B2B public relations must stop fishing in the shallow end of the talent pool

Most young people entering the PR industry opt for the consumer sector, leaving the business-to-business sector (B2B) to fish in the shallow end of the talent pool. It drives me mad that we make our professional lives harder by failing to promote the benefits of a career in B2B PR. 

When young recruits, primarily university students, think about PR they immediately think of consumer PR (B2C). This isn’t surprising: they’re consumers themselves and many times are almost entirely unaware of similar, yet equally satisfying and potentially lucrative opportunities in corporate or B2B PR. That lack of awareness is largely down those of us in B2B who are extremely adept at invisibility.

What I’m getting at is that as an industry we have done little to promote B2B PR as an attractive, viable, even preferable alternative to consumer PR, which means that the constant – and deep – pool of potential talent needed to revitalise our profession is evaporating before our eyes. We’re left with an aging B2B workforce that will prove harder and harder to replenish in the future.

This should be a real concern. The future of your B2B marketing and PR business relies on nurturing new talent, but with so many opting for what they perceive as the more glamorous option of publicising consumer goods, exceptional young – and even, existing, more seasoned – talent is being siphoned off to chase often transparent consumer glory.

“Hang on”, I hear you saying. “Don’t universities have some culpability here?” No. I don’t believe so. They have to teach B2C primarily because that’s what the bright young minds are expecting when they arrive. In fact, most of those new intakes will have had little or no experience in business, but they sure know a lot about influencers and, for many of them, that’s the catalyst behind their interest in PR. 

The unvarnished truth is that B2C agencies are much better at promoting themselves to young candidates and tend to do a good job of nurturing and promoting young talent, which makes them understandably attractive. B2B agencies should take note and emulate what many of the more successful B2C consultancies are doing, but many in the B2B world don’t, and I find that frustrating.

Recruiting for a career in business PR

Before B2B professionals beat themselves up too much, B2C isn’t perfect. It must be recognised that, in some corners of the B2C PR space, interns are treated shabbily – in some cases expected to work for minimal pay, or sometimes nothing all just to get the ‘experience’. 

I’m not for one moment disrespecting consumer PR (well, maybe a little as I am biased). What I’m saying is that there are fabulous careers available in B2B PR that are equally satisfying, professionally challenging and potentially lucrative as anything in the consumer space, yet as a thriving B2B agency that actively recruits for new talent, we too often lose good candidates to the promise of bright shiny careers at consumer PR agencies before we can even get to them. The corollary to that, however, is that what we also often see on our doorstep are the wilted blooms and tarnished halos that arrive when the pressures and realities faced by consumer PR professionals become too much. Burnout is common in B2C. B2B, less so in my view.

That’s not to say that B2B PR is a cushy career choice. It does have its own, very different set of challenges. They are branches of the same tree, yes, but they bear different types of fruit.

Personally, I enjoy B2B’s focus on fellow business professionals, decision-makers, investors and other stakeholders as opposed to consumer PR’s focus on individual or potential customers drawn from the general public. The objectives of B2B PR are primarily to enable a client company to demonstrate thought leadership through expertise, credibility and trust. All of which are noble aims.

Consumer PR is somewhat similar, but tends to place more emphasis on sales, brand loyalty and consumer engagement, and that’s where it starts to get a little messy.

Media channels used in B2B public relations

The messages required for either of those markets is also necessarily different. B2B audiences want to know about business benefits, efficiency and cost savings. Consumers are more interested in which celebrity is using your client’s toothpaste, irrespective of its quality, cost or ingredients.

The two branches use similar media channels to reach their target audience, but to different effect. B2B is largely through respected, relevant industry trade journals and business publications that carry the credibility a business client craves. 

Ultimately, we have ourselves to blame! B2B PR and marketing agencies are too often perceived as developmental backwaters. Sometimes that’s true: the ‘old hands’ of B2B can be slow to react to change. 

The real problem is that we’re our own worst publicists. We’re failing time and again to communicate the value of what we do and present it in a compelling way. That’s why we’re currently being trounced by consumer PR in the talent pool. We’re fishing with duct-taped rods while they’re using trawlers masquerading as luxury yachts.

So, what do we do about it?

Be proactive! Get out there and promote yourself! Offer to speak, hold seminars or do workshops at universities or other hotbeds for recruitment – then go and do it, regularly. If all that young talent doesn’t know about you and what the B2B sector has to offer, you’ve lost them, and right now lot of solid B2B talent is wandering aimlessly looking their future career home. The problem is, they’re probably walking straight past you.

I’m proud to say that we have put into practice what I have shared above and continue to have great success with our internship programme. In fact, one of our interns was a national runner up for ‘Apprentice of the Year’ – and that was across all industries, not just PR. I would also posit that the opportunity to rise through the account management ranks is a steadier and more secure climb than the often-slippery slopes of B2C PR.

I’m just tired of hearing so many of my peers bemoaning the fact that there is so little talent out there. The talent is there. You just must do a lot better job of finding it by proactively promoting what you have to offer, and then convincing those candidates that a career in B2B can be just as satisfying as any in B2C.

There’s no reason to make acquiring talent as difficult for us as we have done. Many of our potential recruits are very good at demonstrating their ability to swim in the deep end.

We need to get good at it, too.

Mike Maynard is managing director of technology PR agency Napier B2B.