What do PR recruiters want to see in PR candidates?

It remains a tough job market. Yes there are positions available but recruiters continue to tell PRmoment.com that the quality of candidates isn’t of a sufficiently high quality. I find this difficult to believe (maybe they are just looking for candidates in the wrong place, hasn’t PRmoment.com just launched its own jobs board?) Plug aside, I speak to a fair few agency MD’s and HR managers (who increasingly seem to be named Talent Managers!) so I thought it might be useful to summarise what they are looking for from a candidate in an interview situation: 1. Show you care This means be passionate in how you come across. Don’t just say you’re passionate in an Andy Murray monotone! Other ways to show you care are to bring along a copy of your CV, arrive on time, dress smartly and demonstrate you understand what their business is about. (No one is expecting you to recall verbatim their web site, but drop in a few factoids and the MD’s name.) 2. Tell them what you would do for them It’s a bit of a cliché but it’s vital to understand your personal brand. Essentially, in an interview recruiters are trying to work out that if they pay you £40K, what return on investment will they get. Therefore, you must demonstrate what it is that you will bring to the organisation. It’s imperative that you show an understanding of what you will be doing all day and demonstrate that you will be good at it. How do you do that? Basically, by living your CV. Know it backwards. Be able to evaluate your successes and demonstrate how your skills will be useful to the organisation. Talk the interviewer through what you have done, why you were good at it and what you bought to the table. 3. Be articulate It’s been talked about a lot but how you present yourself matters. Make sure you look people in the eye, stand up when your interviewers enter the room, a dry, firm handshake. It’s all important stuff. 4. Communication skills If you can’t impress a future employer in an interview, how on earth are you going to communicate with clients and/or journalists? So yes, it goes without saying really, you must be able to string a sentence together.