From newsroom to PR: How journalists can successfully make the switch

In this episode, CNN producer Tiffany Anthony joins host Jason Mudd to discuss one of the most talked-about career pivots in media today — journalists transitioning into public relations and corporate communications.

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here:

Meet our guest:

Our guest is Tiffany Anthony, cross-platform producer at CNN/Warner Brothers Discovery. Tiffany is a communications and storytelling professional with 18+ years of experience crafting clear, high-impact narratives across broadcast, digital, and social platforms. She has led messaging for high-stakes news and major public-facing initiatives, with a focus on audience engagement, clarity, and collaborative leadership. 

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. Why journalists are uniquely positioned to succeed in PR and corporate communications
2. How newsroom experience strengthens media relations, storytelling, and strategic communications
3. How former journalists can position their skills and experience to stand out in today’s PR job market
4. How AI, applicant tracking systems, and evolving hiring practices are changing communications careers
5. Why companies increasingly value journalists who understand newsrooms, audiences, and compelling stories

Listen to the episode here:

Quotables

• “You always have to learn to adapt and evolve.” — Tiffany Anthony
• “Some of the best stories are about people and interesting people. It’s not just about a product.” — Tiffany Anthony
• "People want people's stories. They want to connect emotionally with stories. And I think a lot of companies forget that and lose sight of that." — Tiffany Anthony
• “You have to be willing to say, ‘I’m no longer a journalist. I’m now a corporate storyteller.’” — Jason Mudd
• "If you don't tell them, you won't sell them." — Jason Mudd

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

Resources

Guest’s contact info and resources:

• Tiffany Anthony on LinkedIn
• Tiffany Anthony on Muck Rack
• Tiffany Anthony website
• Public Relations Employment Statistics by BLS.gov
• PRSA Job Board
• Axiacareers.com

Additional Resources:

• 6 ways agency work provides the best work experience
• Top 6 questions public relations students ask us about the PR industry
• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR with Jason Mudd podcast.
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations.

If you like this episode, you're going to love this:

• Transition from journalism to PR with David DeCamp
• Behind the mic with Jason Mudd: An Ask Me Anything special solocast on PR and Axia’s beginning
• Networking without an agenda: The key to career longevity

Recorded: April 23, 2026

About your host Jason Mudd

Jason Mudd is a nationally recognized public relations expert featured by CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, PRWeek, and The Wall Street Journal.

Named North America’s top PR leader by the World Communication Forum, he serves as Partner of Axia Public Relations — recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Jason has advised some of the country’s most admired and fastest-growing companies, leading campaigns for iconic brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, GE, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.

He’s also a professional public speaker, accredited PR practitioner, published author, entrepreneur, and host of On Top of PR with Jason Mudd — a podcast ranked among the top 2.5% globally by Listen Notes and a top 100 marketing podcast on Apple Podcasts. His guests have included leaders from Disney, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, and Wells Fargo. Learn more about Jason at https://www.axiapr.com/team/jason-mudd and jasonmudd.com. 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

00:00:09:00 - 00:00:53:00

Jason

Hello and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today I'm joined by Tiffany Anthony. Tiffany is a friend of mine that I've known for a long time. Our relationship dates back to when she was in journalism working in TV news and I was a public relations professional. Sending her what I hope was good story ideas that she could use for her TV station she worked out at the time. Tiffany is a communications and storytelling professional with 18 years of experience crafting clear, high impact narratives across broadcast, digital and social platforms. She's led messaging for high stakes news and major public facing initiatives with a focus on audience engagement, clarity and collaborative leadership. Tiffany, welcome to On Top of PR.

00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:00

Tiffany

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

00:00:56:00 - 00:02:10:00

Jason

Yes, I'm glad to be here too. I'm glad to get you on the show. I know we've been talking about this for a while. So we kind of have a two-part conversation queued up here. So the first part we want to talk about is my thoughts and yours on how to successfully transition from a successful career in journalism into a pivot into public relations, corporate communications, or perhaps even something else. As Tiffany is currently going through looking for new employment opportunities as of April 23rd, 2026. And of course, at any minute somebody could capture her talent for their organization. But at the end of the day, I think this will be a helpful conversation as people are — we're seeing layoffs in newsrooms and shifting priorities in newsrooms. And we've really been seeing that for about 20 years now. And the important part, I think, is to help our audience find their next opportunity. I'm here to help them do that. And I start out my career in journalism, studied at the Missouri School of Journalism. And while I was there, I got introduced accidentally to PR and kind of pivoted my career into public relations after working for the Fernandina Beach News Leader, the Florida Times Union, Columbia Business Times and some other media outlets. So Tiffany, anything else you want our audience to know about yourself before we get started?

