Recorded. We’re already speaking to robots on the phone to pay our bills and listening to them on the buses and trains to announce our stops. Well, Gartner predicts that by 2015, 10% of your online friends will be non-human! While this may be exciting news for fans of the replicants in Blade Runner, the comms challenges in terms of identifying your audiences and building online communities could be immense. Couple this to the idea that most of the services you use will be hosted externally, in ‘the cloud’, then its easy to see that information control, privacy and a knowledge of what is real and what isn’t will continue to become bigger issues in future PR debates.
   


5. Chinese take away. China plays the long game. In many ways China has the ultimate PR machine in that, while it can mobilise 200 people to say the grass is green to a Western audience eager to trade with it (while patting itself on the back for ‘standing up’ for human rights), China can simultaneously mobilise another 400 people to say the grass is most definitely red to Communist allies. In China’s view, (its version of) Communism is propelling it to world leadership. Why change now? Since Burson Marsteller and Xinhua News formed China’s first PR consultancy in 1984, the industry has experienced healthy growth, comparable to other leading growth sectors. Cameron’s tricky balancing act of convincing the home audience of representing Western values while simultaneously making trade friendly overtures to the Chinese leadership will be one that many businesses will follow. Consumers will put greater pressure on businesses dealing with China and, equally, the growing number of Chinese state owned businesses wishing to trade in Europe and the US. This will create more jobs in both the East and West.
   

There’s lot of new challenges as well as immense opportunities ahead for PR people. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and good luck for 2011!

How To Construct A CV – And Secure The First Interview Part 3: Fine Detail

I finally got around to writing the final instalment of this guide to CV writing. So, to recap: in my first instalment of this series, I gave you some pointers on the overall impression that your CV should exude. In the second post, we looked at the structure and content for the CV in a handy ten-point plan. In this final instalment, we’ll consider the finer details of your present and last roles (in particular).


So, when a recruiter, an MD or hiring manager looks at your CV, chances are it’s 26th in the pile of 150 CVs. Much as we don’t like to consider ourselves box-tickers, the requirements of the particular role will have created a shortlist in this hirer’s mind and when they look at the CV, they will be mentally scanning the page to find evidence of these skills and experiences quickly.


This is the reason that, rather than covering your CV with glitter, bells and whistles to try and make it stand out, it’s actually better to go for simple styling and let your skills speak from the page. It’s also part of the recruiters’ practice to alter the CV and make the most important skills for a particular role speak loudest on the CV, not something you’d necessarily have a feel for if applying directly and a good argument for using a recruiter. So this is another reason it’s important for a recruiter to meet you, or at least conduct a thorough interview, so that they understand your best skills, the nature and depth of those skills and can bring these to the fore. After this, they will also be able to advise which roles are more suited to you.


So the CV needs to be tailored, but for your model CV, there are 12 essential skills that will apply to all roles:

• Media Relations – Full breadth of media experience and coverage, plus areas where you have a particular strength. Three examples of coverage highlights would be good. Selling in over the phone and success stories
  


• Writing – Press releases, features, articles, reports, marketing copy, brochures, internal magazines etc. Writing for different audiences. Proof reading
  


• Research – Target client background research, competitor analysis, target audience research, researching journalists and bloggers
  


• Analysis – Tracking, analytics, measurement and reporting back to client on effectiveness
  


• Creativity – Taking a new angle for a client, coming up with creative story ideas, creative launch campaign ideas, brainstorming participation. Couple of examples would be good. Creativity is the most over-used term in PR for a reason
  


• Client Management – Great relationships with clients and at what levels within the organisation. Maybe you’ve handled difficult relationships well and turned round the fortunes of an ailing account. Maybe you persuaded a skeptical client to seek coverage in media outside their comfort zone. Good to put down any client praise and creds also
  


• Events – Helping set up and manage events, planning, logistics, inviting journos and bloggers, acting as a spokesperson, manning and running the stand at shows. Photo-shoots and stunts, experiential initiatives etc
  


• New Business – Planning, lead generation, putting pitches together, responding to RFIs, presenting at pitches
  


• Crisis & Issues – Were there any? How did you handle them? Were they planned for. You won’t necessarily be asked about this, but it looks impressive if you have experience of any crisis or issue that arose
  


• Online and SM – An essential point to address. Give all your exposure and experience handling online tools and social media channels, whether its managing a client’s twitter feed, or simply blogging for your agency
  


• Team Work – Do you work in a team? How many and do you have responsibility for anyone?
  


• Practice Breadth – Good to note if you have had most experience handling corporate or consumer PR, or if you have work fully across these areas
  

So, to put this into an example, and using the EMPLOYER – CLIENTS – ACTIVITIES – HIGHLIGHTS structure outlined in the last post on this, it might go a little something like this:


++++++++++++++++++++++


ANONYMOUS PR


Account Manager: Jun 07 – May 09


Anonymous PR is a b2b and consumer specialist PR consultancy. As an account manager in a team of four, report into an account director and oversee two account executives, line managing one. My activities are a consumer PR focused, while working closely with the b2b team on some aspects of the Jane Dowe account.


Clients: Joe Bloggs Ltd (Male Grooming products), Jane Dowe EMEA (Market Research Firm, specializing in consumer and b2b financial services)


Responsibilities:

• Media Relations – Writing and selling in press releases and features, strong contacts with male lifestyle press and bloggers and national supplements for Joe Bloggs (GQ, FHM, Loaded, Times Telegraph, MadeMan.com, Brandish.com ), as well as consumer, national and EMEA level business media for Jane Dowe EMEA including Moneysavingexpert, Money Matters, FT, Economist, Wall Street Journal Europe, International Herald Tribune. Author opinion pieces and features and conduct proof reading for all Joe Bloggs output. Create new story angles for Joe Bloggs grooming products and distill market research papers into digestible copy for the consumer and business audiences to raise the profile of Jane Dowe
  


• Client Management – Strong relationships with clients. First point of contact for Joe Bloggs, work closely with the Head of PR UK. Weekly reporting to senior marketing manager within Jane Dowe EMEA including briefing senior clients executive and the CEO before interviews and roundtables. Help position the COO of Jane Dowe as the leading voice on post recession financial services trends
  


• New Business – Responsible for growing business from existing clients as well as assisting account director with lead generation as part of a new business team. Contributed to three consumer pitches, two successfully (including Joe Blogs) with background research, competitor analysis and presenting slides at pitch on consumer trends in key areas.
  


