Public relations is not immune to a rough economy. The job market has been shifting hard for two years, and PR — like journalism — has taken the brunt of the reset. The internet has changed what the job looks like, how it is done, and how many people are needed to do it.
Which is what makes Help a PR Pro Out — HAPPO — worth a mention. Modeled on HARO (Help a Reporter Out), HAPPO is a coordinated single-day push where anyone with a network is asked to help a PR professional find work. Introductions. Job leads. Resume forwards. A retweet of an open role. Whatever moves the needle.
The date this year is February 19.
Why It Works
The same internet that hollowed out the traditional PR staff model also made it faster to move a job lead across a network than any recruiter can. An email intro, an @mention on Twitter, a Facebook share — these cost nothing and can put two people on the path to a working relationship in a single day.
For PR pros specifically, the exercise is the job. If you can't use your network to help another practitioner get hired, you probably can't use it to run a campaign either. HAPPO is a live test of the same skill.
What To Do
If you know a PR pro who is looking, mark the calendar. If you know a company that is hiring, mark the calendar. On February 19, spend an hour connecting the two groups. Post the openings you know about. Forward the resumes you've been sitting on. Introduce two people who should be talking.
The traditional mechanics of PR are being rebuilt in real time. As Kelly Cutrone has shown, the practitioners who use the social web well are the ones defining what comes next. HAPPO is one way to put that to work for someone other than yourself.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
