So last Friday, half a dozen students from Chico State’s journalism program (my alma mater), came to Voce’s Palo Alto office and spent the day observing and discussing agency life.

As part of this visit, I spent some time talking about the web and its impact on the PR industry. It was one of those discussions where unfortunately you just end up having to go a mile wide and an inch deep on things, however, one question shook out of this talk that I thought other students and new grads might find interesting and helpful, I’ll elaborate on it here. The question was pretty simple:

What *new* skills are important to PR?

A great question, one I could chew on for a while here, but if I had to pick three things, I’d say:

Learn Another Language
Seriously, as communicators, if you really want to be successful using your first language, consider learning a second — HTML. It’s a universal language that’s becoming critically important in PR, especially as the reach and influence of the web continues to shape and inform market opinions and perceptions. I think having some basic knowledge of HTML gives you a small leg up when, for example, you’re using a tool, such as a blog in business. It also provides you with a better understanding of how metadata, markup and the like all quietly work together behind the scenes to aid in the discovery and distribution of what you’re ultimately communicating via the web.

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A colleague recently asked for my thoughts on a recent post on Joe Thornley’s blog which asked the question, what education are PR firms looking for in new recruits? As a member of the recruiting team at Voce, we often discuss the most important things we look for in new candidates fresh out of college.

To answer Joe’s question, at Voce we require all candidates to have at least a Bachelor’s degree. It’s nice to have advanced degrees, but we don’t see that as a necessity; in fact, I agree with a commenter on the post that at times being over-educated can be as bad as being under-educated. Ideally, a degree in Public Relations or Journalism exposes students to the type of coursework that best prepares a graduate for a career in PR; however, some schools don’t offer a PR degree. Marketing, Communication and English degrees are alternatives that also supply students with some of the basic knowledge they’ll need to jumpstart their career in the field.

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