• Campaign Development & Analysis – Six to twelve month media plans including launch events, handling budgets and assisting account director with resource allocation. Pre-campaign measurement planning, through-campaign tracking, analytics and measurement and post-campaign reports for clients to demonstrate ROI and lessons leaned for the team
  


• Events – Help set up and manage events such as Mens’ World in Germany 2008 and annual International Market Research Expo 2009 in London, attended by over 2000 trade visitors, for Jane Dowe. Prepare speeches for executives and help manage the stands at events. Create copy for post- event brochure and e-shot campaigns by client marketing departments


• Crisis & Issues – Crisis planning and handling. Handled the Joe Bloggs Morning Boost shower gel recall and subsequent media frenzy. This included manning phone lines at the company’s press office for two days, issuing statements and assisting with consumer enquiries to the helpline
  


• Online and SM – Avid blogger and social media user. Manage Joe Bloggs twitter feed and assist marketing department with Facebook fanpage. Conduct outreach to online influencers in male lifestyle trends. Also helped set up a LinkedIn group for Jane Dowe, gaining 1,200 members in the first year.
  

Highlights:

• Exceeded stiff targets of 85 pieces of coverage per quarter for Joe Bloggs including hitting all key target media, online and broadcast (Sky News)
  


• Gained two double page spreads and a mention on Radio 5 Live for Joe Blogg’s Clean Sweep shaving foam. Organised the first bathroom tweet-up for the Clean Sweep and worked on a fully traditional and online marketing campaign for the launch with a minisite featuring shaving games. This has been nominated for a Sabre Award 2010
  


• Helped Jane Dowe to gain a wider audience in more general consumer pages
  


• Single handedly secured 12 interviews for the COO of Jane Dowe at IMRE ‘09
  

++++++++++++++++++++++


…so, hopefully you can now bring all these tips together and weave your skills and experience into a format that truly communicates your skills and experience. And once you've done that, get in touch!


Happy typing…

The PR/Marketing Consolidation

Since the second quarter of 2010, there has been a noticeable increase in the demand for marketing skills in the PR industry, specifically digital marketing. Rather than only looking for PR people who have had strong experience in social media, blogger relations and SEO of press releases, agencies are now looking for people who have experience of managing the creative process – helping to devise new websites, come up with ideas for mobile applications and creative online video campaigns. These people generally come from an advertising or branding background and know how to project manage third parties, bringing a creative idea to fruition.

Some agencies have gone the extra step of creating an in-house centre of excellence, or even an internal supplier, who also have their own P&Ls and clients on a purely digital basis, but can supply these skills as needed to the parent agency’s PR campaigns. These internal shops have the skills, and the developers, to create the websites and applications themselves.

In their recent new book, Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (who coined the term ‘wikinomics’ with their first book in 2006) produce some highly astonishing figures:

• YouTube releases up to 2 billion videos per day
• Twitter hosts 750 tweets per second
• 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook every month
• Internet traffic is growing 40% per year
• Increasingly, appliances are logging on to the internet
• Since 2000, 72 US newspapers have folded
• Newspaper circulation in the US has fallen by 25%

It seems that, in this brave new world into which we are all plugged, it’s not enough for many PR companies to simply deliver the message. They also need to create the method of delivery, as these budgets are simply too good to miss. But, as Tapscott and Williams point out, the internet offers all kinds of businesses the opportunity, not only to reinvent themselves from a brand perspective, but also to reinvent the way they do business and collaborate.


What we are seeing in the marketing sector are different disciplines collaborating better than ever before, and inevitably leading to consolidation.

Self styled social media anthropologist, communications strategist and lead blogger for NewCommBiz.com, Tac Anderson, accurately predicted this trend last year and in June was quick to point out some of the brands (like NBC News) following suit, merging their PR, Promotions and Marketing departments.

The quote from Lauren Kapp, most recently VP NBC News Communications, now heading up the unit, is one of the most apt I’ve heard recently

“We work so closely together, but as the industry changes and the media landscape evolves, we just found ourselves working more closely, and it make sense to have us more cohesive…We’re always looking for ways to do things better.”

Winter Job Search: Worth A Punt?

There’s a common perception that it’s a bad time to be job hunting around this time of year, with firms winding up their budgets for Christmas and doubly so when you factor in concern over the economic recovery. This was certainly the case last year as the economy was only just emerging from the recession. But this year, we believe there’s everything to play for if you’re trying to bag a new role for the New Year.

The recruitment market overall is still in a volatile period. According to a recent article in City AM, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG are warning of a ‘double-dip in the jobs market’ on the back of their survey released at the very beginning of October. Their gloomy outlook will have been generally supported by the huge cuts announced in last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review, at least in terms of public sector recruitment.

On the other hand, the three largest listed recruitment firms Robert Walters, Hays and Michael Page remained ‘cautiously optimistic in their trading updates last week, pointing to the slow but steady recovery in business conditions’. Indeed, the main reason for the City AM article was that the perceived precarious position of recruitment naturally posed the question – ‘Are these recruiters worth spread betting on in the current climate?’

The two main comments from analysts were:

“Many firms are likely to try to meet any increase in business through making greater use of the workers they have already, and they will be reluctant to take on any more staff unless they are really convinced that sustained improvement in their business is probable.”

Howard Archer, chief UK & European economist at IHS Global Insight

and:

“Recruitment tends to thrive on confidence – when you get confidence, people are more willing to change jobs and that churn is good for staffing companies.”

Ian Jermin, senior analyst at Merchant Securities

This all sounds very interesting in the overall recruitment market. But what about PR recruitment in particular?

The PR Perspective

Looking at PR and Communications recruitment in particular, there is a generally supported view, as noted on this blog before, that PR has survived well as an industry in this new age of conversation and public relations has benefited from the boom in social media.

