Who is the ‘right’ person for PR?
We’re not all the same…
Loud, extroverted and (sometimes) party-loving: these are just some of the stereotypes associated with PRs. Unsurprisingly, these are terms uttered only by those outside of the industry, and, generally speaking, these are far from the truth.
There’s no doubt that in a client-facing and media-facing role, those core inter-personal skills are vital, but when you dive a little deeper, you find that typical PR characteristics vary hugely. According to leading industry title, PR week, the traits of a high-performance PR professional are “articulate, creative, proactive and flexible”. It’s qualities like these that can lie in a wide range of personalities, so it’s something certainly worth investigating.
Only when you first start working in PR do you realise that it’s not a certain ‘type’ that end up in this particular job. I became acutely aware of this when joining Little Red Rooster, when understanding how the company assesses personality types of everyone at the agency to determine how best to work with each other. This is done through answering a series of quick-fire questions about yourself and how you interact with others, with the results displayed on a colour wheel.
The LRR Personality
As you can see, LRR mainly falls in the bottom half with the majority populating the left side of the wheel. Interestingly enough, the left side represents the more introverted side of the scale with the green area specifically identifying those who are quieter, diplomatic and often think first before speaking. Blue represents those who are detail-focused, pragmatic and critical.
Over on the extroverted right-hand-side, another popular section is the yellow quarter, which includes those who are personal, positive and more expressive while the red area is for those who are more direct, spontaneous and competitive. Only 40% at LRR find themselves in this area; consider that party-loving PR stereotype wholly debunked!
This isn’t only useful to have a clearer idea of how you sit compared to your peers, but also to figure out how to work effectively with individuals and the wider team. Clearly, it can’t be a one size fits all approach when you have such a variety of attitudes, thought processes, emotions and approaches. This graph is freely available for anyone at LRR if they need reminding of where people sit however, personally, this is something that has stuck in my head ever since it was produced.
Why is this important?
Obviously, it’s important to us, but I wanted to share this for those who might be considering a career in PR – potentially at the coop – but aren’t quite sure if they’re a good fit for the job or environment. In truth, hard work and bringing your own personality to the role are key to thriving in this industry – so it feels even sweeter when you get the chance to go to Texas with iconic brands.
If you’re considering a career in PR, do get in touch at everyone@littleredpr.co.uk as we always have roles available at internship and graduate level.
