The success of any company depends to a large extent on the quality of its PR team. In today’s world, you cannot rely on old concepts, like the quality of your products or services. You can have the best products in the world, but they don’t speak for themselves. It’s people that do the talking, namely your PR team. The men and women working in your Public Relations Department should have an impeccable track record and a good character.
Here’s what you should look out for when hiring PR workers for your Queensland-based company.
Check their work history carefully
When someone sends their CV, they’ll list all the companies they’ve worked for in the past. This is something you don’t want to take at face value. Talk to the candidate and ask them about the exact title they had and the job description. Don’t forget that PR workers are the face of your company. Maybe one of the job applicants did work for a reputable company before, but you need to find out what position and responsibilities they had. Maybe they were part of a great team, but they weren’t exactly the leader of that team. You don’t want to hire someone on false assumptions or someone who likes to take credit for other people’s work.
Also, after the job interview, make sure to call the HR of that company and see if what the candidate just told you checks out.
Ask for a background check
It has been established above that PR workers are the face of your company. Wherever they go, they represent you so you cannot take any chances. A quick background check can tell you if the person you want to hire was ever convicted, even for a minor offense.
PR guys get to use large funds to promote your business, and you don’t want them to misuse those funds. A look at their criminal record will tell you if they were ever charged with theft, fraud, or embezzlement.
Explain to your candidates the need for such a check and help them get their national police clearance QLD online. In Australia, there are several online character check agencies and ordering a background check on someone is a task that only takes a couple of minutes. You can even do it on your phone. You get the result via email in a couple of business days and you’ll have the certainty the new employee is someone you can trust.
Assess their soft skills
A good PR worker needs to be very sociable. They need to know how to talk to people, lots of people actually, and they must have excellent soft skills for that. When a candidate comes in for a job interview ask them to give you examples of how they’ve handled difficult situations in their past work. You can also use certain episodes from your company’s recent history and ask them what they would have done differently. This is one of those situations when you should trust your gut instinct. If you cannot have a pleasant conversation with the job applicant, maybe they’re not the right person to handle your PR.
