Making the most of your first 6 months in a new PR job

It’s always both exciting and stressful to take a new position—it’s a leap into the semi-known and an opportunity to start building a new reputation.

I’ve observed from both my own experience and watching others that the first six months in a new public relations job is when you identify most of the important priorities you should tackle. And then, after six months, you get sucked into the daily vortex of responsibilities and deadlines that take over your brain and your life and squeeze out space for your creativity.

It’s all new only once

Over your first several months, you must build your inventory of good ideas. This includes the problems to solve, opportunities to pursue, practices and systems to change and improve, resources you need, relationships to nurture—and all those flashes of inspiration that occur to you while in the shower, working out or drifting into sleep.

This inventory will become the core of your plan for the long haul, regardless of whether it gets formalized as your achievement plan or remains as simply your own personal agenda.

Also during those first months you have to learn the territory, and being organized and systematic about that is a good thing (though staying flexible is really important, too).