N
icola Lambrechts had been doing communications consulting for 18 years when she took a job at Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) six months ago.
It was a great job, but while she was working there Lambrechts realized she was more energized by a specific type of public relations work: crisis management.
“It was a really exciting role, a really great company with lots going on and always busy,” she said. “But I realized when I was working there that I was most energized by situations that required careful thinking, quick response, and it was issues and reputation management that really energized me.”
“When I was working there I found I enjoyed it, but I was particularly captivated when there was a need to really think carefully about what the strategy was going to be.”
She was recruited by Longview Communications, a firm that specializes in communications for companies going through mergers and acquisitions and proxy fights, or, as Lambrechts puts it, “organizations going through change.”
Because Lambrechts had identified the kind of communications work she enjoyed the most, she knew the high-stakes nature of the work at Longview would be appealing.
While not everyone enjoys working an unpredictable schedule in a high-stress environment, Lambrechts knew from her previous work that that environment was where she thrives.
“When a company faced an issue or a crisis, it’s not 9-to-5,” she said. “You’re pretty much on call 24 hours, seven days a week.
“A while ago I had a client reach out to me on Saturday night at 7 o’clock. … I was at a dinner party with friends, and I needed to go and meet with [the client] and provide that support on the fly when they needed it.”
On in-house versus consulting | “When you’re in-house, your clients are all different groups within the company. You could be working with the marketing team; you could be working with the e-commerce team, as the case was at Best Buy. When you’re consulting, your clients are from every single sector of the economy. They could have 100,000 employees; they could have 10.”
Has a work or life challenge taught you a key career lesson? Contact Jen St. Denis at [email protected]
