Jonathan Hirshon knows his seven-person high-tech public-relations firm can't vie for talent with the big agencies in Silicon Valley--not with unemployment there running at only 2.8%. So the founder of Horizon Communications seeks out unlikely recruits: career changers who can't tell Java from latte and have no PR experience. "I'm getting people my competitors would never have looked to hire," he says.

His team includes an East Asian scholar, a sociologist, a former cryptographer for the National Security Agency, and a literature major who taught history in Prague. "I can train people about technology, but I can't train them to be smart," says Hirshon, 31.

Recruits study technology for a month, then shadow veterans on client visits and learn to write press releases. It seems to work: Three-year-old Horizon's revenues were $300,000 in 1996 and $450,000 in 1997. This year, it projects $1 million, from such clients as Silicon Graphics Inc. Hirshon offers employees flexible schedules, telecommuting, and competitive salaries of about $35,000 for rookies. In return, Hirshon says, these employees provide fresh viewpoints. While most PR folks just "smile and dial," he says, career changers delve deeper--like David McHale, the former history teacher, who spiced up a routine product announcement by focusing on how the technology was used on a South Pole expedition.

"They don't look or talk like PR people," concedes McHale's client, Giacomo Marini, CEO of video equipment maker FutureTel Inc. "They've been surprisingly effective, though."

And that's just the kind of good press that every PR firm needs.

By Gary Andrew Poole in Santa Clara, Calif.

This article was originally published online as part of the May 25, 1998 edition of Business Week's Enterprise.

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