At PVR, we have seen quite a lot of activity at the start of the quarter with a fresh round of PR agencies winning new business themselves. The key trends have been:

• An attempt to hang on to prized staff – reflected noticeably in some agencies signing up account managers to three months’, and senior account executives on two months’ notice – something certainly troublesome for recruiters and prospective employers


• Already over-stretched consultancies are hiring to service new business


• This is driven, in part, by consultancies diversifying into sectors that are more profitable, and hiring new skills to allow this

So should I be looking?

Addressing Ian Jermin’s comments, it seems to be the case that there is a renewed activity from PR candidates regarding job hunting. There are three key motivators here:

• In some cases, candidates are overstretched in their positions and are looking for more realistic working again


• Some candidates know that their skills set is highly marketable at the moment, as is the case with digital and social media for example, and feel it’s a shrewd move now to make a transition to an agency eager for those skills


• In many cases, candidates know that the market will be uncertain for a while yet. So rather than making the best of what they have now, they are cautiously looking at maybe one or two opportunities at a time, and simply keeping a toe in the market, waiting for the right job to surface. ‘I’m not actively looking, but…’

Is this confidence? No, but it’s the savvy way to hedge your bets

Winter Blues?

There is a degree of seasonality in the recruitment market around this time, mainly reflective of December’s pre-Christmas excitement and January’s post-Christmas excess. Hiring traditionally dies off at the beginning of December and picks up again at the beginning of February.

This year, however, tradition is out the window. Pitches are being signed off and business won, the need for staff is acute in these cases and consultancies are desperate to get staff in place before the New Year. This suggests that the window of slow progess over Christmas will be tighter than ever this year and, rather than being a bad time to look, this could be the prime opportunity, especially if there is a chance of market stagnation in 2011.

Search And Selection In The Age of Austerity

‘So how’s the market?’ is a frequent question I’m asked. This isn’t just a conversation starter, people have a genuine concern about the recruitment market and, as the suppliers of human capital, usually a businesses’ greatest expense, it’s true that we are generally a good thermometer of its health. But when candidates ask this, what they really mean is ‘Will I get a lot of opportunities to look at, or maybe one or two?’


Certainly, the PR industry seems to have staged a recovery from the recession of 2009 and is in good health. Lots of people are looking to hire and there are a good number of candidates interested in a move as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve found that there has been some genuine under-payment, where people have been promoted but not given a pay rise, and some genuine progress stagnation, with candidates simply not promoted at all due to a lack of funds, or indeed clients! Now that the cloud has somewhat lifted, people are looking at what’s out there, who are the consultancies that are fast-recovering and where they can get a leg-up to compensate for the missed opportunities last year. Not just glad to have a job at all anymore, candidate confidence is returning with the market’s.


But it’s not 2008. In the early part of that year, the height of boom before bust, pretty much anyone who could talk and write was being snapped up by consultancies looking to service their overflowing accounts and skilled candidates were commanding multiple offers, big pay-rises and big counter-offers.


In 2010, it’s a different landscape. 2009 was hard, but it wasn’t another dot.com crash moment. PR weathered the storm well and, in response to client demands for more (for less), adapted to new techniques and strategies. The uptake of social media and digital PR was greater at the end of 2009 and start of 2010 than ever before – ‘The Digital Revolution’ as many dubbed it. Digital and new business roles were pretty much the only jobs on the market that year. Digital wasn’t a new thing, by any means. Marketeers were using digital a long time ago. But the advances in social media, integrated into digital media such as websites, really drove the PR interest.


As a result, the industry has both consolidated and fragmented. Consolidated in the sense that more disciplines have been brought under one roof to give clients a 360 degree service. Fragmented in the sense that the jobs in this environment have become even more specialised. Every consultancy has a slightly different take on what services they offer to clients, and this means they are all looking for different things from candidates. It’s simply not the case that any ‘digital specialist’ can receive multiple interviews from all the agencies looking for that type of person. The agencies are both more selective and more discerning than ever before.


The fear of the double dip recession is still there and the pain (in terms of redundancies from 2009) is still felt. Clients need candidates that fit into their differentiated offering and cannot afford to make mistakes when hiring.


Is this the industry growing up? Maybe. But what it means for candidates is that your CV needs to shine, your interview techniques need to be sharp as a razor and you need to play to your strengths carefully. You also need to brush up your digital. If you don’t have this, look for the opportunities that will give you some of this and think about how to sell yourself into them. Show your potential at the interview, and make every interview an important event. Most of this should be standard advice to anyone going for a new job, but in good times, people get lazy with the basics. Now the basics are everything.


Put more effort than ever before into your new job search. If you do, it will pay off. You may not get a huge pay rise, but you’ll get the leg up you need and, if you’ve chosen carefully, more potential for advancement. Counter offers are still there for high valued employees, but only if their agency genuinely can afford it and after a long spell without a pay rise, can seem a bit hollow. But it’s unlikely to be multiple offers, unless you are like the Swiss Army Knife of PR.

How To Construct A CV – And Secure The First Interview Part 2: Structure & Content

Ok, so in my first instalment of this series, I gave you some pointers on the overall impression that your CV should exude. In this post, we’ll look at the structure and content for the CV, the nitty gritty if you will. Here's a handy ten-point plan:

1. Your name: Generally looks best in a slightly larger font (2 to 4 points larger than the rest ) and on its own – don’t write ‘Curriculum Vitae’ or even ‘CV’ – that’s a bit like writing ‘banana’ on a banana. Also generally better to leave out the degree acronyms after your name – let your education history do the talking. If your degree is relevant (such as a PR degree), you can slip a mention of this into the opening statement, or even list your education before employment, but only if it really sells you to the next role – remember the ‘first two paragraph’ rule of selling yourself on the CV (see previous post). You might want to discuss this with your recruiter.



2. Personal Details: Where you live and contact details. That’s all. Recruiters will only leave in the area you reside in anyway. It's about your ability to do a job, not your age or marital status, or whether you own any dogs.



3. First Person: The best idea. Third person can sound pretentious. It’s a CV, not an obituary. However, try to avoid repeating “I…” as in “I did this, I did that”. You can get around this by delivering it in what might be called the "No Person" – “Gained coverage in”, “Managed a team of seven”.



