By Rayan Abdulrahman, Senior Communications Executive at Active DMC
PR is one of those industries where turnover is simply common. People jump agencies, go client-side, come back, or venture out on their own. It is a normal symptom of a fast-paced world where you are always running behind the headlines.
For me, entering PR after nearly a decade in content was a deliberate choice. I wanted to expand my horizons, get closer to where things actually happen, and eventually shape narratives that matter. That ambition was real. But so was the collision between expectation and reality.
Here is what nobody tells you before you step into the world of PR: PR is a constant balancing act between the creative and the repetitive. One minute you are brainstorming a killer angle for a release, the next you are filling in a WIP report or pulling together a report from yesterday’s meeting. Nobody fantasises about the WIP (or as an exhausted colleague of mine once started calling it after one too many tough weeks, “The WHIP”). Nonetheless, the WIP is an important part of the job, the best PR professionals learn to own both sides of that coin. And the best agencies? They are built around people who can.
So what does a “best agency” look like to me? It is a place where you are empowered to be creative and pushed to be accurate in equal measure. But more than that, it is a place where you are trusted to actually act like an expert, not just execute tasks like a drive-through window. There is a real difference between a PR professional who consults and one who simply delivers.
The consultant pushes back when a press release has no story. The consultant knows that not every announcement deserves media attention, and has the confidence to say so. That honesty protects our relationships with journalists, builds credibility over time, and ultimately serves the client far better than a habit of overpromising ever could.
For me, the dream is feeling that rush of catching a news cycle, building a story fast, and landing something that the client loves, the journalist is genuinely excited about, and the reader actually finds useful. That is the goal.
Now, moving agencies. This is where things get interesting, and where most people underestimate what is actually required of them. No two agencies are alike. The core skills travel with you, but the process, the culture, the unspoken rules, they are all new. Think of it like the first days in a new city. Every street is unfamiliar and everything seems designed to get you lost. Yet that cafe on the corner you walked past nervously on day one, eventually becomes your favourite spot, and those unfamiliar faces become some of the closest people in your life.
The key is giving yourself permission to unlearn. That sounds simple but it is probably the hardest thing to do, especially when you have built a career on doing things a certain way. Get to know the processes of your new agency. Learn from your mistakes. Read the news through your new clients’ eyes. Understand why they do PR in the first place, because not every client wants the same thing, and assuming otherwise is where most transitions quietly go wrong.
Also, get to know the people around you and what the agency genuinely values, not just what is written in the credentials deck. Let go of the habits you carried over from before, even the ones that served you well. Especially those ones, actually.
Progress in this industry rarely comes from doing more. Rather, it comes from doing it better, with sharper judgment, a clearer sense of what actually moves the needle, and the confidence to say so out loud. The PR people who grow are the ones who ask better questions, pick better stories, and build the kind of relationships with journalists that make a phone call worth answering.
That only happens in an environment that gives that judgment room to breathe, and a culture that rewards it rather than just tolerating it
