The PR industry’s high school stereotypes

These groups affect where people sit, where they eat, with whom they hang out, and even with whom they are allowed to talk (depending on rank in popularity).

All of us might be out of high school, but we will never escape the lessons we learned from the jocks, cheerleaders, stoners, and hipsters.

No matter your group in high school, some point you interacted with those of another clique. This is when your PR skills started to form.

You, as a future PR pro, started finding a common ground to talk and build a relationship with them. Obviously, this may not have been a relationship in which you invested a large amount of time, but you may have benefited from this relationship down the road.

You could have been a jock asking a nerd to help with homework or a band geek asking a cheerleader for a makeover. You used your interpersonal skills to communicate and build a relationship, just as PR professional build relationships with clients and media.

Here are four classic high school groups, and their PR industry equivalent:

The popular kids: Crisis communicators

“Mean Girls” is a hilarious, cliché-packed high school movie that shows crisis management at its best. The popular girls, known as “plastics,” are constantly in crisis mode to ensure they maintain their status.