4. Opening Paragraph: Not necessary, as the recruiter should be doing a sell on your behalf, having interviewed you properly. But it can be a nice ‘way in’ to the CV and it can frame the content in a particular way. I think a short opening paragraph goes down well, but it’s up to you. No more than two or three lines of text. Make it a good sell, or don’t bother. If you’ve won a relevant PR award though, this is a very good place to mention it and attract attention immediately.
   
   
5. Employment: Unless your education is a particular highlight and/or very relevant, its best to start straight into employment. Get that experience and those skills across as soon as possible. These sections are the most important on the CV – give them attention:
   
   
   
   1. Write down the name of the employer, your job title and the dates (including the month) that you were there. Write these down for each employment, and write them in the same format every time to maintain consistency throughout the CV. Run employment from most recent first.
   
   
   2. Give a nutshell description of the employer’s business and your role in it - and list the clients you worked on.
   
   
   3. Write down the activities you were involved in, including such items as media relations, writing and selling in articles and releases, strategy development, new business generation and pitching, line management, budget management, white papers, experiential initiatives, social media – all your experience – you get the picture. If you can, relate these back to the clients at the same time (i.e. “helped devise social media strategy for client AnyBrand’s ‘ABC’ product launch”)– therefore showing not just the skills, but also experience in their application (i.e. competency)
   
   
   4. Include highlights and successes – great campaigns, business wins, impressive coverage, building a client’s brand. Mention team work, but try to get as much as possible across about what you, personally, have achieved – this is the biggest sell on your CV.
   
   
   5. Repeat the above for each employer working backwards in time, reducing the amount of content each time (ideally). Most space should be dedicated to your current role, least space to your first role (as a general rule).
   
   
   6. Only list jobs that you’ve had since graduation or leaving school, everything else is irrelevant, unless it was some kind of PR related experience, in which case work it in a very short and sweet way.
   
   
   7. If you had experience in another career before PR, keep these entries minimal. You need to show how you spent the time, but don't talk about irrelevant skills. While your experience in these previous roles will no doubt have been formulative in terms of who you are, they are not PR-specific and this is a PR sell-in. Be hard with yourself. Even if you were a journalist, keep it short and sweet.
   
   
   
6. Education: If you didn’t slip it in earlier, now is the time. List your highest qualification first, with dates you attended the establishment. Give your degree result, whatever it is. List your A-levels and grades, no need to list GCSEs, just write how many and what grades. If you studied a PR or Marketing degree, it's probably worth listing the modules you took. Some people also like to include a one-liner on their dissertation topic. If it's interesting, and you’re prepared to talk about it at interview, and this is your first or second job why not? At that stage, your personality has weighting on your CV as well as your experience, which may be limited. If this is your third job though, or you’ve worked in PR a few years, it's not really worth it. If you have any education awards, good to pop those in too.



7. Training, Skills, Languages: Good time now to list any specific, relevant, formal training you’ve received. Maybe you went (or were sent) to a social media boot camp? Maybe you are an NCTJ qualified journalist? It all goes down here, as the icing on the cake. Then list the IT skills you are fluent with. Talking of fluency, give any languages you are confident in and their level. Don’t both with ‘basic’ level, anyone can speak basic French or German, even Del Boy Trotter.



8. Interests: Your interests are good because they show you have a non-work side and can sometimes even be the starting point for an interview, especially if the interviewer shares your interest. But keep it short and sweet, not too whacky, not too mundane and describe them carefully. So, for example, “Regular club squash player, enjoy learning the guitar and have a keen interest in botany” is fine, whereas “Enjoy socialising with friends” is a bit weak. Who doesn’t enjoy socialising with friends? Equally, “love good books” is a little lame, as nobody loves bad books. So just write this section with care and attention. Maybe you love a particular genre of books – that’s fine. Of course, you might be a super fit pentathlon champion with several wins – in which case go ahead and put that in.



9. References: Always available upon request. If they can be contacted immediately, tell your recruiter, but don’t list on the CV.




10. Structural Note: 2 Pages
    The guidance above should help you to create a well presented and thought-out CV that flows well through your experience. If you find it over-runs two pages, however, it's time to start finding shorter ways of saying what you want to say. You can also play around with the page format. Word usually has high default setting for the page margins, so you can decrease these and fit more text on the page. Do try to get it on two pages though. You might also think about a smaller font size, although nothing below 10 point or it won’t be read without a magnifying glass.
    

Now you should be pretty much there with the CV, but in my third and final instalment, I’ll talk about some of the finer details of content that you might want to put in under your current and most recent employments, so you can fine-tune.

Primavera Referral Scheme First Success!

Yes, our fantastic referral scheme has had its first success and we’ve placed a candidate into a new role that came to us from a friend’s referral. We’re delighted, they are delighted, the client is delighted and the referee is delighted. So everyone’s a winner. Our thanks go out to our referee and a cheque will be in the post as soon as the candidate starts.

We’re also pleased how this demonstrates our seriousness about the referral scheme and we encourage everyone to get involved.

Full details and terms are on the contacts page and there are various ways to get in touch – so let us know who you know. It's that simple.

How Papers Have Survived & Why We Need Them.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration", remarked Mark Twain, on hearing that a newspaper reporter had been sent to find out if he was still alive (it was actually his cousin who was ill). The newspaper industry itself might now be forgiven for issuing a similarly satirical statement, given that many, including myself, have been forecasting the demise of the printed word. But, as a recent article by the Economist makes clear, newspapers may have undergone huge changes, but they have survived.
This is not only a result of clever adaptation, but in my view, the very nature of the way it delivers news to us.


