PR업계는 누가 뭐래도 여성이 압도적인 업계 성향을 나타냅니다. 극단적인 성의 불균형을 나타내지요. 인하우스나 에이젼시에서 홍보담당 여성들을 만나기는 그리 어렵지 않습니다. 몇몇 터프한 홍보를 하시는 대기업 인하우스에서도 여성분들은 웹 홍보 및 관리 쪽이나 사보쪽에 포진하시고 성비를 유지(?) 하려 애쓰고 계십니다.
무슨 일이든 과하면 안좋다고, 여성인력이 PR쪽에 많은 것이 아마 에이젼시 사주들에게는 별로 발전적으로 보이지 않는 모양입니다. 해롤드 버슨씨도 여성주도의 환경이 PR업계의 성장을 저해할 “수도” 있다는 의견을 조심스레 피력하셨더군요…
이게 웬 성차별적 언사냐 하시는 분들도 계시지만, 이건 현실인 것 같습니다. 어느 산업이나 성비의 균형이 더 나은 성장환경을 조성하는 것으로 보기 때문에 비단 PR업계가 여성때문에..운운하는 것은 맞지 않고, PR업계가 발전하기 힘들게끔 성비 균형이 비정상적이라는 것이 더 정확한 말이 될 것같습니다.
이슈는 여자가 많아서가 아니라, 성비가 불균형적이기 때문이라는 이야기가 되겠지요.
헤드헌터 분들도 이쪽 업계에서 남자를 구하기가 특히 어렵다고들 하십니다. 그렇다고 현재 있는 남자들이 금값(?)을 구가 하느냐? 아니지요. 똑같습니다. 이왕이면 다홍치마라는 회사의 구미라고나 할까요?? 이야말로 남자에 대한 성차별입니다. 여자에게는 물론이고 말입니다…
많이 부려먹어도 이상없는 녀석을 원한다는 뉘앙스 같기 때문이지요..
다른 쪽으로 말이 새는 것 같은데, 오늘 올리는 이 긴글은 우리 업게의 성 불균형에 대한 각계 각층의 시각을 잘 정리해 놓은 기사입니다. 지난 10월인가 시카고에 업계의 태두 3명이 모이셔서 하신 선문답을 풀어 놓은 것들 중의 하나랍니다.
몇몇 여성 홍보인들은 그들이 이젠 “망령”을 부린다고 생각하실 수도 있는데…요즌 미국에서의 업계 이슈중의 하나라고 생각하시고 우리나라의 상황과 다양한 시각들을 견주어 생각해 보았으면 합니다.
내용은 재미있지만 약간 길어서 부담이 되실 것 같습니다.
천천히 읽어보시지요…특히 여성 홍보인들도요….
즐겁게 홍보!!
Executives worry too many females may stunt PR”s growth
“It would be healthier for everyone if PR wasn”t seen as a place where only women work,” says Harold Burson of Burson-Marsteller.
While PR firm CEOs are quick to extol the virtues of their female staffers, there is a growing sentiment that the business has become too feminine. The “three deans” of PR – Harold Burson, Dan Edelman and Al Golin – addressed this issue during PRSA”s National Conference held in Chicago in October.
They said they are worried about the field becoming too identified as a female occupation, and that the industry needs to attract more men.
The trio noted that in some PR sequences 80 percent or more of the students are women and that men are going into law, engineering, management and other fields that have higher pay than PR.
Burson said women make up 65 percent of the staff of Burson-Marsteller, and that even the senior women at the firm “don”t want PR to be a woman”s job.”
PR was once dominated by men, but the number of males in PR continues to dwindle.
“What we”re seeing is that most of the candidates applying for lower level PR jobs are female,” said Burson, “and the women we see are more qualified for the PR jobs than the men that apply.”
This comes as no surprise to most PR pros that rattle off the raw talents necessary to shine in the PR field.
“PR is about good communication, it”s a business where you are always putting people together. It”s easy for women because they are innately good connectors. They share information, are creative as well as nurturing,” said Madeline deVries, CEO of DeVries PR.
Tailor-made for women
PR pros agree the business is a tailor-made profession for women. The need for verbal skills, relationship building, multi-tasking, and the ability to step aside while someone else gets the spotlight are qualities that come naturally to women, they say.
Combine that with the flexible schedule that many PR firms offer today, and you have a profession that fits women like a couture dress.
