Skills
Public Relations Manager Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in public relations managers, and how to build and show them.
What skills do public relations managers need?
Public Relations Managers need technical skills such as communications strategy, media relations, and crisis communications, plus people skills like judgment and leadership. They also use tools such as Media databases and Social listening tools.
Technical (hard) skills
- Communications strategy
- Media relations
- Crisis communications
- Writing
- Social media
- Measurement
People (soft) skills
- Judgment
- Leadership
- Persuasion
- Calm under pressure
Tools, equipment and technology
- Media databases
- Social listening tools
- Press release distribution
- CMS
- Analytics dashboards
- Presentation tools
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how public relations managers put their skills to work:
- How to respond to a PR crisis in the first hour
- How to media-train an executive
- How to measure a PR campaign
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Communications strategy” and “Media relations.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “judgment,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as APR near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our public relations manager glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Public Relations Manager training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.