“Gizzajob”.

Yosser Hughes’ lament in Boys From The Black Stuff became a popular hallmark of job seeking in the 1980s. In the 2010s, in PR, the clarion cry might be “Gizzachance, any chance”.

Getting your first job in PR is, probably, more difficult at the moment than it has ever been. Ever. This is the first of a short series of posts looking at what this means for young people trying to start a career in the industry, those of us already working in PR jobs and PR agencies looking to develop and attract the right skills – skills for battling through the recession and better commercial fortunes in the future.

First, let’s get the legal bit out of the way. The title mentions boys and girls, but by that I mean all females and males of an employable age, in possession of the appropriate paperwork in order to be eligible participants in the payroll. Phew.

So the ‘lost generation’ factor has been much-publicised by the conventional media in the UK. The spectre was raised as the recession really began to bite in 2009. As this summer’s exam results season got into full swing, reports followed about the social, professional and personal implications of a generation of school and college leavers who’ve been unable to find work for two years. There have been reports this year that prospects are improving for graduates, yet for many the employment outlook remains bleak. With GCSE results just announced this week, the question was whose prospects were bleakest – given the paucity of jobs available, would grads get the albeit low-level jobs in favour of those who left education at A Level or the GCSE stage?

The long-term impact on young people unable to start any sort of meaningful career is fairly obvious.

In PR, the picture roughly seems to mirror that of the overall labour market, although there is the added challenge of a industry with a major modernisation challenge, meaning the skills required are changing and will continue to change.

PR Week features editor Cathy Wallace wrote this piece on how difficult it was to get a job in PR last August. I asked her how the situation has changed in the year since then. Was it any easier now to get a job in PR?

She said: “I think it’s harder. I have heard horror stories from graduates who have been working unpaid for up to two years, without managing to secure a graduate position. There is a problem of supply and demand. Universities are churning out young, fresh, eager PR graduates faster than the industry can gobble them up. Unfortunately as many agencies have tightened belts, entry-level recruitment has been one of the first sacrifices made. This short-sighted approach means in five years time, agencies will be bemoaning the lack of senior account execs and managers, not realising this is a direct consequence of shutting their doors to graduates!”

Personally I agree that there has long been a disconnect between the PR industry and PR course leaders – academia does not always understand some of the commercial realities. I would’ve asked a tutor for a view on that but they’re on holiday, so that’ll have to wait for a future post. I also agree that, as ever, too many agencies seem to have a short-sighted approach to attracting talent at the moment, and it will come back to bite them.

I also asked Cathy for her view on how well PR agencies train new recruits, particularly graduates. How does PR compare with other sectors? In her view it’s mixed, and it hinges on management nous: “Depends on the agency. An agency with a well-structured approach to training, development and progression, managed by a professional who is as skilled as management as they are at PR, if not more skilled at management, will offer a graduate an unrivalled development path. Done properly, the training offered in PR agencies is absolutely second to none.

“But a graduate joining an agency run individual who has set up on their own because they are good at PR, without any management training or experience, can often find themselves flung in at the deep end and given far too much responsibility with little to no training or investment. Unfortunately despite the trend for agencies to cut graduate recruitment in tough times, some go the other way and snap up graduates because they are often eager, desperate to prove themselves and willing to work unpaid or for a pittance.”

The slave labour point is one I’ve made before. It seems to be getting better, with several agencies stating they will not take people on unpaid and unfair experience schemes. Speed is one of them. Even so, graduates are desperate for work so will often jump at the opportunity.

I’ll be doing a few more posts on this topic looking at what agencies need to do with entry-level recruitment, how graduates can improve their chances of landing a first PR job and what skills will be needed for the future. They’re all my own views, of course, but echo comments many in the business have made to me in recent months.

Until then, a few thoughts on what the current situation is for PR’s lost generation:

- Nervy recruitment: many positions tend to be on short-term contracts or on a freelance basis. This is commercially sound for the agencies but means PR is a risky career path for entrants. This is how journalism has been for a long time though. The PR industry needs to think long and hard about whether this type of casual labour is cutting off its nose to spite its face, given client relationships and excellent talent are what will see them through the recession and help them build for the future

- Graduate schemes are in flux: many agencies have simply deprioritised their approach to fast-tracking a graduate intake, but equally are tending to shut the door to others such as those without degrees but with relevant experience, such as in other areas of marketing. Agencies need to work out what it is they’re offering, adapt the schemes they ran when times were better and do more to be fair to the newly-qualified, who seem to be being led a merry dance

- The lost generation is, in the main, not helping itself by making broad-brush applications or not being smart about how to get a foot in the door in a cut-throat market. More on that later

- Agencies are angsty about how to develop new entrants in the current market. Training costs money and time, and they need their more senior people focused on client retention and business development. And as PR modernises, what skills does a new entrant need anyway? The classics of features tracking, media relations, press release writing and the like are now just a relatively small part of the mix. Equally, some graduates are applying for jobs expecting to do nothing but social media meddling all day. Agencies must be clear on what they need

More on this tomorrow. If you do send me a CV in the meantime, do check the spelling, grammar and style consistency, if you’re serious about getting an interview.