r/Communications

I just don’t get it. I went to a well-known school. Communications degree with a minor in sociology. Distinction graduate. Had an internship. Have a portfolio. Yet every application for marketing, sales, coordinator, project manager, account manager - nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet somehow most of the people I went to school with, seem to have jobs. It’s just so devastating. I have nowhere to go to express my outlet of frustration and shame without people thinking less of me. I just want to get my life started. It’s why I went to a good school. I just want a career so that I have a purpose in life besides making coffee for people. So that women think I’m a suitable prospect to actually date and form a relationship with, instead of seeing me as just a kid. So that my family can actually be proud of me. I just don’t get why the universe has to choose to punish me over and over and over. It’s already hard enough for me as an autistic man, like fuck dude.

Hi everyone sorry for dropping in but I’m totally burnt out. I don’t even have a degree in communications but I’ve worked in public affairs alongside internal and external communications. I’ve made my way to a Director Role but I’m totally burnt out. These people are driving me crazy, micromanaging me and belittling my role and experience. What are my career options, I only have a minor in writing and my degree is in a sociology field. I’m starting to despise my career. I enjoy technical writing but with the rise of generative AI those roles are becoming difficult to find and many other jobs in the field typically require a bachelors in Communications or a related field. Where can I even go from here?

I (26f) am considering going back to school for at the very least a certificate, if not my masters in public relations.

For context, I graduated with a BA in Telecommunications - Video Production in 2022 and was extremely lucky to find a job in my field immediately post grad. I have 3 years past experience in local broadcast/creative services, and 1 year and some change in my current role at a moderately successful, but niche, media network.

What has sparked my interest in going back to school is that I recently received a promotion and the role I now work is not even remotely what it was initially pitched to me as. It’s adjacent-ish to my skills and parts of the role I had already been doing, but with the title change (that I had no choice other than to accept) came a lot of administrative work and I am much better as a creative.

I’m not great at the email tag/spreadsheet management/data analysis/agenda building side of things. I’m a campaign building, producing, execution (and sometimes crisis-control) minded individual.

I’ll spare the details because every workplace has flaws, but in my case I’m afraid i’ve been set up to fail. I want to be able to fall back on something tangible if they decide I’m not good enough at a role they made up without really taking into account my skills and past experience.

Is school a good safety net? Should I look for a new job? I love the place that I work for everything other than the work that i’m now expected to be doing (plus it looks preeeetty good on a resume) I want to stay in digital media… I’m just lost on next steps.

Hello guys!

I’m here writing today because I want to ask what you do when you are sarcastic. I want to find out what a variety different of people do to know better how it works and the meaning of cases of sarcasm better.

At a given moment when something happens do you think of something and counciously decide to say the opposite and hope the audience will understand? Does a sarcastic like phrase that does not come from reversing the words just appears in your mind? Do you do anything else?

Hey everyone,
I work in the employee experience/intranet/internal comms software space and I’m doing some research into how IC professionals are genuinely incorporating AI into their day-to-day - not the theoretical stuff, but what’s actually happening in practice.

I caught up with some IC professionals earlier this year and AI was a hot topic.

A few questions I’d love your thoughts on:

•	What tasks are you using AI for right now? (Writing, summarising, analytics, something else?)  
•	Has it changed how much time you spend on certain things?  
•	What’s working well and where has it fallen flat or created new headaches?  
•	Are there things you wish AI could do for internal comms that it can’t yet?

I’ll be transparent: I’m gathering this to inform how tools in our space should be developing (and for my own knowledge). Happy to share a summary of what comes back if there’s interest.

No vendor pitches here,just genuinely curious what life looks like on the ground for IC pros in 2025/26. Would love to hear from teams of all sizes.

A few weeks ago I posted here asking how long it takes your team to create a branded video from an event. The response was overwhelming. Almost everyone said the same thing. It takes hours, it is painful and most people doing it are not designers.
So I started building the solution.

You upload your raw photos and video clips from an event and it automatically creates a polished branded recap video in seconds. Your brand colors, fonts and logo applied automatically every time. No editing skills needed at all.
I am currently in early development with a co-founder who is an AI expert and we are looking for our first real users.

Two honest questions for this community:

Would you actually use something like this for your work?
What would you be willing to pay per month for a tool that saves your team two to four hours every time you need to create an event video?

hi everyone, i'm a policy researcher who has found that my interest lies more so in making research widely available to the public - maybe more than the research itself. the discovery had me working really hard on an application for an entry-level communications officer position, and i got an interview !!!!!

that said, i don't really know much about traditional communications, communications interviews, or how they'd assess those skills through an interview. are there any good starter packs/resources that is kind of the comms bible? how would you prepare for a comms interview?

any & all help appreciated ❤️

This is silly, admittedly, but I just saw the trailer for the Devil Wears Prada 2... and they mention that Emily is now the Communications Director at Runway.

Communications is so rarely included as a career in movies, I dont know if I should be prepared to cringe at an unrealistic representation of Comms or not.

Just wondering if other Comms people in this sub are curious about how this will go. Or, if you've seen it already and know the answer, I would honestly love spoilers! 😅

How long does your team actually spend creating one branded video? Trying to understand if this is just my company or universal.

I work in corporate communications and something has been bothering me for a while.

