The Counter Cultural Fit

PR has seen a change in hiring strategies over the last couple of years. It’s been pretty subtle, but definitely there. Agencies are starting to think outside of the box when hiring. In fact, they are proactively hunting for people who were never in the box in the first place. I’ll elaborate…

Four years ago, a recruitment brief was pretty standard.
"We want an account manager, with media contacts in this area from a similar or larger agency (preferably one of our close competitors)".
Essentially, everyone wanted a carbon copy of their other members of staff – and this is in fact what most people were testing for in interviews and misunderstanding as ‘cultural fit’. After all, the thinking went, candidates like this require less training, may add to the pool of journalist’s contacts and will understand the modus operandi of their new employer from day one.

But there are problems with this approach. In an agency of clones, the work becomes stale and lifeless, creativity suffers and morale drops. Furthermore, if you are looking for someone who comes from a rival agency, where they have created a similar clone culture – what incentive will that target candidate have for coming to you, beyond a hollow and short-term pay rise?
The other issue with this mindset is that it excludes people who are not a perfect match to the description – including anyone working slightly outside the particular sector or sub-sector, anyone from a smaller agency, and certainly anyone from an in-house role.

Perhaps some people realised this four years ago – but the status quo had such a powerful gravitational pull, nobody wanted to take a risk by hiring in a different way. Instead, the market itself changed.

We all know about the rise of digital communication bringing in cross-disciple talent form branding consultancies and marketing/ advertising executives. But above and beyond this, as one of my client MDs pointed out recently, PR has been changing from a purely press relations role into more of a targeted community engagement role, and strategies, instead of ‘get as much media coverage as possible’ have moved into more creative brand-building areas. In today’s fat cat despising, economically challenged times, the traditional salesperson is less trusted, and the printed media itself is in retreat. In addition, the candidates have been more nervous about moving unless there’s a real change to their day to day.

So increasingly, over the last year, we‘ve been asked to keep an eye out for unusual people. People with the right skills of course, but the catch-net is a lot wider. Candidates from in-house are being more readily considered at junior to mid levels and are being given more of a chance to change from one sector to another (with more focus on core PR skills rather than current contacts). There has been a renewed emphasis on personality and on any extra insights and skills candidates might bring, rather than just filling another seat in the office with another clone. Candidates too now expect more variety, rather than the same dry release selling spread over 4 or 5 clients.

This can only be good for an industry that has for some time suffered from a fresh creativity deficit and certain exclusivity at the same time. Real cultural fit, in terms of the way people from unparallel backgrounds come together as a team, is now being more carefully considered and tested for.

2012 So Far…

The UK’s negative news media has been on overdrive the last few months, what with a potential Eurozone collapse, the economy threatening to drop back into recession in a play-out of the double dip we all feared 2 years ago, and if you’ve been picking up the Metro or Daily Mail, any number of deadly killer viruses that apparent lurk among us.

So what of PR?

Well, actually, it seems to be in pretty rude health right now. Clients in all sectors are winning business and looking to make hires at all levels. Many people expect this to be a fairly tough year, but the last couple of years have been relatively ‘tough’, yet still the industry has grown (11% sales growth for the media industry in 2011 in the US as a measure). It seems people have become tired of worrying about the imminent meltdown they read of on a day to day basis and started getting on with business (although it has to be said that PR in particular has benefited from a corporate reputation boom as the foundations of pillars and institutions of early 21st century capitalism have feared the rebelling masses).

There is, however, currently a bit of a talent vacuum. It’s not that talent isn’t out there, just that there is some reluctance on the part of candidates to move. ‘Why?’ is tricky to answer. Agencies are sensing the market and trying hard to cling on to their candidates. We’ve certainly seen a return of the ‘crazy counter offer’ over the last six months for headhunted candidates (with 6 or even 8K pay rises involved). But maybe the candidates, who aren’t running businesses themselves, are more affected by the day to day negative press. Maybe. But really, for anyone prepared to start the job hunt, the number of available positions makes it a buyers’ market. And if you’re worried about ‘recession survival’, would you rather do it in the job you’re bored with, or in a new role with a large salary rise? The health of the market suggests the risk involved are much smaller than the media would have you think.

One thing is for sure though – and that’s the importance of social media in your job hunt. Certainly, for recruiters, advertising is less and less effective – and people increasingly expect to be approached through networks in more of a headhunting approach. As recruiters move increasingly over to these means – it’s equally important to make yourself visible to them. And that’s just the start. You can be sure your future employers will be looking you up too. So over the next few months we’ll be blogging on how social media can work for you in a job hunt.

Keep following…