00:02:11:00 - 00:02:36:00

Tiffany

I've worked in local news for a very long time. I worked there for over 12 years. And then I've recently worked at CNN for the past six years, producing content on various topics from medical to the globe, like the Earth, like the weather, climate change, as well as breaking news, mass shootings, international war stories. And now, you know, I'm ready for a change and looking forward to the next step.

00:02:37:00 - 00:03:42:00

Jason

Awesome. Well, we're here to support you in that next step and I'm excited for you and what's to come next. You know, I tell people this all the time that this didn't happen to you. It happened for you because something great is around the corner and I'm excited for you about that. So we're going to talk about journalists transitioning into PR and communications roles. And I'll just start by saying that, Tiffany, I think you're well positioned for this opportunity because so many times companies are looking to make what I call a splash hire where they can say, hey, we just hired this person from CNN to join our PR staff. Isn't that a big win for us? And I do sense that that is a big win. I do think that expectations need to be managed. Right. In other words, you're going to need some help, guidance, coaching and support as you go through that process. And expectations have to be managed that Tiffany shows a bright future and has a lot of potential. She hasn't worked in PR before, so this is going to be an adjustment for her. So we're going to need to surround her with the leadership or supervision or coaching, whether that's internal or external, to help guide her through this process. Tiffany, does that sound like a good setup for you?

00:03:43:00 - 00:04:51:00

Tiffany

Yes, exactly. I've been looking. I mean, I did a little bit of PR, volunteer PR, back when I lived in Jacksonville for the American Cancer Society. And then I remember having a conversation with you about — I was thinking back then, this was over 10 years ago, of shifting into PR. And I just ended up getting other jobs in news and I kept progressing. And so it kind of fell to the wayside. Hindsight 2020, I'm like, man, I should have switched into PR then. But, you know, I wouldn't have had some of the experiences that I've had in the past decade. I did volunteer for the American Cancer Society. I went into their office, I said, we need help getting the message out about making strides against breast cancer. I was calling all these local little newspapers trying to get ads in there, adding it to the calendars, trying to see if these places wanted to help with donations or if vendors wanted to come and set up at the race. So I did that for about 10 months. And then the final day of the race was the last time I volunteered there. I should have done more PR volunteering, but my job always ended up taking up so much of my time.

00:04:52:00 - 00:06:22:00

Jason

Sure. No, it's an intense career for sure. And you know, depending on the outlet and the market that you're in, you feel like — and probably are — on call 24/7. So it can be very intense. But I mean, what you're describing is phenomenal because volunteering is a great way to get a foot in the door, to build a portfolio where it's lower risk for you, lower risk for the employer or the organization. They're not paying you anything and they're just grateful for the opportunity. So when I meet somebody who wants to break into this profession from somewhere else, especially if it's not something as closely tied as journalism is, then that's my first recommendation — find a nonprofit and start helping them, get experience, volunteer, and they're not going to say no unless you're just really bad at it. But at the end of the day, that gives you an opportunity to really build a name for yourself and build your portfolio and get experience. This is the same advice I give to people who graduate with a PR related degree, they end up in a sales role and they're making a lot of money in sales and they want to pivot. And they're like, this was — I took a sales job because I couldn't find a PR job right out of college. I'm making good money, but I really want to do PR. And I'm like, okay, your challenge is you don't have a portfolio and you've got salary expectations that are here and yet your experience is down here with entry level candidates. So you're competing against entry level candidates minus your maturity, minus your tangential experience — how do we get you a quicker portfolio and show you're relevant while you still can maintain your current employment? So good for you for volunteering. I think that's really important.

00:06:23:00 - 00:06:57:00

Tiffany

I have a question about that because I don't really have a PR portfolio because I've been a journalist for 18 years, but I have a portfolio of all the stuff I've done, all these stories I've produced. I have a website. What do PR recruiters look for when journalists — because a lot of job postings say you can have journalism experience when applying to this job. They are looking for journalists. And I don't know how to make my website look PR friendly. What would they be looking for? Because I do stories. I tell stories.