The long and the short of the Economist article is that while many people now digest their news online, flitting between articles without payment, and while advertisers have shifted their spend to search engines, rather than newspapers, many publications have nevertheless remained profitable. Indeed, some companies are now worth substantially more than they were in 2009. There has certainly been pain, redundancies and bankruptcy, but these have been part of adjustments that have included steeper cover prices, staff reductions, and some clever adaptations - such as a greater focus on key customer markets willing to pay for particular news. There has also, in some cases, been a spreading of stories across sister papers (46 local Gannet-owned titles now carry national stories from USA Today, for example), while in other areas there has been a refocus on local news and sport, leaving the national news to national titles. The cost of paper has also fallen sharply, which is a stroke of luck, and many companies are using cheaper, thinner product. The success of distinctive coverage has shown that it can persuade advertisers and paying customers to come onboard online and has allowed the FT and Wall Street Journal to create successful paywalls.


But there is another factor, and that is the way in which we absorb information.


The British comedienne Jo Brand once quipped that the Internet was "like putting the British Library inside a brothel". With the prevalence of flash based online advertising, multi-media content, device convergence and social media applications, it might now be fair to say it’s like cutting up the library and distributing its contents throughout a busy market place. This issue was recently touched on by author Nicolas Carr in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains – adapted here by Wired Magazine. Carr points to several academic studies and papers that have shown that our assimilation of information read on the internet tends to be very shallow. Large numbers of hyperlinks to other content and the inclusion of multi-media, instead of increasing our grasp of the issues, actually dilutes what we take in. So people who read an online article all the way through will have a better understanding of its contents, and be able to discuss the issues more fluidly, then someone who has followed all the hyperlinks and been distracted - their information is very ‘bitty’, rather than ‘whole’, even though its draws on more sources. Of course, as twitter has shown, there is a place for small, ‘bitty’ bits of news and information, but combine this with the continual distractions of facebook and email alerts, and you have internet users with attention deficit that know a very little about everything, rather than a lot about something. This creates a great challenge to productivity and is the reason that software is coming on to the market that actually switches off your social media. Its not just companies that may see this as a good thing – consumers themselves, unable to concentrate for more than a couple of minutes, are crying out for it. The technology that has allowed collaboration and information on an unprecedented scale, while undeniably pushing human capabilities and learning forwards, also adds a plethora of distractions that hinder our ability to get the job done.


Bringing this back to newspapers, there can be little doubt that sitting down and reading a newspaper, magazine or journal with less distraction and the ability of the text to ‘absorb’ you is vital for people to garner a greater understanding of the issues they are reading about, as well as being better for your eyes, and makes a welcome break from the constant buzz of electronically delivered messages via laptops, mobile phones and other devices.


The internet may change a great deal, but targeted, distinctive newspapers and publications certainly have a place in this digitally illuminated future.



Now go click those hyperlinks….

How To Construct A CV – And Secure The First Interview: Part 1

Part 1: Overall Impression.

The Daily Mail had an article last week ‘revealing’ that currently a third of Britons want to change careers. Now, whether you believe this press release from Chrysalis Courses, (training courses for careers in hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and counselling…) to be a piece of in-depth, rigorous cross-sector research or not, the PR market certainly is buoyant right now. Lots of people who stayed put during the recession are dusting off their CVs and making enquiries. Great news for me, good news for the economy.



When I interview candidates, they nearly always ask me for suggestions to improve CVs. CV writing is an art, and there’s certainly more to it than can be covered in a single article. So how about three?



In this first piece, I’m going to give you a few tips about the overall impression of the CV – format size, font etc. Then in a further two articles, we’ll look at how the content comes together, what to include and what not to include.



But bear in mind that there is no such thing as the perfect CV. There are various ways to approach it, which work for different reasons for different clients. Your CV will ideally be tailored by a good recruiter to suit each client, as each client will naturally be looking for different things. What should also be noted is that CVs in direct application to a job and CVs from recruiters are received by clients in slightly different ways, with different expectations before they are even opened. So you might want to have two versions for your CV. The guide below is for submitting a CV via a recruiter.



Overall Impression

1. Two Pages Good: Your CV serves as your first impression. But it also gets read very quickly. Most MDs will scan-read the CVs that land on their desks (due to volume). They’ll be looking for experience that matches the brief, so this needs to shout from the page. It’s also the reason that your CV needs to be two pages. A third page will never get read. Be concise, be relevant, make every word count. Just like a press release, the first couple of paragraphs need to seal the deal (which in this case, is securing the first interview) – so those paragraphs need to be relevant experience and results.



2. Keep It Simple: For similar reasons, your CV must scan-read easily. You can’t fight it, so at least make it easier for the MD to scan-read, they’ll appreciate it. Don’t clutter it up, don’t put in photos or fancy pictures – black and white and straight forward is best. Even is you’re going for a ‘creative’ role, let the experience speak for itself, don’t try and push this through fancy design. Any pictures are irrelevant and a waste of space, save them for your coverage book. This is PR after all – you’re demonstrating your skill at delivering a concise, targeted message.



3. Word Document: Pdf does look professional, but have a Word copy too. Your recruiter may need to make tweaks to the CV at the last minute – impossible with a read-only pdf, and copy/paste does not work well between the programmes.



4. Fonts: Use the same font throughout, with maybe one or two size variations for headings and sub-headings and make use of bold, underline and italic to differentiate sections (but again, keep it simple, and don’t go over the top, make sure it still flows). Use normal bullet points, not fancy ones. Not only is this unnecessary decoration, it may not load on some computers. Use a smart, easy to read font. As a tip, Tahoma and Verdana are the only fonts guaranteed to display properly on both PC and Mac. Just remember, if your CV is hard to open, the client may not bother trying. Sans serif fonts are a good idea, otherwise it can look a little too formal – but that is a personal choice.

Now those are the basics covered, in the next post we’ll look at deciding how to structure the content on the CV – how to catch attention and also make the information flow well throughout. In the third post, we’ll look at the finer details of content. Keep watching this space…

PR Is Third Fastest Sector For Rising Job Demand.

Employment Agency Reed recently gained coverage yesterday on the BBC with news that it has recorded a rise of 1% in job vacancies over April compared with March (although the BBC has actually got the date wrong in their article). Its statement was based on its own, newly created employment index, The Reed Job Index, where data is apparently taken from their own job board figures, recording monthly advertised jobs from 8,000 recruiters across 37 career sectors throughout the UK.



