What personal skills or qualities are needed to become a Public Relations Specialist?

Answer:
A Public Relations Specialist is one who is

engaged in providing entities (usually businesses) with informational, educational, promotional, and image-building content, advertising, and other communications for the purposes of establishing, managing, and maintaining the entities' public lasting acceptance and favor.

We've all heard of the "PR guy", haven't we?  Well, these days it's more likely to be a "PR girl", and that's a good thing.  These collective "PR folks" are the ones who sell companies and other institutions to the public at large.

Public Relations Specialists might work as independent contractors, hiring out to businesses, corporations, institutions, and others in need of public image management.  Some Public Relations Specialists might work within larger companies, as full-time, in-house Public Relations Department employees.  Others might work in Public Relations consulting firms, which provide contracted services to other businesses.

Public Relations Specialists typically need training and education in all forms of communications; including journalism, marketing, advertising, sales, media, and other similar areas of study. 

Other academic studies for Public Relations Specialists should include topics that cover computer and software use, desktop publishing, web publishing, and print communications, to mention a few.

Public Relations Specialists also should be detail-oriented and well-organized, since some of their work includes organizing community events, arranging for speaking engagements, and other similar tasks. 

In addition, Public Relations Specialists should be friendly and personable, since their work involves close contact with the public; including some harsh critics and other image-busters bent on opposing a particular entity or even an ideology that might be represented by an entity.

The "PR folks" have a tough job at times.  Sometimes, the slightest (even "honest") mistakes by well-known corporations or other established entities can mean serious consequences to those entities' reputations, bottom lines, and even their very existence.

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