00:06:58:00 - 00:10:12:00

Jason

Yeah. So lots to unpack there. So first of all, I would say be authentic to yourself and obviously represent your experience accurately. However, yes, I mean, you are at a distinct advantage because so many people for the last however many years — you know, when I came up in journalism, if you switched to the dark side of PR, it was a little bit frowned upon. But a lot of people did it. And I would argue that many of those people become very good advisors to the clients or the organization that they work for because they have that newsroom experience. What I'm seeing now, 30-something years later, is I'm seeing people who have no newsroom experience working in PR. PR is more than just earned media and media relations, but it's an important and often highly valued feature of public relations. And so when I see people with zero newsroom experience working in media relations, to be very candid, they're usually not as good as somebody who has significant newsroom experience because they've walked a mile in those shoes. They understand the expectation. They understand what's a good story. They understand the pressure that is on to get clicks and views and viewership and audience share in the marketplace. They also understand — and this is good for agencies — how you have to move and shift priorities in a given day. So you might be working on story A, but then story B is breaking news that's more important. And you're in the live truck closest to the scene and you get completely reverted from a story you might've been working on all day. So priorities shift quickly. In agency world, we find that that's a key component, a key capability that we need in our employees — the ability to pivot quickly, move on to the next priority, and then still be able to circle back and pick up where they left off. Some people just can't multitask in that way and they just get really stressed out and burnt out. I would say highlight — again, the fact that you've got CNN to anchor your career off of, I think is really beneficial for you, especially to get a foot in the door and to have credibility and clout when you're doing interviews. But as far as your portfolio goes, you're transitioning from what I would call a newsroom storyteller or a journalist to a corporate storyteller. And it sounds like you're pursuing kind of both paths simultaneously. You've got this great news experience and resume that any newsroom would love to have you. But you're also saying, well, maybe it's time that I take advantage of my previous and current interest in exploring a job doing corporate storytelling. So at the end of the day, I would double down on your storytelling capabilities. I would also look at the value and experience you bring to an organization and how your experience is going to help them grow their business — either grow sales, grow their visibility to grow sales, or you're going to be able to help them get there faster or cut costs. Every business decision is made on the promise or opportunity to grow and expand or save money. So you just have to figure out how you can help them do that. Maybe today they're outsourcing to some third party for video production. And you could come in and be the writer and the producer of their corporate storytelling that's happening on video. Maybe you could bring that capability in house. There's lots of angles. You'll just have to listen carefully to the job descriptions that are out there and what the company is doing and obviously pivot your skill set to it.

00:10:13:00 - 00:15:15:00

Jason

What I would set up the table for is to say you're in a great position to take on a role where a company is looking for either media relations — understanding how the media works, how to make connections with the media, how to turn a story into being newsworthy for an external newsroom — that many companies and marketing leaders just struggle to figure out how to do. Secondly, you could also be the internal storyteller where you're telling stories to the internal audiences at the organization. So in a big enough company, maybe they've got hundreds or thousands of employees — you become the newsroom for that organization, helping to produce content that's going out to employees to keep internal communication going. And then in addition, you could become the overall media department for an organization, overseeing the production of videos. What I think is the challenge you might face is you've got to set expectations because I've seen companies make what I called earlier a splash hire where they hire somebody to come in as the chief communications officer or VP of public relations. That person hasn't worked really in public relations in a meaningful way yet, so they're not yet ready to be that trusted advisor to leadership. They're not yet ready to write the strategic plans. Now obviously if you get that opportunity, don't turn it down — but make sure you position yourself as: I'm going to need some assistance to make this transition so that it's in the best interest of the organization. The other thing I found, Tiffany, is that sometimes people struggle leaving a newsroom where they're more operating — and you won't have this experience, I want to say that, because you've been in newsroom management and leadership before. But what happens is sometimes people get into PR and they haven't taken off that journalism hat yet and they're not yet ready to advocate on behalf of an organization. They just want to tell a story. And so that's something the individual has to consider: am I a storyteller, or am I an advisor, or am I both? And when I'm at that crossroads — the company wants me to tell story A, but I don't think it's very newsworthy — am I willing to guide the employer and the leader into a direction of what would be newsworthy or what might be interesting? Years ago, I was interviewing a candidate, right about the point of offering him the job. He was working in news and he said, hey, I'd like to know the clients that I'd be working with. So I sent him over a short list and he started pushing back, saying, I don't want to work on that account. I don't have any interest in what they do. And this other account — I don't believe that product can do what they say it can do. But I like this account. And I said, the job is all three accounts. If you get in a situation where there's a conflict, we can always move things around. But I can't bring you on just to work on one account. So this would not be a good fit. What I saw in that individual was: I'm only going to tell stories for companies that I fully believe in. That's a good place to be, but you're going to be asked to do assignments you're not as excited about — just like in a newsroom. The person has to be willing to say, I'm no longer a journalist. I'm now a corporate storyteller, a public relations advisor. And so you take that experience, you take that little bit of cynical jadedness, and you think like a newsroom would think and you prepare the client the way a newsroom would think and you improve the communication and the pitch so it stands out in the right way. But you have to embrace the idea that you're now an advocate for the organization. And if you're going to have a high standard of what you will and will not work with, then I might suggest: don't go agency, go nonprofit or go corporate. You'll have one employer you're representing full time that you believe in. But I think we also know that not every company is perfect. Every company has warts and challenges and crisis and areas it needs to improve upon. So be prepared for that. Tiffany, what was your question?