Generally, the impression it gives is mixed, with a positive 1% rise tempered by 4.2% decline in average wages, although its important to remember that this is across 37 sectors.



The figures were in fact released before the general election on 5th May 2010 (presumably as a Q1 report), prompting Martin Warnes, Managing Director of Reed.co.uk, to suggest



"… the Index figures offer more signs of nervousness than confidence at the moment…Employers seem to be waiting to see the outcome of the General Election, so they can factor the result into their forward plans for jobs."



It will therefore be interesting to see how their new index performs over the quarter post-election.



However, the BBC reported that, according to Reed, job demand rose most in the charity and voluntary sectors, followed by marketing, public relations, legal and secretarial. So while, as Warnes suggests, the overall impression in the jobs market is of uncertainty, the silver lining for PR people is that they seem to be in demand to allay that uncertainty, and the rise in marketing jobs suggests that recovering businesses are putting money into self promotion again.



All good news for PR.

When To Move In-house

Another question I’m asked very frequently by consultancy candidates is whether I would recommend a move in-house. Like most things, the answer to this depends on a variety of factors, primary of which include where you want to be in five years (both in terms of experience and financial rewards), your current levels of experience and most importantly, the kind of working style that works for you and motivates you.


Some of the possible benefits of an in-house move include:

• Widening your experience


• Gaining an in-depth understanding of issues for a single ‘client’


• Greater skills exposure (feeding in to, say, marketing and internal communications)


• Understanding a business from the inside


• Moving away from pure media coverage orientated targets to large scale projects run over a series of months and different measures of ROI


• Working on the strategy development with marketing people and seeing how these initiatives can work across countries and across disciplines


• Possible extensive company benefits package

But of course, these benefits may not apply to every role, and some of them are available in consultancy positions also.


Some of the potential cons include:

• It can be political (the job becomes more about personal liaison, smoothing egos and internal customers/ audiences)


• You can be taken away from media relations and core writing, in effect doing less ‘PR’, as many see it


• You can be waiting a while for promotion, especially in a small team, where this will depend on the person above you moving also


• Salaries and titles vary a great deal. It’s quite common for people to take a small salary drop when going in-house, at least as common as a salary rise


• You can be dragged into non-PR tasks that you may not have envisaged – often a result of a restructure


• You can find yourself overloaded in a small company, or just another minion in a large company, fighting for budget in either case


• Complex reporting structures

Again these issues vary widely by company and role type, and you can also come across these issues in consultancy.


Factors to help you decide:

• How far do I want to go in agency?


• Am I still doing PR? Or am I now mostly running the agency?


• Do I need to broaden the experience on my CV?


• Do I want to progress quickly and get a salary hike, or is the job quality more important?


• How strategic do I want to be?

Once you have decided your answers to these, you must approach new opportunities with these in mind, both in-house and consultancy. A move in-house is not a cure-all.



Many consultancy PRs look to in-house once they reach account director as this level is often seen as the cross-roads. Staying in consultancy after AD level leads to greater consultancy management, while a move in-house can often mean that you continue ‘doing PR’. But again, this is not always the case. Some in-house roles will require a real media relations driver, some more of a top-line strategist good at managing groups of people, and some a mix of the two. So it’s fair to say that no experience will be wasted, whatever you decide. It may put a slant on your CV though, so it’s worth considering how your experience can be presented in a variety of different ways – but this is one of the things a decent recruiter will do for you.

The other thing that ‘in-house’ is not is ‘easier’. This is a common misconception at junior level. You may even end up working more hours than you did before, depending on the company you choose.


What recruiters will tell you:


Most run-of-the-mill recruiters will try to advise you against a move in-house. There are some simple reasons for this.

• Generally, it depends on the roles they have on at the time, they’ll advise you either way accordingly. Naturally, most retained clients are consultancy rather than in-house. In-house roles have to be continually hunted down. So, its easier for the recruiter to place you into another consultancy role


• It therefore follows that many of the same recruiters have less experience of in-house roles. They don’t understand the in-house culture and environment (it is harder to grasp sometimes) – especially with complex companies

Overall, in-house roles can be immensely challenging and rewarding. Generally, what I advise candidates to do is stay in consultancy up to AD level. You’ll get faster pay-rises and climb the ladder more quickly, gaining more confidence quickly, than the equivalent in-house route. Once established at AD level, then you have to decide if running a consultancy is what you want, or if you’d rather be managing PR campaigns in a company. But then, if that dream role in-house comes up before you get to AD, you might want to jump at the chance beforehand, and remember that competition for in-house roles at AD level is therefore very fierce.

PR, Politics And The Upcoming Election

PR clearly plays a huge part in politics and has done increasingly over the last 20 years. At the same time as it has, in many cases, become so important to political parties as to actually form the very basis of those parties (a position argued well by Adam Curtis in The Century Of The Self, regarding Clinton’s and Blair’s election strategies), it has also come under increased scrutiny from the public, to which programmes such as The Thick Of It and Bremner Bird & Fortune play testament. It’s interesting to note that Brown is married to a PR woman, and that Cameron himself is an ex-PR professional and that their advisors, especially those who put together manifestos, are predominantly PR people. These facts have been viewed with mixed feelings by the public.


When I was training for a brief time in advertising, the classic text books would always make the point that the product has to live up to the message. If you’re advertising the best cakes in town, they’d better be very good cakes, or customers will have an instant turn off. The same is true of PR. Your clients’ messages about their environmental work, or green credentials, should bear up to analysis, or the whole things will blow up in their faces when Dispatches broadcasts an expose.


The same can’t be said of political parties, however, which are very unlikely to live up to their hype once elected. For all their promises that everything will be amazingly better, the best the general public can really hope for is an overall improvement in most areas that affect them, rather than the opposite. The fact that an opposition party has very little overview of the inner workings of government departments means that any manifesto can’t be taken too seriously until they have their feet under the table and a general grasp of the realities. The public are wise to this, which is why over-statement and grandiose claims are treated with suspicion, while realistic reserve is appreciated (look at Vince Cable, playing the ‘everyman’ to good effect on the Chancellors’ Debate).


