Accredited in Public Relations - Credential gets new visibility

Full disclosure here: I'm on the national board of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and I earned my APR in 1989. But like the shoemakers' children, we PRSA leaders haven't done a great job of promoting the value of the APR credential to other PR people and hiring managers. But that is changing.

Thanks to some great research conducted to learn about the skills PR people actually use in their day-to-day work, we redesigned the Accreditation exam to be more relevant -- and harder to pass.

Now, PRSA and the other 10 partners in the Universal Accreditation Board are gearing up to launch some marketing efforts to help explain to members why they should try to achieve this distinction, and to help hiring managers understand why the APR means a candidate has an extra level of qualification through study and demonstration of skills and competency.

Today's South Jersey Courier Post explained the APR in its Alphabet Soup column on the Work and Life page in the Business section.