00:15:16:00 - 00:16:33:00

Tiffany

When you were talking, I came up with several. But first, I guess, the market right now is bananas and there's a mass exodus of journalists leaving companies all over the world. I was reading in an article yesterday that there's now more PR representatives in the UK than there are journalists, which is insane to me — thousands and thousands of newsrooms are either closing or cutting their staff because of technology and mergers and acquisitions. And so when I'm looking at jobs, and I believe I would be a great fit, I don't know how to stand out compared to all the other journalists that are applying to the same job. It seems overwhelming and daunting. It's like, I have all these great skills. I might not have ever used Meltwater or one of those websites they're talking about, but I know I would be a quick learner because I learn new technology every day in the newsroom. They change things constantly. But I write these cover letters addressing their slogans from their websites, I make sure I have keywords in my resume, and I feel like I'm not getting any traction. I don't know if it's just the market is oversaturated.

00:16:34:00 - 00:20:45:00

Jason

Well, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news first: years ago, I saw a report that for every journalist, there's six PR people in the United States. And my hunch is the number is probably eight now, just based on what I'm seeing in the marketplace. We can fact check that by going to BLS.gov — they list out public relations and journalism jobs, and that's where that statistic ultimately came from, at least two or three years ago. It was six to one as I recall. So I think it's probably eight to one now. That's the bad news. The good news is not all those PR people are doing media relations. I would challenge the BLS to ask: are all those PR people doing media relations? A lot of people just hear the word public relations and they automatically assume it means one of two things — media relations or crisis communications. And oftentimes it's both, but there's so much more to PR. Like we talked about earlier, corporate storytelling, managing social media, creating content for a website. Being a corporate journalist — I think that sounds like a great gig. But to that end, demand for PR employment is forecasted to be very high in the near future. One of the big reasons for that is because generative engines are using and citing journalistic content and PR type content when they mention, recommend, or cite companies. People are starting to use generative AI in their daily lives. They're using it instead of search engines. They're using it instead of asking friends and family for referrals. Instead of going to Yelp or other review websites, they're just going to ChatGPT, Gemini, or others, and getting a generative AI answer. Well, generative AI is prioritizing journalistic content, analyst content, input from experts and credible sources. Just like domain authority matters when you're getting a backlink in search, domain authority matters when you're citing a news story. CNN.com probably has a domain authority of 97 to 99, and that's going to be a significant media outlet to cite for your brand. So having someone on your team who has the ability to go get media coverage from CNN about your company, your products, your services, your experts, and your insights will be extremely valuable for the long term. I think it was Gartner that just released research showing it expects high demand for the next five years for public relations jobs and employment. And we're seeing that at Axia today. We just finished our best quarter in company history. So in 25 years, we haven't had this good of a quarter. Now, some of that's a perfect storm of new clients signing and things like that. But I think PR has a very bright future. Now is a good time to pivot into it. Demand for jobs will continue to increase. And so I would say your ability to understand this research that's being conducted about AI citations coming from journalism will be extremely helpful. Tiffany, I was on a plane recently and sitting next to me was a journalist at a top tier media outlet that we would all know. And I noticed how much he was going to Reddit for his sourcing, for his story angles, for doing research on the topic he was writing on. In fact, I don't think I saw him doing any writing at all. He was taking notes on what he was seeing on Reddit for inspiration, for the angles and questions and background for the interview he was preparing for. I bring that up to ask you — were you using Reddit? Did you have your reporters assigned to use Reddit as a source, at least for background?