Every time we have a company event, a product launch or an internal campaign someone on my team has to spend hours creating a branded video. We are talking about uploading raw footage, trimming clips, matching our brand colors and fonts, finding background music, exporting in the right format. The whole process.

Most of us are not video editors. We never trained for this. It just became part of the job somehow.

I started asking colleagues at other companies and they all said the same thing. It takes between two and four hours for a simple two minute reel. Some said even longer.

I am genuinely trying to understand if this is a widespread problem.

A few questions for anyone willing to share:

How long does it take your team to produce one branded video from raw footage?

Who usually ends up doing it and do they have a design background?

What tools do you currently use and are you happy with them?

No agenda here. Just trying to map out if this pain is real beyond my own bubble. Would love honest answers.

looking to upskill on PR and comms, any suggestions for newsletters?

I’m here writing today because I want to ask what you do when you are sarcastic. I want to find out what a variety different of people do to know better how it works and the meaning of cases of sarcasm better.

At a given moment when something happens do you think of something and counciously decide to say the opposite and hope the audience will understand? Does a sarcastic like phrase that does not come from reversing the words just appears in your mind? Do you do anything else?

I am about to graduate with a BA in English and minors in psychology and communications. I have done three internships as a communications specialist and I want to continue pursuing communications or social media management after graduation. During this limbo period between graduation and my first job, how can I learn about industry trends and keep my writing skills sharp? Any resources other professionals in this industry use?

ALL tips and resources are welcome. I am struggling to stay hopeful and keep applying for jobs after 120 applications. Thank you.

Hi,

i’m really new to communications but i’ve found some freelance work here and there but it’s really minimal.

i’m not sure how to build myself up and create a portfolio and what to even do to start.

there’s so many avenues like PR, social media, technical communications, etc.

when building a portfolio/brand for yourself do you niche yourself down or generalise?

i’m thinking of just reaching out to companies and asking to make a free social media plan for them/free videos for a month or something and then hoping it leads to paid work.

idk what i’m doing anymore sigh someone pls share any insights i would really appreciate it ❤️

TLDR: I think I am doing both Director Level and Manager level comms work for my organization and I seeking advice on job title. Any career advice or “managing up“ advice is welcome.

For starters, I am one of three employees at a “local” nonprofit. My title for the past 2 years has been Communications Manager. I find the work incredibly fulfilling. But, I am realizing I am filling the role of both Director and Manager.

My responsibilities include: Long-term communications strategy, programmatic strategy, creating comms goals to grow revenue, brand development, public relations, providing high-level strategic advise to executive director to maintain/build org reputation, build new media relationships, board of director communications, supervision of all written content published by staff as well as published by collaborative projects, attending community/executive level meetings as representative of my org…

On top of all of this, I am implementing all strategy. I am producing social media content, maintaining 3 websites, writing copy for both, planning/managing events (including a major annual conference), writing press releases, designing 50 pages ”strategic reports”, writing report content, designing “fact sheets”, creating ad artwork, running AV/Tech at every external meeting, executing on email marketing, answering phones, answering our “info@“ inbox, aaannd managing interns.

It is a lot. It is a small team. I have really grown our brand recognition, community trust, and statewide reputation. This has in turn generated funding and revenue.

Earlier this year, I receive an email from ED accusing me of not being “strategic” “forward-thinking” and that I am acting like a “Contractor” and not an “employee”. This was news to me, as I have been driving a ton of strategy.

I want to push back. I originally wanted to move into the role of Deputy Director but that didn’t go over super well. Now I am just hoping for Communications Director title. Should I go for it? Is there another title better suited? Any career advice or “managing up“ advice is welcome.

Working through a scenario and want a gut check from people who've actually been in this.

Small food brand. They've named a specific farm on their packaging since 2018. It's part of their whole sourcing story. An animal welfare group just dropped a report on that farm. Brand isn't named anywhere in the report, but the farm is. Customers are already tagging them on Instagram asking where they stand

Founders want to put something out today. Distance themselves, acknowledge the report, move on.

My instinct is that's the wrong call. You can't spend eight years making a supplier part of your identity and then disown them in 24 hours without torching the credibility of the whole sourcing narrative. But I'm curious what others would actually advise here.

Holding statement and buy time? Get on the phone with the farm first? Say nothing until there's more to say?

Hi all!

For some context, I graduated with my bachelors in comm, concentration in PR and minor in media studies in 2025.

I’ve worked

- 2 years as a student in university media dept

- 1 public radio internship

- 1 marketing admin internship

- 1 freelance gig for a b2b marketing agency

The search for a full time comms role has been awful. So while I’ve been searching, I work 3 part time gigs that are retail, food service and adjacent.

I worry about there being a gap in my communications professional resume (my last relevant experience ended in December) while I job search.

In the meantime, I’ve also been gigging locally as a standup comedian. Obviously with standup, I write my own material, book my own gigs, promote my performances, etc. Quite frankly, it’s the only way I’m using the comms degree currently.

Should I include it on the resume? If so, how? People I know personally and professionally irl are giving mixed opinions.

I'm an incoming college freshman majoring in Communications & Media Studies and planning on minoring in sociology. I'm very interested in how media influences culture and how culture influences media. I honestly have no idea what I want to do career-wise; hopefully something creative that makes $$$. Anyway, I'm looking to double major, but don't really know what I should pair with communications. Sociology? Psychology? If anyone has any advice on possible majors or careers I would really appreciate it.