It is wise to keep yourself open to a variety of assignments. The greatest degree of career opportunity will come from working for a department that allows its staff to "cross train" compose a speech one week, write a magazine article another. The best way to know whether such opportunities exist is to show some initiative and ask.
With that said, my advice for anyone truly interested in a position as a media spokesperson is to have some facility with word processing and computer graphics software packages but don't become the department's resident slide maker and proposal formatter. Those duties are time consuming and, therefore, more efficiently handled elsewhere in your department or by an outside vendor, leaving you to concentrate on the placement of news articles. If you do find yourself glued to a terminal, have a chat with your PR director on the cost of farming out graphics versus the missed opportunities in getting out your institution's story.
Learn How to Juggle
My next point is about grace under pressure. While you're updating the biographies of your senior management team, scheduling interviews for a reporter who wants to talk to five executives on the importance of technology in today's banking industry, and trying to put some numbers together on a press release on your bank's newest mortgage product, you'll undoubtedly get a call: the chairman is visiting with a U.S. senator this afternoon and needs you to compile a major briefing paper for him within the hour, please.
You've got to be learn to handle pressure, think on your feet, and display an uncanny ability to juggle a number of assignments. A pressurized environment is simply part and parcel of any financial PR department
As in any profession, one of the quickest ways to get to the top is to display the eagerness and ability take on a number of tasks at once and, in the meantime, to get a wealth of different communication experiences under your belt
Learn Your Organization Inside and Out
A PR professional is the first person to whom the media and the public will turn to get basic information on the institution. Read your annual reports, know your organizational structure by heart, and know the businesses in which your institution is involved.
But, perhaps most importantly, know where to go within your institution to get information know who does what in your bank. If a reporter calls with a question on commodity financing, know which manager to turn to for information. It's worth noting that banking is an extremely technical business, with specialists in everything from global telecommunications to investment banking products. Know where to go to get the information reporters need.
Decide on the Size of the Organization You Want to Work For
If s probably safe to say that the smaller the institution, the greater your chances to perform a variety of communication duties. Larger institutions tend to have communication departments staffed by specialists in everything from philanthropic activities to government lobbying. At a smaller institution, you may be more likely to perform more kinds of tasks. If s therefore important to analyze what size institution you'd feel most comfortable at and whether you'll have the chance to learn different communication functions in a larger company.
Check Out the Reporting Structure
A criteria easily forgotten during a job search is how the communication department fits in the general scheme of things. In other words, where does the department report within the institution?
If the top communications executive reports to the bank chairman's office, it's safe to say that the chairman has a real commitment to communications, holds what you do in high regard, and will take a real interest in your projects. A department that reports to say the personnel department or another administrative type function may get short shrift. That's not always the case, of course, but ifs worth investigating how much commitment the institution does have to communications and how much your work will be noticed and appreciated by those at the top. How can you tell? One easy way is to measure the number of media mentions the institution receives, which, in turn, indicates the willingness of the bank's senior managers to talk to the press.
Remember: It Is Who You Know
Your worth as a public relations professional is in direct proportion to the number of press contacts you have. Obviously, when you're first embarking on a PR career, your media contacts will be few. There are several ways to "meet the press," including cold calls and invitations to lunch, all of which you should expect to do when starting out in a PR career. But perhaps the best way to build a good relationship with the press corps is to be responsive to their needs, recognize their deadline constraints, and get your facts straight right from the start
Persevere
If you can't find an entry level position in the financial services business, all is not lost. There are slots with PR firms that have financial institutions as clients, writing jobs with financial trade publications, and staff jobs with banking associations or state regulatory agencies. Simply getting some solid PR experience under your belt with a packaged goods company, a utility company, or whatever will help you eventually land the financial PR job you want CYNTHIA DOYLE manages the communications function for Chase InfoServ International, the information and transaction services business of the Chase Manhattan Bank. She began her career at Chase in 1984 as a communications officer assigned to the bank's technology unit, where she was responsible for internal and external communications.
Prior to Chase, Ms. Doyle was a senior account executive at the public relations firm of Lobsenz Stevens in New York City. She also served for two years as the press relations officer for the Canadian Bankers Association in Toronto, Canada.
Ms. Doyle got her start in the communications field in Houston, Texas, where she was the publications editor for the First City National Bank of Houston. She graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in communication arts.