00:20:39:00 - 00:21:31:00

Tiffany

I've used Reddit not necessarily for a story. I've used it for personal opinions on things. If I have questions to see how people are reacting to something, I'll go to Reddit. But at CNN, I didn't personally use Reddit when writing scripts. I can't speak for all the reporters. I used more credible sourcing. At CNN, we were very particular — if it was especially a sensitive topic, we would have to go through legal, fact-checking standards, to make sure we're not going to put anything out there that's false or could get us into trouble. So I at CNN did not use Reddit as a source per se. I would sometimes use it to see what people were talking about.

00:21:32:00 - 00:21:34:00

Jason

That's what he was using it for, to be clear. He was looking for what topics people are talking about, asking about, wanting to know that he could then go get the answers for.

00:21:35:00 - 00:22:26:00

Tiffany

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great source to see how people are discussing things with each other. And I think people are pretty real on it in a lot of ways. Mean, granted, there's a lot of bad things also on it. I think social media is a great way to see how people are reacting to things because a lot of people will say things on social media they won't say in person. So you can kind of get more of their true self sometimes on social media. I will only use social media in stories if it was a public figure usually. Like our president, for example — he likes to write a lot on social media. And so when I was producing stories, we would pull exactly what he said so it wouldn't be misinterpreted. This is what he said. This is his 140 characters.

00:22:27:00 - 00:22:29:00

Jason

It could be confusing still regardless, but yes. Alright. What next question do you have for me, Tiffany?

00:22:30:00 - 00:23:55:00

Tiffany

I guess I'm seeing — we were talking about splash hires — I've been reading a lot of job postings the past several weeks. And some of these corporate jobs, they want one person to do like everything. Like they want them to write, produce, shoot, edit, public relations, internal communications, external communications, media relations. And I'm like, do they really expect one person to be able to achieve all of that successfully? And it's not that I'm afraid of it — like some of these jobs I would gladly take. I just don't know if that's a new trend because of cost saving or what exactly they're expecting.

00:23:56:00 - 00:26:04:00

Jason

I would say I don't think it's new in any way. I don't think it's a trend. I do think it's a misunderstanding — and you've been in newsrooms long enough where reporters are sent out and expected to be the camera person and the journalist and handle sound and audio and all that stuff, produce their own social media content, do their own online version of the same story. There's some of that already happening in newsrooms. Where I see this happening really poorly or to the detriment is social media. So they're looking to hire a social media employee who's going to be able to do it all — create graphics, edit video, be a storyteller, be engaging with audiences — and at the end of the day that's not one person, that's a department. So it's not unusual for an organization, a newsroom, or corporation to hire one person and expect them to be a jack of many trades. And that's just unfortunate. So again, you as the candidate will have to set some sort of form of expectations: I can do 80% of this really well, I can do this piece excellent, but here are the resources I would need to meet your expectations. That's just the reality check, unfortunately. But I think social media is the victim of this more so than anything. And at the end of the day, when I talk to companies about the benefit of hiring a PR firm, you get a team who can represent and bring experts — a bench of experts — to the table as needed on an ongoing or short-term basis. Research shows the bigger the internal PR department is, the more likely they are to hire multiple external agencies to support them. And you would think it'd be the other way around. So good for you for being aware of that and noticing it right away. Tiffany, another example might be that a company might be looking for someone with your experience and the question becomes: is that person primarily on-camera talent, are they writing the stories, or are they doing the video production? Those are three different roles clearly, and somebody who's good on camera might also be a good writer but they may not necessarily be a good video editor. You just have to work with the resources that they're giving you.

00:26:05:00 - 00:26:32:00

Tiffany

Yes. I have a question. Do PR corporations or corporate communications departments, do they care about certificates? Like I'm starting to take classes online about PR, about media relations, where I'm going to try to get a certificate. Does that really matter when applying to jobs or are they just going to look more at your personal experience?