However, what all of the parties are yet to do is come clean about how difficult things will really be post-election, instead concentrating on the usual give-aways and tax breaks, giving YOU the ability to sack your MP, putting the YOU back in YOUnited Kingdom. To a certain degree that have hinted at the big task ahead, and hinted at where money will be saved, but the whole debate is still couched in the idea that tax hike will be staved off and that there will be ways to avoid the ‘medicine’.


Some would argue this is a valid PR tactic, that winning the election by whatever method necessary is the most important thing, arriving on a wave of fickle support from a public that takes decisions based on sound-bites and TV performances. Once in office, one can then start the heavy-weight political work that would be too hard for the pubic to swallow. After all, that’s what you expect your competitors to do, so you will do it too. But this means that whoever comes to power will be unpopular very quickly as they start imposing the inevitable taxes (NI or VAT) and swinging the axe madly across the public sector.


Surely a better PR campaign would have been to manage expectations properly as well as promoting the benefits of your manifesto? Gaining power is one thing, staying in power is another, and the strategic plan for that has to start before you are elected. Certainly, the opposition will try to use the fear of cuts and taxes to their advantage, but the public is wise enough to see when they are not proposing a genuine alternative. The public know there will be no magic pot of gold at the end of the election rainbow.


A deft handling of the issues is what real PR is all about and what skilled PR professionals thrive on. It can also create a very firm case for a new government to be elected. Sometimes, honesty really is the best policy, and the public need to be given more credit for its comprehension. With government more exposed that its ever been, the same smokescreens of giveaways are no longer good enough.

Recruitment vs Social Media?

A few weeks ago, I was having drinks with some friends and acquaintances, when a question was put to me


"Why would clients hire you when they can approach people directly over social media?"


The person asking the question had good reason – they been approached directly by an agency MD who had got to know them over twitter. An interview or two down the line and they had a new job. No recruiter involved.


So was this person the living embodiment of recruitment’s downfall?


It certainly is the case that, in many instances, I’m actually competing with my own clients on their own briefs and that well connected, social media savvy clients will always save money. Its much easier now for potential employers to connect with potential new staff members in the virtual world and even find out quite a lot about their personalities over twitter, a tool which often lies somewhere between the corporate face of Linked-In and the nights-out on the town inappropriateness of Facebook. It’s a bit like industry drinks events, taken to the internet.


Except that it doesn’t quite work as well as that most of the time. Many MDs, or other staff members for that matter, are unable to dedicate much time to tracking down new staff when accounts are screaming to be serviced. Twitter is limited in how revealing it is and not everyone uses it to its full potential. In fact, not everyone uses it. Direct approaches can be risky – they can get you a bad reputation for poaching staff – so often the middle man is an important way of distancing yourself from this task. And when the business picks up and everyone is pitching like crazy, agencies really don’t have the time to do their own recruitment.


I think the approach works best for agencies that are at that stage when they are large enough to have an HR person who can spend time searching, but not so large that the HR person has too many other things on their plate, and also when searching for the seasoned account executive through to account manager levels. At the very junior end, PR people are still getting the hang of self-promotion online, the best things to say, and with limited overall knowledge of PR. While as you get more senior than senior account managers, its really less appropriate to be recruiting over twitter, and as the salaries and packages become larger, you really need a broker. You also need a much more targeted approach at this stage, as personality is even more critical.


Then there’s also the key question of how many twitter profiles and Linked-In trawls that you undertake, only to be disappointed at interview when actually the person doesn’t present themselves in reality as well as they do online. People approached directly will automatically have a higher expectation of their chances, as well.


Don’t get me wrong. I’m well aware that there’s a very healthy referral system going on, online, right now as many digital PR people (in particular) move around (usually into each others shoes at different agencies). But rather than competing with social media, it has become a complimentary tool, both in terms of client recruitment strategies, and in terms of the recruitment consultant’s armoury.


Because that’s a recruiters job. Generating leads, meeting the people in the flesh and then submitting to their clients people who are close to the mark of the brief, explaining suitability for the role, guiding the candidate through the process, and handling the final negotiations. The efficiency of this process is the cost saving, and the new online tools available today make the research part of that role easier. But you still need the filters, the networks, the recruiter relationships, not to mention a sales person who knows the business, its personalities, culture and atmosphere and yet is disassociated from it. This advocacy is one of the key ways a recruiter adds value.


If, however, your recruiters are not providing these consultancy services and are still just sending irrelevant CVs to you like the old days, then maybe you should try a bit of online mingling. You’ll have nothing to lose.

How To Get To Account Director – Some Top Tips

A good senior level friend of mine recently shared his thoughts on how PR consultancy people have to change their mindset at account manager level in order to get to account director level. I thought it was worth sharing here. Its basic stuff, but often the basic things are the ones people forget to tell you…


To reach account manager level in a PR consultancy, you have to demonstrate how effective you are at doing things – from writing that press release and selling it in as an account executive to writing that feature article and managing the campaign tactics for your client as an account manager. You are rewarded for your ability to work hard and deliver results. All well and good.


However, moving on further is all about demonstrating effective thinking.


Your managers want you to continue to do all the other stuff that made you successful but also to think.

• Is what we are doing right now really going to increase sales and change opinion, or do we need a rethink?


• Do I understand the client's business well enough to add value and insight to their communications strategy, or do I need to know more?


• Does my team truly understand why they are doing this activity or is it just another tick on their to-do list?

As an account manager, you’ve already started to learn the skills of team management – mentoring, motivating, assessing resources, teaching best practice, etc. Again, this is all about getting the team to generate results. To become an account director, you must also start ensuring that everyone knows why they are doing this, how it contributes to the big picture and overall strategy for the client. This will instantly make your team more effective. Sounds obvious, but as a recruiter, I frequently meet people below account manager level who don’t have a grasp of that bigger picture and this is often because that hasn’t been filtered down to them.


Of course, with account director level comes a host of other responsibilities including greater financial and budget management, greater resource planning and team management responsibilities, more proactive new business generation and pitch leading.


But boil it all down, and the essence is to demonstrate your potential through thinking.


