May Program Recap: “Let’s Talk About Your Career”

“Let’s Talk About Your Career” was the topic on the table at the May 2023 PRSA Richmond Luncheon, held Thursday, May 25 at the Westwood Club. The luncheon event welcomed speaker Meredith Mirrington, the managing director of Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia and the broader Southeast U.S. region at PR Talent, one of the country’s largest communications-focused search firms.

During her presentation, Mirrington discussed current career trends in the PR/communications industry, citing the newly released results from the annual 2023 PRWeek/PR Talent Salary Survey. A few key findings from the survey included:

• The Great Resignation is slowing: 21% of survey respondents expect to change jobs in the next 12 months, versus 26% last year.
• The gender pay gap is shrinking…slowly: The gender pay gap was $35,000 in the 2018 Salary Survey. This year, it’s $22,250.
• Hybrid work is strong: New questions were introduced to the Salary Survey to find out about hybrid work in PR. Of respondents, 29.4% work full-time remote, 17.9% work full-time in the office and 52.7% work truly hybrid, coming into the office between 1-4 days per week.

Following her presentation, Mirrington answered questions that were submitted by attendees anonymously prior to the event. Pieces of advice she shared include:

• We’ve seen no indication of returning to a 9-5 in-office situation. There’s no going back, so employers are trying to find a happy medium. We are a talent-based industry. You need to make the talent happy.
• Some of the top skills we find employers are looking for are content development, strategic thinking and agency experience.
• Have a gap on your resume? No problem, but be sure to explain that gap. What were you doing with your time? We like to see when people use that time to engage in learning, whether that means involvement in professional organizations like PRSA, volunteering, taking a class or pursuing your APR.

For the past two decades of her career, Mirrington built and led high-impact, multi-platform internal, external, and executive communications efforts and teams for globally recognized, innovative, and respected companies in industries ranging from tech to tourism. Today, in addition to her role at PR Talent, Mirrington is an adjunct instructor for her alma mater, the University of Colorado-Boulder, teaching the next generation of communicators the importance of internal communications and the employee experience.