00:26:33:00 - 00:29:08:00

Jason

I think it's great that you're investing in yourself and getting the certifications and accreditations that you can pursue. I think that's fabulous. To me, I would highlight that during your interview and on your resume showing that while I've got decades of experience in newsrooms, I've also been a self-starter, taking the initiative to learn and earn certain certifications or training. I think that's valuable. That's something I look for. One of our fifth core values is improvement. We want to see our team getting 1% better every day. We encourage our team on a quarterly basis to be enrolling in a class, going to a workshop, getting a certification of some sort. So I think by you taking the initiative, that's great. It's going to help you speak better when you're doing an interview. It's going to help you be better prepared for that job. But I always tell people: if you don't tell them, you won't sell them. So you've got to highlight that yourself and point that out and build a story around it — tell them, while I haven't worked in PR, I've been pursuing these additional certifications and learning opportunities. And by the way, you mentioned Muckrack and Meltwater and things like that — these contact database platforms are easy to learn. Like you said, anybody can learn them. It doesn't take much experience. Probably nine times out of ten, the person hiring you doesn't know how to use them themselves. But you've used tools like that in a newsroom environment. You know the Associated Press has a platform where you can look up experts for sources for stories you're working on. It's just the opposite of that. And I guarantee you have an entry in Muckrack right now that you could log into and edit. Basically that same profile of you as a journalist inside Muckrack is the same record you would be looking up for other journalists. You could claim your profile on muckrack.com and then go in and make edits. And those same edits — your Muckrack profile — will be the same content you'll be pulling media lists from when looking to see what a particular journalist covers.

00:29:03:00 - 00:29:10:00

Tiffany

Well, that's good to know. Yeah, I definitely have a page and I've looked at it and I'm like, that's like a quarter of what I've done because I've done like 800 plus stories at CNN. We don't always get a byline as a producer. A lot of it's not connected back to me — it's usually the reporter or the anchor that gets the credit, which I'm fine with. But yeah, it's good to know that I can log in and edit that.

00:29:09:00 - 00:31:12:00

Jason

Yeah. And I was recently meeting with a large national organization that wants to hire us to be their PR firm. And in that meeting, they introduced us to a media relations manager who had a very strong public relations background. And I commented that this individual is going to be an incredible resource to the company — to help them vet their story ideas based on his decade of TV news reporting experience. And I think that's a very valuable skill set that corporations would highly value having in house — not only with the media relations element, but also helping them tell better stories using their internal media channels. I don't know who said this first, but I've heard a lot of people say, and I've used it myself: in 2026, every company is a media company — whether they want to be or not. You've got to be producing your own content, whether that's for an internal audience of employees and shareholders and board members and investors, or for external audiences like the media, the public, the community, the industry, your professional colleagues, your customers, and the marketplace in general. So if you're not a media company, then you're really missing out. And in order to be a media company, you have to have content creators employed or engaged. You have to have the capabilities of producing video and other content internally. So you're going to be well positioned for those exact jobs. And if you don't get the one you're applying for this week, there's going to be another one next week. The opportunities are always going to be there. It's how you position yourself as a candidate the right way. And also whether or not it's a good culture fit. We've turned away business opportunities because we just didn't feel like our cultures were well aligned.

00:31:13:00 - 00:31:43:00

Tiffany

Do you have particular websites for me, as well as other people going through this journey, that PR companies advertise positions on — besides LinkedIn — that are reliable, a good source? Because for example, on LinkedIn I will see a communications position posted and then I'll go to the analytics and it's like 2,000 people have applied to this. And it's like, whoa, you know. That's very overwhelming and I didn't know if there were other websites that PR companies regularly use to find talent.

