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Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 251– 253

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

esearch in brief

ttitudes and perceptions of public relations professionals towardsraduating students’ skills

anny Paskin ∗

epartment of Journalism & Mass Communication, California State University, Long Beach, USA

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 2 July 2012eceived in revised form 6 December 2012ccepted 23 January 2013

eywords:nternetacebookwitterortfolioechnologicalocial mediaillenialsajors

a b s t r a c t

The study asks whether universities should educate public relations students with a focusmore on traditional skills or new technical skills. Results of a survey of 113 public relationsprofessionals show that, while new technical skills are seen as increasingly important, pro-fessionals still value traditional skills more. Within the new technical skills, professionalsemphasized the latest trends.

© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

. Introduction

The education of public relations students is at a crossroads. On the one hand, public relations students have historicallyeen trained in the traditional yet crucial skills of writing, researching, strategic planning, among many others. On the otherand, the growing importance of new technologies used in the field of public relations has made new online tools – socialedia, microblogging, blogs and others – essential for the profession, and not fads without lasting value (Evans, Twomey,

Talan, 2011) or professionalism (Philips, 2001). But what should universities, then, focus when educating future publicelations professionals?

Graduating Millenials may see the web as a natural part of their lives, but recent studies have confirmed they still needhe training of how to use the Internet. Professional knowledge of online tools is now a requirement for public relationsrofessionals in the job, from posting press release online to helping organizations get up-to-speed on their use of Facebook,hich now has more than 800 million users – many accessing through mobile media – or Twitter, which averaged 250illion posts a day by October 2011, up from 100 million just 9 months earlier. Meanwhile, top companies are still catching

p, with most public relations practitioners in Fortune 50 companies admitting not using Facebook as much as possiblerofessionally; with less than half of Fortune 500 companies considering themselves good at social media; and with only

9% of Fortune 2000 companies using social media sites (McCorkindale, 2010).

While previous studies have ranked the importance of different topics in public relations higher education (DiStaso,tacks, & Botan, 2009; Wright & Hinson, 2010) this study discusses the specific skills expected of graduating students.

∗ Correspondence address: 1250 Bellflower Blvd., SSPA-025, Long Beach, CA - 90840 Tel.: +1 562 985 2602; fax: +1 562 985 5300.E-mail addresses: Danny.Paskin@csulb.edu, dpaskin@gmail.com

363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.01.003

252 D. Paskin / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 251– 253

2. Material and methods

A survey including 18 open and close-ended questions was posted online using SurveyMonkey. An e-mail with an invita-tion to participate in the survey was sent in January 2012 to 992 public relations professionals, and data was collected for 10straight days. Respondents’ e-mail addresses were gathered from membership directories of public relations organizationsmade publicly available online. The IRB of the author’s university approved all material involved. Ultimately, 113 usableresponses were collected.

All respondents were in the U.S. Most worked at an agency or were consultants (24.5%), or came from corporations (also24.5%). Most (42.2%) were industry veterans, having 16 or more years in practice, and 45.5% were either directly involved inthe hiring process at their companies. The majority was female (74.3%), and white (93.3%), non-Hispanic/non-Latino (92.5%),with at least a bachelor’s degree (96.2%).

3. Results

When asked in an open-ended question to list the three most important skills a graduating public relations student shouldhave, respondents overwhelmingly chose “good writing” (85.8% of all 113 respondents), followed by “good communicationskills” (32.7%). “Social Media” was one of the few new technical skills mentioned, placing third in the list (21%). Respondentsfurther confirmed the emphasis on traditional skills when asked to choose up to five skills from a list of possible answers.Of all 23 possible answers, 12 were traditional skills, and 11 were new technical skills. Respondents placed all 12 of thetraditional skill within the top 13 choices of respondents, with nine of the top 10 skills being traditional skills. Writing skillsplaced first (86.7% of all respondents), followed by strategic thinking (56.6%) and good communication skills (52.2%). Socialmedia was the only new technical skill in the top 13 choices, placing seventh (31.9%). Furthermore, when asked to directlycompare the overall importance of new technical skills to the overall importance of traditional public relations skills, 53.7%of respondents stated that the two were just as important nowadays, and 44.8% stated that new technical skills were notas important as traditional skills. Only 5.6% saw new technical skills in public relations as more important than traditionalskills.

