Bar to PR: How Entry-Level Skills Can Translate to Success
In high school, I needed a way to fill my gas tank and fund outings with friends. At sixteen, I entered the restaurant industry and made a home for myself there. Over the years, I’ve learned the ins and outs of every front-of-house position, though one quickly became my favorite: bartending. With the mix of creativity and connection, I found it to fit me perfectly.
As I prepare to enter the workforce post-graduation, I recognize that slinging drinks, while fulfilling to an extent, doesn’t offer the long-term security and stability I seek. Here are five lessons bartending taught me that have bolstered my work ethic and allowed me to transition smoothly and thrive in public relations internships and professional environments.
1. Multitasking and Time Management
Between balancing a barrage of drink orders, keeping a clean bar, handling payments, and counting change, there are few breaks in the world of bartending. A bartender who cannot prioritize and complete tasks efficiently is a bartender who will quickly find themselves out of a job. The need to be able to juggle multiple tasks and track progress on each one is imperative while working a bar, just as it is in the world of public relations. While drink tickets might pile up, so can campaigns, especially while working in an agency environment that deals with multiple clients/projects of different natures simultaneously. To succeed in either, a solid understanding of how to determine the importance of tasks while still preserving the quality of the product is key.
2. Conflict Resolution & Problem-Solving
Murphy’s Law has no regard for what you do for work, and it will come to bite you. Whether you are willing to have quick enough reflexes to mend the situation properly is up to you. Behind a bar, you might deal with sink flooding, product shortages, drink mistakes, or customer dissatisfaction. In the world of public relations, these crises have an opportunity to take on a bigger form, such as misinformation accidentally being distributed, or public backlash against an organization. Either way, a time will come when you need to think on your feet and work adeptly with your team to restore the public’s impression of a brand.
3. Adaptability and Resilience
As anyone who has held a restaurant job or other entry-level job may know, you’ll be asked to work long hours, be flexible for the sake of the business, wear multiple hats, and adjust through any number of changes. If you’ve spent enough time in public relations, that call for elasticity might sound familiar. Adapting to changing environments, whether external or internal, is a necessary trait for public relations professionals. Any amount of resourcefulness, role-shifting, and pliability can be needed to complete even one campaign, let alone multiple.
4. Communication and Teamwork
Nine times out of ten, the job you end up with will require you to work with people, at least on a project-by-project basis. Whether those are other bartenders, other creatives in a communications department, or even clients, it is essential to hone your communication skills. Competency (if not excellence) in conveying your ideas and receiving both criticism and outside suggestions is a soft skill that is often assumed in job descriptions. Conducting yourself professionally and learning how to best present yourself in a team environment will only lead to success in any case. If nothing else, you’ll be a pleasure to work with, and clients and supervisors alike will recognize you as someone reliable, ideally leading to future contracts and growth opportunities as you continue in your career.
5. Customer Service and Emotional Intelligence
The concept of an excitable or irritable drunk is a stranger to no one, and regardless of how kind you are, it is still impossible to please everyone. An issue will always arise, and your ability to deal with it will define you as someone reliable behind the bar. Without the ability to diffuse a customer complaint or approach a request with an open mind, it will become impossible to deal with customers and clients alike. In any industry that is client or consumer-facing, there is a need for the workers to be able to gauge the feelings of their customers and how to best approach them at any given moment. While you may be the one who’s “right,” at either end of the spectrum, the bar-goer or the public relations client is always inclined to stick with the good old “customer is always right” theory. Regardless of the arena, you’ll need to be able to apply emotional and logical appeals to find the best situation for your client, whether that looks like a refund or a campaign redesign.
About Sara
Sara Bagley is a senior studying Writing with a minor in Advertising and Public Relations. She currently works as an Account Associate for GrandPR, for GVSU Housing as Lead Marketing Assistant, and as an editor for GVSU’s Lanthorn. She has served in multiple internships in the past, including nonprofit marketing, entertainment public relations, and ghostwriting. After graduation, she hopes to work in a marketing or public relations role in the music or entertainment industry.