00:31:44:00 - 00:37:13:00

Jason

Yeah. Well, welcome to my world because that's the case — when we advertise a job, everybody and their brother is applying. And I do think that public relations has an identity crisis in itself, which just baffles me every day. So we get a lot of people who work in customer service applying for a PR job saying, I'm really good with people. We have receptionists applying for PR jobs saying, I'm really good with people. And I get it and I appreciate that, but we're looking for strategic communicators and experts. So I would say when we post a job, we typically post it to LinkedIn and very quickly get overwhelmed by candidates. We try to make it very clear where they have to check a box: yes, I have this many years of related experience. And people will still check it and you go look and they just don't have the experience that they certified they did have. We posted our last couple of openings on — well, first of all, we always post them first on our website, axiacareers.com. That's where we always post every job because from there is how you get entered into the applicant tracking system. And then if we want to go beyond that, I love word of mouth. I love sending an email to Tiffany saying, Tiffany, we're hiring for X — if you know anybody, please send them to axiacareers.com. That's also kind of a passive way for me to let Tiffany know that we've got this opening and maybe she's interested. The Public Relations Society of America has a website where we've posted jobs before. Our best candidates for one of our most recent positions all came through LinkedIn, but so did our worst candidates. The PRSA ones were lower volume, maybe slightly higher quality, but I don't think there was anybody who applied there that made our finalist list. I think it's a little bit crazy what's out there. And I think people underestimate the difficulty it is to manage — like you said — hundreds or thousands of candidates applying, all within 24 hours. The reality is, when you apply for a job, the first stage is to weed out 80% of the candidates as quickly as possible. And then the next step is: how do we narrow this down to three or five top candidates that we want to interview first? I would rather be in the running for a job with three to five candidates than one of 50 that they're interviewing, wasting my time because they couldn't make a decision. Now, we narrowed down our most recent leadership position to about 15 to 20 candidates, then did virtual interviews — fill out this one-page questionnaire — and from that we were able to determine who continued. We want to keep it light and move quick. We don't want to waste people's time. Applicant tracking systems have been around for 20-something years. They're getting better, smarter, and more AI-driven. What you have to do is every time you apply for a position, optimize your resume and your application for the keyword phrases they're using in the job description so that there's a good match based on what a bot sees. So you want to literally copy and paste a lot of the language and put it into your cover letter, put it into your application, put it into your resume. For every job you apply for, you have to customize your resume and your cover letter. But here's my hiring hack: I'd rather see your LinkedIn profile than your resume. Because I trust a little bit more about your LinkedIn profile — at least it's public, and your coworkers could push back on anything inaccurate. The format is also consistent, so I know what I'm going to see when I go to a LinkedIn profile. I can scan it quickly and make a quick decision as to whether or not I want to continue the conversation. And if you're not using generative AI to help you tighten up your resume, I think you're missing a great opportunity. One of the things I've told people throughout my career is: for every bullet point on your resume, make it measurable. Don't just say I managed the department — say I managed a department of five, ten, fifty people. Don't just say I increased sales or media impressions — tell me by what percentage. Establish the baseline and show how you improved it. When I look at journalists' resumes, they say I wrote stories daily or weekly. How many? What was your timeline? What was your topic? Try to make everything measurable so you can show the company how you're going to help them make money or save money and how you're going to have an impact on the organization.

00:37:14:00 - 00:38:01:00

Tiffany

You mentioned earlier that when people are applying, easy apply will ask how many years you have in public relations, how many years you have in media relations. I feel stuck sometimes on those questions because the job that I do working in newsrooms — I do media relations. I do some public relations. So it's like, technically yes, I've never worked for a PR firm, but I'm doing a lot of this skill set in my current job. And I don't know how many years to put. Because I can put 18 for media relations because I have been in journalism for 18 years. Would they look at my resume and go, nah — or would they understand what I mean?

00:38:02:00 - 00:41:16:00

Jason

I like the way you're positioning it. So if the question is specifically how many years of media relations experience do you have and you've been working in journalism or media for that many years, then that's what I would put down for sure. I'll tell you one thing — it might be a little provocative and contrarian — but before I would apply at an agency, I would find out from that agency, and I would look closely at the job description too: a lot of agencies have a practice where they don't hire people who don't have previous agency experience. So the exception is you have to land there on an entry level role or do an internship there or have worked at an agency somewhere else. I'd hate for you and others to waste their time applying for a job if an agency won't even consider you because you haven't worked in an agency. The reason agencies feel this way is they've seen how difficult it is for people who have worked for one employer to make the pivot of working for multiple clients at one time. There's just something about the DNA there that it's hard for some people to make that adjustment. Some people just don't like it at all, period, and that's fair. But I would tell you: yes, you have the years of experience in media relations — probably more valuable having been in the trenches of a newsroom as opposed to trying to do it from afar. If I were to put you head to head against someone — let's just say both candidates have 20 years. The person who's been doing media relations for 20 years has been out of a newsroom in theory for 20 years. And has the newsroom changed since the day you first entered it?

00:39:35:00 - 00:40:08:00

Tiffany

Dramatically. Like every year in the business, I feel like my job description changes. I started out when we were doing tape to tape, you know, and now we're using AI in some forms. It's like you always have to learn to adapt and evolve in the newsroom. I would say I get a lot of PR pitches and a lot of them aren't great.

00:40:09:00 - 00:40:55:00

Jason

They're terrible. Yeah. There are two things wrong with them always. It's either sent to you and you're not the right person, or two, it's sent in a way that's like — what's the story here? I don't see the story, or this wouldn't interest my audience. And that comes down to that.