92.7% of respondents, however, did either strongly agreeing or somewhat agree that it was very important for publicrelations college students to learn those new skills. A vast majority of respondents (94.6%) also either strongly agreed orsomewhat agreed that the importance of technology in the field of public relations will keep increasing in the years to come.But students do have time to learn, as 61.8% of respondents surveyed stated that companies have higher expectations ofnew hires than of interns.

Looking specifically into new technical skills, when asked in an open-ended question to list three key computer soft-ware students should learn, respondents chose mostly traditional computer programs, including Office (chosen by 63.4%of all 113 respondents), followed by the Creative Suite package (62.4%). Many respondents highlighted, however, that theyexpect students to know more than just the basics of those programs. The influence of new technologies on the publicrelations profession, however, is definitely apparent from the list: content management system (CMS) software placed third(17.8%), followed by proper use of social media site tools (placing posts, videos and links on Facebook, mentioned by 9.9%of respondents); video editing (9.9%); and HTML (7.9%). When asked to rank only the top technical skills a public rela-tions student should have before graduation, 77% of all respondents listed social media, followed by microblogging (42.5%),blogging/blogger relations (40.6%), and Search Engine Optimization (36.8%).

Having an online presence is also important for students, with 67.9% of respondents either somewhat agreeing or stronglyagreeing that students should have an online portfolio, with 71.5% of respondents stating that online portfolios are either asmore important or as important as print portfolios nowadays.

4. Discussion and conclusions

It is not that surprising that professionals surveyed highlighted traditional skills such as writing, communication andstrategic thinking over more novel skills, since these new skills depend on mastery of the basics. In essence, the results canbe interpreted as showing that public relations professionals surveyed still expect, above anything, that graduating studentsreceive a solid education of the basics skills before moving on to newer technical skills.

However, the core computer programs named by respondents – Office and Creative Suite – are many times taught notin public relations programs, but in generic university classes. That is a problem, as professionals expressed the expectationthat students be able to apply these programs with a directed public relations purpose, having the advanced skills to do soproperly.

New technical skills, nonetheless, should not be abandoned as part of the curriculum. Survey respondents clearly acknowl-edged that the importance of professional use of new technologies in the field will continuously grow in the years to come,especially those online. But how to combine these expectations in a proper educational timeframe?

Rather than divide those skills into many different classes, public relations programs should consider the concept of“convergence”: offer classes that focus on the basics while introducing students to the new. Teach students writing, researchand planning by using Facebook and Twitter; explain newsletters through graphic design and Photoshop; explain crisismanagement while publishing a blog, seen as “clearly the biggest challenge facing public relations” (Public Relations Society

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D. Paskin / Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 251– 253 253

f America, 2007, p. 11) in the near future. That way, universities would encourage students to become even more familiarith the Internet, the newer medium respondents showed is already of great importance, while reinforcing the basic skillsighlighted in this study’s survey.

As results showed, educators in the field have to continue adopting and adapting to new trends while at the same timelways keeping the basics of public relations in their minds. Professionals expect educators to be on top of these technologicalhanges and show students how to use them properly in the field of public relations. Public relations professors teachingechnology should have a solid foundation of public relations theory, while those focusing on theory should include, asxplained, practical applications of those theories involving new technologies. Professors and departments must continuallypdate their classes and curricula, keeping up with professional expectations and graduating competitive and knowledgeabletudents that are up-to-speed with the innovations in their profession, while continuing to maintain focus on the traditionalundamental skills.

eferences1

iStaso, M. W., Stacks, D. W., & Botan, C. H. (2009). State of public relations education in the United States: 2006 report on national survey of executivesand academics. Public Relations Review, 254–269.

vans, A., Twomey, J., & Talan, S. (2011). Twitter as a public relations tool. Public Relations Journal, 5(1), 1–20.cCorkindale, T. (2010). Can you see the writing on my wall? A content analysis of Fortune 50s Facebook social networking sites. Public Relations Journal,

4(3).

hilips, D. (2001). On-line public relations. Philadelphia: Kogan Page Business Books.ublic Relations Society of America. (2007). Wired for Change Survey results. Retrieved from http://www.prsa.org/SearchResults/download/2D 0010/0/

Wired for Change A Survey of Public Relations Profright, D. K., & Hinson, M. D. (2010). An analysis of new communications media use in public relations: Results of a five-year trend study. Public Relations

Journal, 4(2).

1 Please note: This is an abbreviated version of a full study by author. The complete study can be requested directly from the author.