PRmoment recently hosted an event in partnership with Prospect that compared working at a PR agency with working as part of an in-house PR department.
First up James Gordon-MacIntosh from Hope and Glory told us why he liked working agency side:
1. The thrill of the chase.
If you work agency side you must enjoy pitching. It should be exciting; you need to thrive in that competitive environment and be able to live with that pressure.
2. Massive variety in your work.
Agency side you will most likely be responsible for different accounts with varied work that has differing objectives and quite possibly in different markets. This variety must be embraced.
3. Great power and relatively little responsibility.
Agency side you need to come up with big ideas and probably implement those ideas. However, you are unlikely to be responsible for those ideas if they go belly up. (Albeit your agency might lose the business, but you will live to fight another day.)
4. Part of a team.
Most successful agencies have great camaraderie between their teams. This can mean a fun work and enjoyable working environment.
5. Be an expert
It’s fun being an expert. People listen to you, they value your opinion.
Sam Hall from Oracle then discussed how the role of an in-house communicator is different from that of an agency communicator. In-house you need to be both influential and have credibility. Sam also said that it was very important that in-house communicators retained a storytelling outlook otherwise you can become experts in agency management and little else.
Finally, bearing in mind work today, it's vital that communicators embrace change.
The diagram below from our event partner’s, Prospect, neatly sums up the comparison of working in-house versus agency side.
There are both pros and cons to working either agency side and in-house. Perhaps it's likely that to reach your full potential as a communicator you may need to spend some time during your career both in-house and agency side.
PRmoment partnered with Prospect for this event:
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