What my friend suggests is to “take five minutes each morning to decide what you are going to do today to make a strategic difference for your clients or your teams’ development. That five minutes could be the most valuable time for your clients, you and your teams. It will certainly be the five minutes that gets you promoted far more quickly”.


It’s a good point, well made.

The Lack Of Digital Skills

This recent PR Week article, while clearly being a press release – come- cry for help by recruitment consultancies, it raises an interesting issue. It’s hard to fill the now frequent ‘digital expert’ or ‘social media expert’ roles. I see two main reasons for this. Firstly, these people don’t really exist at the moment (at least not in any great number). We’re all learning this stuff, it’s pretty new. Even the ‘digital’ people from pre-2001 were using different tools back then. They didn’t have twitter. This brings us to the second point, that every agency has a slightly different view of what that person is.

What, then, do you want from a ‘digital specialist’?

Usually, the answer is someone who can (1) train the entire consultancy in social media use, buzz monitoring, blog comms, blog discoveries, SMEs, press release SEO (2) lead pitches for and win social media based new business (3) perform the social media function for existing clients and (4) manage all the creative agencies you’ll inevitably have to work with.


Now, isn’t that a rather tall order? I’ve witnessed more than one ‘digital expert’ land a very attractive pay rise with this sort of role, only to burn out in less than six months and to storm out of the building shouting ‘these people just don’t get it!’.

Consultancies really need to be prepared to hire a team, who can perform each of these functions superbly, rather than one person who does a little bit of each. Alternatively, start some heavy investment in some training programmes. It’s going to cost more than the wages of one person, that’s for sure. And with many predicting the death of traditional media within the next year, these skills are essential. At the very least, in my opinion, you need two people. A digital savvy PR person (and there’s lots of those, even if they aren’t ‘experts’) who knows how to deliver the PR message online and also a digital marketing expert. The marketing expert will have all the creative back-end know-how that the PR person simply will not have. Together, they’ll create formidable integrated campaigns.

Furthermore, its becoming apparent that integrated marketing agencies have started snapping up some PR people recently, offering a new breed of complete end-to-end services.

Want online PR? No problem!

Want an integrated marketing and advertising campaign too? No problem!

Want us to design and build bespoke applications for you on Facebook and mobile? No problem!

This has opened up exciting new opportunities for digital PRs to gain new experiences and work in non-PR environments, a desire I’ve frequently encountered when interviewing them. To hang on to these valuable individuals, PR consultancies need to offer a better thought-out role and be prepared for further investment, with an open ear to what your ‘digital expert’ is telling you. After all, isn’t that why you are hiring them?

Why PR Has Benefited From The Recession

Clients across technology and consumer PR are both saying that they are all ‘pitching like mad’ and some are ‘winning business hand-over-fist’. Of course, they need staff to service this, and so far, at all levels.

This is all further encouragement for an industry that seems not only to have survived the recession, but even managed to expand during it. In January, The Economist wrote a very good article discussing this.

It kicks off with some great stats:

According to data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a private-equity firm, spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion.

The key reasons proposed by The Economist are

1. An increase in corporate demand – to counter a media backlash over undeserved bonuses and government bail-outs


2. PR firms dominate control of word-of-mouth marketing/ social media tools


3. PR is often cheaper than mass advertising campaigns


4. PR’s impact can often be more easily measured


5. Dwindling traditional media = fewer journalists = easier to target

While points 1 and 5 are a little by-the-by I feel, I think the key lies in points 2 to 4, which are all linked. If I was a CEO of a small enterprise right now, I’d certainly want to maintain comms about the state of the company to external audiences and stakeholders, but I’d be looking for someone who could offer real value for money. Someone who could show measured results for the money invested and could use innovative ways and means to communicate with people online – which inevitably costs less. I’ll know that when I buy a toaster, I look online, I read reviews online, maybe even a blog entry or two before buying it. I’d assume all my customers were doing the same with my product.

As this article in the Montreal Gazette suggests, the differentiator for PR has been social media. It quotes a recent survey of 200 plus Canadian small businesses by BizLaunch, a free training service for small businesses.

• 43 per cent of respondents believed PR was their most important marketing tool, followed by social media with 38 per cent and online advertising at 31 per cent


• Only 26 per cent of businesses said offline advertising, such as in newsprint or radio, was their most important tool

So why is PR better placed to take advantage of social media? Very simply, because Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs are essentially about conversation, or ‘word of mouth’, and who better to lead this than a PR person? Sure, as a recent PR Week article by Hotwire/ 33’s Drew Benvie suggests, some are concerned that marketers and designers may have more of the essential technical skills needed to create the digital experience, be that a Facebook application or a viral video. But the message has to come from somewhere, and to make sure that what you are saying in blogs, forums, on Twitter and to the online media all ties in, better have the PR person do that. Drew points out that the creative skills you can hire into an agency or outsource. I totally agree with this. I’d also suggest that designers and marketers can’t ‘hold the conversation’ and achieve the desired effect in the way a PR person can. Advertising and marketing are nearly always a one way street. In the world of ‘Have Your Say’, the customers want to talk about it, and it’s always been the job of PR to influence that conversation.

So the recession has forced PR to be more creative, to cut costs and to offer additional services. As a result, PR has been forced to grab social media with both hands. This has made it more engaging than ever before, added new skills and indeed a higher value to the industry. This had started to happen before the recession, but it was the threat of job losses and budget cuts that really drove the uptake in 2009, producing what many have termed the ‘digital revolution’ of that year. That’s not to say PR owns social media – it feeds into all disciplines, and the most talented ‘social media experts’ as they are often dubbed, are the ones that understand how campaigns can be run across all mediums. But PR delivers the message, and by its nature, it’s the best at promoting what it is doing with social media.

Primavera Blog Launches

So, hello!

This is the public blog of Primavera Recruitment Ltd, written by me, its MD, and will pretty much mirror much of what is said on the company website here, although maybe with some more personal commentary here and there, and with the added function of comments and links.

Primavera is a search and selection consultancy specialising in the public relations industry in the UK, so posts where will be about both the public relations and recruitment industries from our perspective. As PR moves deeper into the realm of social media ever day, there will a lot about that kind of thing on here too.

I hope you find something of interest...