When I grow up...

"When I grow up, I wanna be famous

I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies
When I grow up, I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars, I wanna have groupies

When I grow up, be on TV
People know me, be on magazines..."

When I grow up, I wanna be a Press Officer.

What is a press officer? What he does?

A Press Officer, otherwise called the Press Relations Advisor is the spokesperson for a company with the media (TV, print, radio ... ) to advertise a brand, an event, a personality, a local community .... He therefore plays a vital role in disseminating information to the targeted audiences or through the press.  This profession is mostly feminine (over 75 %). A press officer had to CONVINCE journalists to focus on a particular topic regarding his company and relay the information in their media.

Qualifications

- Strong interpersonal skills
- Writing capabilities
- Diplomacy, curiosity and open-mindedness, creativity.
- Availability, dynamism, ingenuity, patience, courtesy, kindness ...

More concretely...

Missions

Strategic position within a company and its communication policy, the Press officer must perfectly master the products or the company and the target to which the message is addressed.
In direct contact with the Direction, he also works closely with all departments of the company to continuously learn and also to be able to respond to various questions from reporters.
To feed the media information as completely as possible, and especially make them want to distribute it to target interlocutors according to the nature of information, he wrote press releases and press kits, organizing conferences, trips, breakfasts or lunches, evenings…

He has to practice his creativity and adapt each intervention speech to seduce journalists. Daily, he peels the press (TV, radio, newspapers, emails ...) looking for media coverage of his various campaigns. He develops a regular press review in order to disseminate to the head and the staff of the company.
An important part of his work is the creation of a database of journalists he should maintain and develop steadily. It is indeed through carefully maintained relationships that will open many doors. This is with this famous "Address Book" that we recognize seniors and stars in this business.

Type of employer and work environment

A Press Officer can intervene in a company (public or private), an institution , agency or directly with a personality, an artist ... it can also perform its profession on his own as a freelance . He often begins his career as Assistant in a press service then evolve as Press Officer and then to positions of Head of Press Office , Communications Officer , Chief Information Officer or relationships public .

Type of employer and work environment

A Press Officer can intervene in a company (public or private), an institution, agency or directly with a personality, an artist ... it can also perform its profession on his own as a freelance. He often begins his career as Assistant in a press service then evolve as Press Officer and then to positions of Head of Press Office , Communications Officer , Chief Information Officer or relationships public .

Formation

It now requires at least a Bachelor in Information and Communication. But mostly it focuses on graduate schools. Masters level or university or business school are also appreciated.

Remuneration

The salary is 20 to 24 K € annual gross for juniors ( 2-3 years experience) and 36 K € K € 40 for the more experienced . For the "stars" of the business , it can blithely exceed 60 K € .

My personal experience

Last year, for 3 months, I had the opportunity to do an internship with a Press Officer in the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human rights organization. It includes 47 member states, 28 of all which are members of the European Union. The Council of Europe is to protect load in human right, democracy and the rule of law.

Do not confuse the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, even if both located in Strasbourg. The European Parliament concerns the European Union.

The press service of the Council of Europe was composed of 8 press officers.

To be a Press Officer in the Council of Europe, you must have many skills in addition to the traditional skills:

- Perfectly master at least 5 languages.

- Be able to deal with very complex issues: have good knowledge of law.

- Be able to maintain a database of more than 15,000 journalists from 47 countries.

To sum up : Press Officer is one of the less annoying and routine job I know. You never do the same things and always treat new topics.