9 non-PR skills every PR professional needs

Dear Gracie,

I teach a class on corporate communications and PR. Knowing how to communicate well is an obvious skill that every PR person needs—but what about the non-obvious skills? What do my students need to learn for PR that doesn’t come to mind immediately? In other words, what skills do they need to know to survive in the real PR world that we don’t normally associate with PR? How will it help them?

Superfluously Skilled

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Dear Superfluously Skilled,

Eight ProfNet experts give it to you straight:

1. Management and teamwork experience

“If you run an account or a PR business, managing others is a huge part of the job,” says Jennefer Witter, president of The Boreland Group. “Knowing how to manage is an art.”

PR pros who do not know how to work with their team members to get the very best (in what we all know is a very stressful occupation) will suffer from a high churn rate, says Witter. PR reps need to earn team members’ trust and loyalty to make them stick around.

Instability within a PR team can impact accounts, says Witter—because who wants to work with a new face who has to learn everything from scratch every few months?