In-House versus Agency

By Emma Stevens

As I get closer and closer to graduation, I have to make the ultimate decision between working in-house or for an agency. For those of you who read my blog and don’t know PR lingo, I will give a quick summary. 

In-house means you work for a single organization as part of its PR team. This tends to give you less independence, and you work solely for a single entity. An example of this would be working for Coca-Cola Co. in its communications branch.  If you work for an agency, you represent that agency and work with all of its clients. An example of this is Edelman, currently the number one agency in PR. Edelman has a variety of clients, including Samsung, Microsoft, etc, for which the team works.

 How does one decide this potentially life-altering decision?! I always thought I wanted to work for an agency because of their flashy names and “exciting work,” but as I get closer and closer to the big decision, I am more critical of my earlier opinion. So to help me out, and hopefully, you guys as well, let’s make a pros and cons list. Fingers crossed we can decide after this. 

Unfortunately, I do not have experience with either so I think I need some help from our dear friend PR Weekly to decide. It has a great article on its website that gives us a chance to listen to both sides of the argument. Put on your robes, judges, and let’s hear the “great debate.”

PR Weekly asks us first to think about “breadth” versus “depth.”  

In other words, if you work for an agency you will have a variety of work, which means learning a bunch of new things. Take our Edelman example–as part of its PR team you would be responsible for working on a campaign for the new Samsung Galaxy, at the same time working on crisis control and a press release conference for Microsoft, and it’s blowing up your computer! Just kidding. To me, this screams a lot of work, but also the opportunity to use, and learn, a variety of skill sets. Agencies seem to be a great starting point for building a solid portfolio of work experience. 

In-house gets you down to the bones of a company. Your company becomes, for lack of a better expression, “your baby.” If  you work for Coca-Cola Co., you will mostly become an expert on fizzy drinks and the various ways to market them. To me, this feels more personal and also less of a risk. You can focus on getting to know one thing very well, and have the chance to explore all the various ways to enhance the one brand.

PR Weekly also calls attention to the importance of professional development. 

This grabbed my attention. I am a fresh face in PR and I am constantly trying to grow myself as a professional. The question is, where can I do this best? PR Weekly advises that “agency employees are thrown into the proverbial ‘deep-end.’ On-the-job learning takes place in a fast-paced environment and there are regular opportunities to get hands-on experience with something new.” This seems intimidating, but also full of new opportunities and experience. You know what they say: “You’ll never know unless you jump right in.” 

In-house tends to be slower-paced but is still incredibly valuable. You will most likely work with multiple people on a single project for your company. Although this might seem, from the outside, to be less exciting, I have heard the reward for your work is more easily recognized and valued. 

The last thing PR Weekly touches on is culture. This is a critical part of the decision for me. There is a significant difference between older, more traditional organizational culture, and the new. According to PR Weekly, Agencies tend to be fast-paced, high energy and creative. In contrast, in-house is more traditional PR work, but also incredibly personal and detailed. 

I got first-hand experience with the culture of a large agency when I applied for an internship with Ketchum. I was required to come up with a creative campaign and a social media plan. I had two days to do so and, once completed, I was competing with fellow PR college students. The energy was high and the competition was fierce. 

After hearing both sides, I have declared, as the judge of this monumental life decision, that it’s a tie. I simply don’t have enough experience to make this decision as of yet. This is where my summer internship will come in, for sure. That said, it also became clear during this “trial” that my ultimate decision is in large part determined by my personality and skill sets.

 Let me know in the comments below what your ultimate decision was, and why. We have to work together on this!