“PR is a good field for women, and they often break the glass ceiling in this industry,” said Howard Rubenstein, a New York counselor. “I work with women; when they get pregnant I encourage them to care for their kids, work for me from home, and then come back to work.
“Since communication is so easy by phone, fax or email, it”s easy for them to continue working,” he added. Rubenstein is quick to point out that his staff ratio is 60 percent female to 40 percent male, with top positions at his firm held by women.
Russo wants 50/50 split
There is real concern about the field”s lopsided gender slant.
“There should be a 50/50 split between men and women,” said Tony Russo, CEO of Noonan/Russo Communications. “There are things that men bring to the table culturally, that women just don”t bring. You need a healthy mix, each gender brings a different way of viewing the world, and you need them both.”
Burson also expressed a similar concern. “There should be a balanced gender mix in PR; it would be healthier for everyone if PR wasn”t seen as a place where only women work,” he said.
He called the issue “a hot potato subject, one that you have to be careful talking about, people might misinterpret what you say,” he added.
Burson is right.
Recruiters have problems
According to PR headhunters in New York, their male clients don”t relish the idea of joining a PR firm that is mostly women. “I sent a man out for an interview at a PR firm and he came back and said, æI can”t work there, I”d be the only testosterone in the office,”” said a New York PR recruiter.
Another recruiter had a similar experience. “I had a guy turn down a job at a PR firm because he didn”t want to work with all women. Guys are concerned that their identity is part and parcel of where, and with whom they work. He didn”t want people to see him working with all women at a consumer PR firm; he felt it was unmanly,” said the recruiter.
Recruiters do mention, however, that small and mid-size PR firms are having the most difficulty finding men.
And with PR becoming more important in the marketing mix, many see an even greater need for a diverse employment pool.
“You have to have a diverse employee population at a PR firm. It”s not just publicity in today”s marketplace, we have to have highly strategic and seasoned executives at our side,” said Carol Cone, Boston Counselor.
Cone admits that she works hard to create a gender balance in her company, but stands by her belief that big ideas are not male or female centric.
“Diversity is our goal — of gender, ethnicity and background,” she said. Cone recently hired a man with 26 years” experience as a TV reporter, as well as an Executive VP with a background in cause branding and politics.
Cone also hired a COO who was a senior marketing executive at a sports apparel company and at an ad agency.
One corporate PR executive from Fortune 100 company does see a major difference between men and women in the PR workplace.
“My staff used to consist of 13 women and two men. The environment was not conducive to team work, it was a competitive environment, but all the competitive energy was focused internally, and not outside the company. They didn”t support each other, but had grand scorecards mentally and emotionally as to who was getting better work and promotions. It manifested in a lot of back biting. I don”t find that with men,” he said.
But to John Brodeur, gender knows no boundaries. “We don”t think of gender; people who take over at Brodeur have earned their stripes. It”s incidental that both my CEO [Andrea Carney] and President [Janet Swaysland] are female.”
J-schools packed with females
It doesn”t seem to be incidental that journalism school graduates are overwhelmingly female. And with journalism majors making up the biggest talent pool for PR firms to draw from, everyone is wondering, “where are all the men?”
“Male graduates go where the salaries are highest,” said Paul Taafe of Hill and Knowlton.
And starting salaries in New York PR firms [where salaries are higher than in the rest of the country], are about $30,000 a year.
Compare that to starting salaries on Wall Street, or at a Fortune 500 company, and you don”t have a compelling reason for men to flock to PR.
To Edelman, salary shouldn”t deter good people from going into PR. “People who hang in there can make substantial salaries after five to 10 years. We”re paying better salaries now, but people should be able to wait,” he said.
But to a generation lured by six- figure incomes after two or three years on Wall Street or Silicon Valley, five to 10 years” can seem like a lifetime.
To which Edelman replied, “Get rich quick, get poor quick: didn”t you hear about all those layoffs in tech?”
Despite the good money later on, the field of PR is notorious for its low- starting salaries.
New York magazine made mention of its humble beginnings in its recent “Salaries in the City” story.
In the article, publicist Lizzie Grubman said she gets 100 resumes a week from aspiring PR professionals, and told the magazine, “Public relations is just not a tremendous moneymaker, unless you own your own business.”
