10 unconventional ways to find a PR job

Finding employment is a bit like money—it takes employment to find employment.

There’s a theory in PR employment that I’ve observed on both sides of the table as both a job-seeker and a hiring manger: The good PR people already have jobs. To find talent, employers have to poach from existing employers.

With unemployment hovering at just below 8 percent, overcoming this notion is yet another challenge. But wait, there’s more: the deluge of résumés. Hiring managers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of applicants. If an application gets a look, it’s only cursory with the reviewer specifically looking for an excuse to toss a résumé into the recycle bin.

As PR pros, we have skill set we can put to work on our own behalf: To break through the clutter, we have to run a marketing campaign on ourselves. Recently, I was looking for work, and while I have found gainful employment in a relatively short period of time, I’ve learned quite a bit along the way.

I wish I could say this was a well thought out plan, but it wasn’t, it was an evolution—trial and error—and so this list is sequential:

1. Contact everyone you know.