00:40:28:00 - 00:41:07:00

Tiffany

Well, it's also I feel like it's some PR agencies or PR people not doing their homework. Like when I was at CNN, I wasn't a booker. There are particular people at CNN that book all the segments and interviews — they're the bookers. And I'm like, yes, I could pitch this maybe to CNN Digital. Like, National Geographic would send some amazing video and I did some of their stuff for digital. But they would send the video already with all the information, and I could call and interview the scientist that did the research for the piece, but it wasn't like I had to put it all together from scratch.

00:41:08:00 - 00:41:15:00

Jason

Yeah. The best media pitches are ones that are stories that are already done for you. So if I can...

00:41:13:00 - 00:41:22:00

Tiffany

I mean, it's a quick way to make sure your stuff gets on. If you send great video to a news organization, it's going to pique their interest.

00:41:23:00 - 00:45:28:00

Jason

Well, Tiffany, we're running out of time for this episode, but as we talked about, you're committed to coming back and doing another episode with us where you can share more of your thoughts and insights and expertise as a journalist who is also an employment candidate who will help our audience understand how to better pitch newsrooms like CNN. I just want to finish by going back to what I was saying about the two candidates lined up together both with 20 years of experience. You're going to have fresh media connections and contacts, fresh understanding of what's happening in the newsroom. The other candidate's going to bring more years of advising the corporation, understanding how to navigate the corporation into being confident, willing, and able to turn that into a news story. In a newsroom, you're working homogeneously with a group of people who all understand what makes good news stories. When you're working corporate side, most people have no clue — including some people that work in PR, including the PR agency they've hired. So the challenge is you've got to guide and lead and help those people adapt their line of thinking. Like — we have Hawaiian shirt pizza Friday every week, why would the media not want to come and cover that? Or we're adding another 2,000 square feet to our lease in the building, why wouldn't this be newsworthy? Or the CEO's daughter might win the state championship for baton tossing — and these are all real stories where clients are telling me how newsworthy this is. Or we gave away a bedroom remodel for this deserving family and why isn't this going to be on Good Morning America? And I'm like, because it's not about you doing the remodel, it's about the person receiving the remodel and how interesting their story is. And by the way, they may just tell their story and not even mention your company at all. And you have to be okay with that. These are things that no one is telling them or no one is willing to speak up and tell them. And in order to be a trusted expert advisor, you've got to be there with the good news, the bad news, and the solution. So as I mentioned earlier, every company has a story to tell. Every company has something interesting going on within it. You need someone who's willing to hit the streets or walk the halls to find that story and then pivot that story from what the company thinks is newsworthy into what the audience of the media outlet thinks is interesting. So Tiffany, let's come back and talk more about this.

00:45:29:00 - 00:45:57:00

Tiffany

Yeah, definitely. And to end on that, I think a lot of companies need to realize that some of the best stories are about people — interesting people. And it's not just about a product. People want people's stories. They want to connect emotionally with stories. And I think a lot of companies forget that and lose sight of that.

00:45:58:00 - 00:46:49:00

Jason

100%. They forget that or they don't want to deal with that because they don't see where that is going to help them sell something instantly, or that's going to create a vulnerability or exposure to a person within their organization that they may not want in front of cameras or doing interviews. There's a lot of reasons why they don't do it. But you're exactly right. If you think of a movie you went to see about a company — like the Steve Jobs movie, the Facebook movie — none of them are about the company. They're about the characters and people within the company that made it all work. And so if we went to see a movie about a company and their corporate tax filings, their articles of incorporation, their leases and their contracts, we'd fall asleep immediately and not be interested. So that's what I tell our clients all the time: you have to think of it like it's a movie or a TV show. What's going to get someone interested and what's going to get them to stick with it? And it's not just the company did this or the company did that — it was how the founder, the engineer, persevered despite the difficulty to make something great.

00:46:47:00 - 00:46:49:00

Tiffany

Yes, I agree.

00:46:49:00 - 00:47:09:00

Jason

All right. So this is part one of two. We'll get part two scheduled and live in the near term. Tiffany, this was great. Thank you. And hopefully you learned something and it was helpful to you and our audience as well. And speaking of our audience, I want to say thank you for tuning in to On Top of PR. It's my goal to help you stay on top of PR. If you found this episode beneficial and helpful, please take a moment to share it with a friend or colleague who would benefit from it. And stand by for our next episode with Tiffany where we're going to talk more about her insights working in newsrooms and how that will help you stay on top of PR. Be well.