PR one of toughest jobs to juggle

CareerCast.com studied 200 of what they consider the most stressful jobs with the above list being the top 10. While fire-fighters tops the list, PR finds its place in the eight position. Besides them, the list mentions jobs such as corporate executives, taxi drivers, surgeon, police officers, commercial pilots, patrol officers and advertising account as one of the most stressful jobs in USA.

To create their list, the website created a "methodology" with the most important factors or what they refer to as "mega factors" being work environment, job competitiveness and risk.

The website created a scoring range that gave points in five different areas ' job environment, Income, hiring outlook, physical demands, and stress. However, they have omitted jobs such as military soldiers, teachers, nurses, and air traffic controllers from the list.

According to careercast, ""Public relations specialists make speeches and give presentations, often in front of large crowds. It's a competitive field so specialists must work quickly and be able to meet deadlines." Therefore it becomes a stressful job.

Ask industry experts in India and they would tell you according to popular notions, PR is not a cake walk and it requires lots of hardwork, just like any other job. Most of them agreed that it's a stressful job. "Clients often put pressure on us to get the things done as fast as possible. Most of us work long hours and even on weekends," said one PR executive on condition of anonymity.

"Another problem is that the remuneration what the clients used to give five years back, they expect us to work in the same pay-scale and get maximum work. So that puts additional pressures," said another executive.

In fact another survey by American Psychological Association cited that 62 per cent Americans are suffering from work related stress.

So why is such an increase in stress these days? Well the answer is simple and obvious. People want to make more money and want to have a more lavish lifestyle. Stress could have various connotations. It could be peer pressure, it could be self-inflicted, it could be because of a bad boss, job insecurity or even too much of work.

While every job as its own stress, the corporate world is the maximum which is being affected by it. To satisfy the clients can be a tough job and they would welcome any help that would come their way. Most felt corporate communication another side of the coin of PR, which is a little better off. Most PR people felt that corporate communications helps them to bridge with the clients, although even they are under pressure and also give in to pressures, which has a cascading effect.