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Public Relations Manager Job Description

Debopriya Bose
A public relations manager plays an important role in maintaining a positive image of a company. He is the spokesperson of his organization who communicates its policies to the stakeholders and clients. Read on to know the job description of this profile.
Public relations (PR), as the name suggests, is all about managing an organization's reputation with the public in general and clients in particular. Public relations manager is at the helm of managing a company's public image.
They oversee the efforts of their team in maintaining a favorable image of the company in the world of business. With their expertise PR managers can create a strong corporate image for their company, which would get other corporate players, interested in entering into business with it.

Job Profile

Public relations manager plays an important role in communicating the company's policy. He may use all forms of media and communications. He researches, writes press releases and ensures they reach target audience. He helps in preparing publicity brochures, handouts, promotional videos and multimedia programs to convey the company's policies to the public.
A PR manager ensures that effective press releases are written by his team and that they compile comprehensive information about the company, for the media. His team is responsible for maintaining the company's website or the intranet web pages. He is responsible for organizing press conference, exhibitions and press tours.
A public relations manager forms an important bridge between the company, the media, and other organizations. He answers all questions related to the company's strategies.
Besides managing the company's publicity strategies, he asseses the advertising and promotional programs to ensure they are compatible with target audience. A public relations manager may also draft speeches of the company's top executives for public meetings along with supervising his team's efforts in maintaining the company's corporate image and identity.
Besides acting as a mode of communication with the company and the public in general, a PR manager also plays an important role of improving the relation between the management and the employees.
They may work in close coordination with the labor relations manager to prepare in-house newsletter, that would carry important announcements by the management and develop instructional or motivational videos for the workers. They are responsible for arranging interviews too.
The PR manager assigns certain tasks to his staff. He, then, supervises and reviews the activities of his staff. He needs to evaluate whether the activities are useful in maintaining working relationships with both stakeholders and clients. Many times, he has to deal with both government officials and media representatives.
He has to manage communications budget as well. He arranges parties to introduce new products. He takes care of arrangements at special events like sponsorship of races, sports tournaments, etc. Thus, the PR manager is responsible for the direct and indirect advertising, that helps the firm to gain public attention.

Skills Required

A public relations manager is usually chosen from the team of public relation officers that work to maintain public image of the company. Since their duties are of great responsibility, an individual has to show a good understanding of the company's objectives and pro-activeness in generating new ideas, for effective communication of those objectives.
He should show strong leadership qualities and the ability to successfully complete projects. He must have good managerial and communications skills. He should be a good listener and observer. He has to keep up with social, economic and political trends that might promote, boost or affect the company.
He should also understand how the media works. Maintaining a positive image of an organization can be tricky, at times. In order to be able to bail one's company out of a situation of crisis, a PR manager should be able to think out of the box and react quickly.
In the domain of public relations, an individual generally starts his career as a trainee. Through years of experience and on-the-job training, one might qualify to this post. However, this gradual promotion takes years to come by.

Job Openings

Given the numerous openings that public relations officers have in private, as well as government organizations, career prospects of public relations managers are very good. There are independent public relations agencies that provide their services to individual organizations.
Even universities, colleges and hospitals require PR officers for communicating their strategies and plans to the public. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for PR managers is increasing and will continue to increase, each year. PR managers earn well and they have great opportunities in almost all types of industries.

Pay Scale

The salary of a public relations manager may range between $40,010 - $100,493 per year. Depending upon experience, the location, size and the type of organization, he/she may earn as much as $208,000 per year. Salary negotiation skills play an important role at job interviews.
The duties of a public relations manager may vary according to the type and size of the industry. Because of the important role they have to perform, they are often the prime candidates for top executive positions in a company. If one makes the right start, then with focus and hard work, one can easily make his way to this extremely lucrative position.