data.insights.ideas

Before I left for San Francisco en route to Facebook f8 this past week, I caught an interesting article about the lack of men in the public relations industry (see my disclaimer) and the corresponding recruiting strategy agencies need to begin thinking about. I have attached the full text of the article here as it’s locked behind the subscription wall:

With a lack of men entering PR, we need new ideas for recruiting

Anyone who has spent time lately in college classrooms speaking to students in PR and communication disciplines has seen first-hand an unmistakable trend. The field is finding it increasingly difficult to attract male students. I have spoken on a half dozen campuses in addition to my own in the last year, and the gender ratio I’m seeing is about 70% female; some of the classes I taught didn’t have a single male student.

To be certain that what I experienced wasn’t a random anomaly, I checked with the Public Relations Student Society of America, the largest membership group for PR students. Their most recent member survey revealed that 89% of current members are female, based on more than 1,100 responses out of its 9,600 members at 284 academic institutions.

It’s hard to identify with certainty the reasons behind this trend. I’ve asked younger colleagues their opinions, and generally they believe it has to do with the perceived monetary reward - or lack there of - that certain professions promise. As one of them (a male) put it, “There’s a widespread perception, with some hint of reality, that entry-level positions at many PR firms are low paying, regardless of gender. This is a turn-off for young men just leaving school. Male college grads come out of the chute very competitive. They often equate ‘best’ with most financially rewarding.”

I have personally mentored some outstanding young women at the College of Charleston, and I’m delighted that we are successfully attracting these new leaders to PR. Yet, I feel the gender imbalance we are now seeing is a troubling one, just as troubling as it would be if males dominated the student populations.

Why? For the same reasons that virtually any gender imbalance raises issues. More than in some other professions, ours should look like the society it serves. We work in a relationship-based profession, both by definition and practice. We serve audiences that reflect a wide range of diverse attributes, including gender. To best serve them we need to best understand them, and it helps if we share their demographic qualities - age, ethnicity, education, and gender.

We need to reach out in creative, new ways to bright young men on our college campuses and remind them of the many attributes a career in the communications field offers. We’re clearly not having trouble getting this message across to young women. If we can attract the best students of both genders, our profession will be better equipped to meet tomorrow’s challenges.

Tom Martin is an executive-in-residence, Department of Communication, the College of Charleston. He also serves as a senior counselor for Feldman & Partners. He can be reached at martintr@cofc.edu.

There’s just so much here that I want to delve into and offer my POV on, but honestly, I feel there’s too little of me (new-, eager-, willing to push and pull established boundaries-type of person) and too many of them (old guard-, traditional-, complacent-type of individuals) in the industry right now to outweigh the established guard. Part of Tom’s piece is right: there’s hardly any remarkable monetary incentive for younger and junior staff to start their career in public relations. Pay is lackluster within the industry standard, especially considering those who bring a certain expertise and knowledge in one subject area, when compared to classmates in other industries.

Point #1: The public relations industry needs a considerable self-assessment around its own ecosystem.

Is there a substantial reason why more females over men are entering this industry at a rate similar to why programmers and financial consultants are more likely to be men than women? (“The Decline of Women in Computer Science from 1940-1982” would be a good place to start and offer an interesting plane of introspective.) What about choices in clients? After all, this is a client facing and relationship industry as Tom mentions above, but to what expense do staff suffer when vertical management structure choose what’s best on their balance sheet over operational efficiency? How do rewards match incentives? Are there any even known incentives?

Point #2: Stagnation is not a problem, it’s a disease.

If you don’t challenge yourself every day, in any form, you’ll soon enter a euphoria of stagnation. Once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. I believe in passion and creativity, but more importantly, I believe in innovation. This industry’s thought leaders of tomorrow (I would even argue, today) are under our noses but the many professionals play the game of bureaucratic diplomacy, erring always on the side of caution. The time is ripe for agencies to take risks, investing in young, smart and eager social capital to help drive innovation (and if they are lucky, strategy) for years to come.

Point #3: You are the change.

I’m talking to you, Generation Y. You have the power to push this industry and explain to the world what public relations is and is not about. Our progress rests on intangible thoughts and tangible actions.

Jump in or we all purge.

July 25, 2008, 4:23pm

College teaches you how to think. Working teaches you how to process. Entrepreneurship teaches you how think and process.

These verbs may have a similar implication, that is constant utility of brainpower, but they bear a different meaning when combined: strategic imagination.

I first heard this phrase from Umair Hague in a post called How Strategic Imagination Happens. At its core, strategic imagination enables you to “imagine fundamentally new possibilities for truly strategic behaviour.” The idea, though, is to find a balance between imagination and behavior. As Umair states, “Strategic imagination is tremendously difficult because it requires us to put aside yesterday’s tired assumptions and orthodoxies, and begin to actively rethink from scratch the way value can be, should be, must be, will be created. The surest, most lethal killer of strategic imagination is being reined in by orthodoxy: thinking that tomorrow must be like yesterday.”

Forgetting the past and focusing on the future is sometimes the most difficult task of one’s undergraduate career. Every class, every test and every paper serve as milestones of a learning path, built on tenets from every passing second. You tend to focus on the “now.” I noticed friends succumbing to academic orthodoxy. It wasn’t until Graduation Day that classmates began to appreciate freedom: vacation from scheduled classes, meetings and writing.

However, once the vacation ended and the work day began orthodoxy set-in once more. New graduates learned the value of process, tasking items as efficiently as possible. If they were lucky, they applied some thought before actionable tasks. (This is, to say, that where they work and what they work on is a “lethal killer of strategic imagination.”)

Now, if you applied strategic imagination while in college, or at work; you did the right thing. I fear college and corporate America is anesthetic toward breaking rules, making it more difficult to have “a profound appetite for revolution: a profound ability to let go of yesterday’s stale, tired, and thoroughly toxic orthodoxies - to explode the shrunken, stunted strategic imagination the industrial-era firm suffers from.”

May 20, 2008, 4:37pm