One thing Grubman failed to mention, but the article included, was that PR salaries in corporate finance are much higher than in other PR fields.
In areas such as investor relations, crisis management and high tech, the salaries are much higher.
And it appears that men do follow the path paved with gold, because these PR specialties are more heavily dominated by men.
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Burson has one answer to this financial hurdle.
“We need to raise starting salaries. At the upper levels the PR salaries are competitive, but at the lower levels they are less competitive.”
PR “chicks” rule roost
One CEO recently told Russo, “This is great, I get my company to pay for me to be escorted by all these attractive females.”
This elite minority of PR women are known in the industry as the “chick club,” or “PR barbies.”
To some PR pros being a PR chick is an advantage.
“There are clients that would rather have an attractive young woman telling them what they want to hear, and how great they are. Men don”t want to do the hand holding and catering to clients that women like to do. Men want their opinions heard, they don”t want to chase after their clients, they want their clients to chase after them,” said an owner of a PR firm.
But to Bill Ryan, founder of Niehaus Ryan Wong, the concept of a PR chick is the exception, rather than the rule.
“More qualified people who are strong strategic thinkers will want to go into PR when they realize they have the ear of the CEO.
In time more men will be attracted to the business because PR is becoming a power source in the communications relationship,” said Ryan.
It seems that time is coming soon.
When Connie Connors, CEO and President of Connors Communications, recently spoke at an MBA program at the University of Michigan, she was bombarded with questions from male students. “I assume that when I speak at business school programs, the students don”t care about PR. So I talk about how I started my business and how to take a company public, but with the rise of the new media everyone is intrigued by PR. I had more detailed questions about the PR business coming from men than women at the University of Michigan Business School,” said Connors.
How to attract men
The question on everyone”s mind lately is how to get more men to enter the PR field?
“There needs to be more professional development in PR. The greatest potential is dependent upon the breath of experience, and you need mentoring programs. PR needs to be fostered in someone”s career, and it”s not being done,” said a corporate PR executive.
Recruiter Jean Cardwell of Cardwell Enterprises, agrees.
“The PR industry hasn”t looked at talent the same way a sport team does, with a farm team concept. You have to develop talent, but most PR firms want billable hours, and this is a cost against the house,” she said.
According to Cardwell, PR firms should go to colleges, promote the industry and plant seeds early on that PR is an exciting and rewarding business.
“Ad agencies have been going to colleges and recruiting people for years, they get the best and the brightest. But PR agencies have been saying, “We can find people, they come to us,” said Cardwell.
That seems to be part of the problem, according to Peter Sealey, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the University of California at Berkeley. “The blame for the lack of male representation in PR lies at the feet of the management of these companies. If you”re only accessing half of the talent base, you”re hurting yourself by ruling out some brilliant talented people. Someone needs to look at what is causing PR to be all women,” he said.
Whatever the cause, savvy PR pros are starting to address the challenge of recruiting bright men and women into a field that is becoming more strategy and less frivolity.
“We speak at universities, job fairs, marketing clubs and school MBA programs,” said Cone. “We have a vibrant intern program with students from all over the world. We take it seriously, just like law firms do, she said.”
Hill and Knowlton also sees the value of its graduate recruitment screening process.
According to Taafe, the U.K. recruitment efforts went so well (they picked 30 out of the 90 that applied), that they are starting this program in the U.S.
One question that still needs to be addressed is: Why is PR not taught in the MBA programs at universities where more men are in residence? Especially since everyone agrees that PR is one of the most important ingredients in the marketing mix?
Sealey wonders the same thing. “Why PR has not been elevated to an academic discipline in business schools is unknown. It has a far broader reach than print journalism, and is a form of marketing. Good public relations involves a strategic understanding of the vision and mission of a company, and can take that message to a broader public audience.”
Burson also sees a need for PR courses in MBA programs. “MBA students should have courses that enable them to effectively manage their businesses. It”s not just PR, but PR and advertising. They have to learn how to use PR, when to use it, and what it can do for them. PR is part of the management mix,” said Burson.
To some, the overabundance of women is a cyclical problem that will correct itself; to others it is something to work on now.
But to Rubenstein, who hired his first female account executive 46 years ago and lost the account because of it, “I”m delighted that women are coming into the industry to offer a greater selection of talent. A good mix of men and women creates a healthy dynamic, but ultimately the clients just want us to produce.”
