Sample public relations manager job description and interview questions

December 6, 2022

Public Relations Managers serve an important purpose in building brand awareness and creating a positive public perception of your company. If you’re looking to hire a Public Relations Manager or hoping to become one, take a look at this sample Public Relations Manager job description to learn about the key job duties and required qualifications. You can also explore some useful questions to ask Public Relations Manager candidates during job interviews.

What is a Public Relations Manager?

A Public Relations Manager helps manage the public perception of your company. They handle crisis communications when something goes wrong, send out press releases to highlight your company’s achievements or new products, and build relationships with members of the media, government, social media influencers, or other relevant parties to promote your corporate image. They also often help with internal company communications.

Public Relations Manager job description template

Overview

The Public Relations manager will be responsible for planning and directing all public relations programs. This individual will formulate policies and procedures related to those public relations programs. They will also work to develop strong relationships with media representatives to obtain coverage in key media outlets. The ideal candidate will develop internal communications that keep employees informed of company activities; observe and report on social, economic, and political trends that might affect the company’s image.

Job responsibilities

Identify the company’s target audience and determine the best way to communicate publicity information to them.
Facilitate internal communications between different parts of the company
Evaluates advertising and promotion programs for compatibility with Public Relations efforts.
Manages special events such as sponsorship of sports, parties introducing new products, or other activities the firm supports in order to gain public attention through the media without advertising directly.
Develops media kits with relevant images and assets to share with media outlets
Implement communication strategies and media relations programs.
Speak on behalf of the business at press conferences and respond to media inquiries as needed
Coordinate with the Social Media Manager regarding content and influencer relations
Supervises other public relations staff members

Qualifications

Strong interpersonal skills and problem-solving abilities
Two to four years of experience in corporate public relations
Established relationships with media outlets helpful
A Bachelor’s degree in marketing, journalism, or a related field is required. Master’s degree preferred

Public Relations Manager interview questions

Here are some helpful questions to ask when interviewing candidates for a Public Relations Manager role.

Which skills would you bring to this role that would help you succeed as our PR Manager?

This question serves two key purposes; it helps you understand the candidate’s skillset and it helps you gauge their understanding of the role of a Public Relations Manager. There is a lot of overlap between advertising, sales, and public relations. However, you want to ensure that the candidate is aware of the differences and what skills they’ll need to bring to a PR Manager role.

The PR people that get the best results tend to be great at building long-term relationships and tailoring their pitches to different audiences, including individual writers. Hard sells often don’t work well in this field, and even an incredibly well-crafted outreach email won’t have the desired effect without properly tailoring it to the intended audience.

The candidate should ideally be highlighting their interpersonal skills, writing skills, relationship-building abilities, and time management skills. Specific examples of how they used those skills in the past is also something to listen for.

How do you build relationships with members of the media?

A Public Relations Manager’s relationship-building skills can make or break your media strategy. It’s typically fairly easy to find the contact information of journalists, bloggers, editors, and influencers, but a good PR Manager builds relationships with those people rather than just sending out generic pitches or outreach emails. The success of your PR strategy hinges on how your PR Manager builds the relationship with those people.

Tell me about a public relations problem that you encountered and what you did to overcome it.

This question allows the candidate to show off their problem-solving skills by drawing an example from their past work experience. Public relations professionals often run into major challenges such as tough deadlines, combatting negative press about their business, or roadblocks that come up during a special event or product launch. Listen to how the candidate approached the problem and what steps they took to overcome it. You want to hire a Public Relations Manager that is ready to take on a challenge and works well under pressure.

If you had one accomplishment to brag about from your previous job, what would it be?

Give the candidate a moment to brag about their top accomplishment. Public relations is all about chasing great media coverage, hosting a memorable event, or pulling off a successful product launch, so your top candidates should have some past PR achievements to highlight. It is good to hire someone with a track record of getting into publications that your company wants to get into or pulling off events similar to the ones they’d be overseeing in this role.

What are some of the measurements that you use to determine the success of a PR program?

It is very important for a Public Relations Manager to know how to analyze and track the results of their PR campaigns and initiatives. This question helps you understand the candidate’s process for tracking and measuring the success of their campaigns. You want to hire a results-orientated Public Relations Manager who will meticulously track the performance of their outreach efforts and PR initiatives and adjust the public relations strategy based on that performance data.