Starting a Career in Communications

The Questions That Really Matter

By the time you reach the end of a communications degree, you will already be familiar with the traditional career paths: marketing, PR, advertising, internal communications, perhaps public affairs or investor relations. One question, however, receives far less attention in education: Which of these fields is right for you, and in which environment do you want to practise it?

Based on my experience, there are four questions that can help you find your direction, regardless of whether you eventually work in marketing, PR or a role that combines both.

Question 1: Which world do you want to work in as a communicator?

This is the most important strategic decision, yet it is rarely discussed. The environment and subject area you work in will often shape your career more strongly than the specific discipline or function you choose.

These different worlds cannot always be clearly separated. A DAX-listed company may operate in both B2B and B2C markets, while a major foundation may be involved in both science communication and political advocacy. Nevertheless, each world has its own communications mix:

• Digital brands and e-commerce: Performance-driven, creator-focused and data-intensive. PR often plays a secondary role. People working in this field think in terms of funnels, ROAS and community building.
• Consumer goods and established brands: Established brands with large advertising budgets, their own brand history and well-developed PR structures. Marketing, traditional communications and brand management work closely together. Crisis communication and reputation management play a central role.
• B2B and industry: Long sales cycles, trade media, industry events and account-based marketing. Making complex topics easy to understand is often more important than achieving maximum reach.
• Large corporations: Several stakeholder groups must be addressed at the same time, including customers, investors, employees, the general public and policymakers. Communications in this environment are often highly political and strongly shaped by regulation.
• Associations, NGOs and political organisations: Campaigns, mobilisation, fundraising, member communications and public affairs. The communications mix varies as widely as the organisations themselves, ranging from highly professional performance marketing for fundraising to purely advocacy-focused work.
• Government agencies and the public sector: Public information, crisis communication and transparency requirements. This is a world with its own rules and structures, and its complexity is often underestimated.
• Science and research: Science communication, stakeholder dialogue and communication with specialist audiences. Once again, this is a distinct environment with its own requirements.

Each of these worlds has its own communications mix. Some can operate without traditional PR, others without traditional marketing, while some require both, together with public affairs and investor relations. Once you have chosen the world you want to work in, you have already made an important career decision. The discipline often follows almost automatically.

Question 2: Which activities give you energy every day?

Ultimately, you do not spend your working day dealing with abstract disciplines. You spend it carrying out specific activities. The more honest question is therefore: What kind of work do you enjoy?

• Numbers and testing: Setting up A/B tests, reading dashboards, testing hypotheses and allocating budgets. This is a good fit for people who enjoy continuous optimisation and working with data.
• Writing and arguments: Developing positions, writing, editing and adapting content for different audiences and tones. This suits people who see language as a precision tool and do not mind spending half an hour refining a single sentence.
• Images and visual communication: Developing concepts, visual languages, videos and designs. This is the right area for people who think visually and have a strong sense of composition and impact.
• People and relationships: Speaking with journalists, creators, employees, political decision-makers and clients. Building trust, maintaining networks and moderating conflicts. This suits people who enjoy listening to others and can handle difficult conversations.

Most roles combine several of these activities, but each role has a particular focus. Which activity motivates you to start your working day?

Question 3: Agency or in-house?

This is the structural question. It is often overlooked, but it can shape your daily working life during the first years of your career more strongly than the discipline itself. By “in-house”, I mean working as a permanent employee in an organisation’s communications department, in contrast to working at an agency that serves several clients.

• Agency: Variety and speed. You work with several clients, different industries and many topics at the same time. The learning curve is steep because you are exposed to a wide range of tasks within a short period. The downside can include pitch pressure, the need to account for billable hours and sometimes less opportunity to explore individual topics in depth.
• In-house: Depth. One brand, one industry and one product or service. You can see the long-term impact of your work, understand the organisation’s internal processes and build lasting relationships with colleagues. The downside can include longer decision-making processes, more internal politics and a narrower range of topics.
• Freelance or solo: With today’s tools, starting independently is possible much earlier than it was five years ago. My personal advice, however, is that it can be risky at the beginning of your career. During your first few years, a strong team and critical managers who help you develop your judgement will usually take you further.

I have worked both in-house and at agencies of different sizes. Based on this experience, I can confirm both descriptions: the steep learning curve at an agency and the greater depth of an in-house role. Which setup is right for you depends more on your personality than on the structure itself.

Question 4: How will you make AI work for you?

This is the question that no one entering the profession in 2026 can avoid. Generative AI is changing what is expected from junior professionals in almost every area of communications. In everyday PR work, drafts, research and monitoring can now be produced within minutes. In marketing, AI generates hundreds of ad variations, optimises target groups, builds customer journeys and fundamentally changes SEO and search. Both fields can now produce content faster than they can review it.

What matters when starting your career today:

• A critical approach to sources and data: When working with text, check AI-generated output against primary sources. When working with data, question models and attribution methods. In both cases, an AI model that presents a false statement convincingly is more dangerous than having no model at all.
• Judgement: Recognising the right tone when editing a text. Selecting the two ad variations that fit the brand from fifty AI-generated options. Understanding when something sounds or looks AI-generated and when it does not.
• Strategic context: AI can produce content quickly, but it does not know which message, campaign or target group is right at a particular moment. Understanding this remains your responsibility.
• Understanding workflows: AI rarely replaces just one tool. It changes entire workflows. Those who understand early on how different tools work together will have an advantage over those who only know how to write individual prompts.
• Confidence with tools rather than fear of them: Those who take AI seriously from an early stage will be at an advantage. Those who hope the topic will simply disappear have a problem. The faster AI produces, the more important the abilities that machines do not possess become: making judgements about what should actually be published, what is truly relevant and what fits the brand. The value of communications work is shifting from production towards reviewing, selecting and deciding.

Final Thoughts

It is better to answer these four questions honestly than to base your career decisions on outdated labels:

1. Which world do you want to work in as a communicator: digital brands, consumer goods, B2B, large corporations, NGOs, politics, the public sector or research?

2. Which activities give you energy every day: numbers, writing, visual communication or working with people?

3. In which structure will you learn most effectively: an agency, an in-house role or a combination of both?

4. How will you make AI work for you, without making your own role unnecessary?

Specialising in a field that suits you can provide clarity when starting your career. At the same time, broad and transferable foundational skills remain equally valuable. Only you can decide which path is right for you. But you will make a more honest and informed decision once you have answered these four questions for yourself.