Unforgettable Internship

Hello fellow interns

I have finally finished my internship, having gone through this experience brought a whole new level of maturity for me and put PR into perspective for me. At first I was unsure of perusing PR as my career but now that I got a taste of it, I am more certain then ever that this is what I want to do.

Looking back three months ago I remember I sat in a glass room in the FH office as I waited nervously to be interviewed and evaluated by the Account Manager of CF and Account Executive of Premium. They asked me questions, looked at my CV and explained what the job scope for me as an Intern would be they said; “If you manage to finish your monitoring tasks well and finish on time we will entrust you with other tasks and if you really show that you can handle responsibility we will even allow you to handle clients. This sentence caused me much stress, I kept on wondering, what is this monitoring task and why wouldn’t I be able to finish it on time, is it so challenging? I wondered if they will ever trust me with more important and more significant work.

I was called back and began working a week later, my first day was disastrous, but things began to pick up so fast and work started rolling in to the point where my whole team would be on leave and I would be trusted with work. I actually only processed clipping for clients less then five times.

Now I have reached the end of my internship and looking back at all the things I have had to learn and the tasks I had to do, being worried after my interview seems so silly. This internship truly prepared me for the real world and there were many factors that contributed to this. From what I learned these are the factors that make an internship an opportunity of a life time that become an experience to cherish and learn from.

Internal Relations:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains the needs of every human being in the work place has certain needs and wants which range from the necessities like food and health to the wants that motivate people to work such as creativity to respect. I can honestly say that the company I worked in had all this to offer and much more. I was happy to be included in all the work my team handled, called in for all meetings, brain storming and other work. I did encounter a rough patch at my first week in work when I was spoken to a little roughly by a colleague who apparently had a habit of testing new people by being confrontational with them. When I felt the slightest disrespect from her for the first time, I put my foot down and showed her that she needs to learn to respect everybody regardless of their status in the company. Later on we happened to become good friends but we probably would not have been if I had not stood up for myself. So I guess if I have any advice for new interns it’s to stand up for yourself and demand and earn respect because you deserve it no matter who you are. This must be backed up with hard work and willingness to work and take orders. Otherwise you might just come across as just rebellious and lazy.

During my time in FH I noticed a corporate culture that I admired very much, which was honest and sincere group work and support. Even though the office was divided in terms of clients and type of work, the different teams were keen to help any team that needed it. For instance during brain storms depending on the challenge at hand we would even at times call in the entire office to put our heads together and come up with the best possible plans. If the challenge was simpler and did no require as many people, then the person calling for the brainstorm would just ask those that could afford to spend some time to help them. There was even a time when the tech team needed help and one of the girls from the healthcare team and the boss stayed in office with us till late at night. This corporate culture feels rewarding as you don’t feel that you are working in isolation.


External Relations

External relations include the company’s communication and relation with all of its stakeholders, the key being the clients and the media. The public are the top priority stakeholder through the clients so they are naturally a top priority too. However the people that we are in constant contact with are the clients. Client relation or management is essential for the survival of any PR firm that aims to succeed. I remember the first event I was involved in for one of our clients turned a little unpleasant as the client was unhappy about some minor details and my manager talked to me about it and asked me to come up with an idea to fix the issue, my first reaction was to be defensive and say how great we did and how well the event went, he stopped me and said “it doesn’t matter, if the client is not happy, we have to make her happy, this is client management, we will never learn if we are defensive”. This is excellent advice as we often make this mistake, thinking the work we have done is already the best, and we often become defensive when we are criticized, but if we take the criticism and turn into positive input to make our work better, the result will continue to improve.

Client relations, like any other complex relationship between human beings includes fulfilling certain expectations from both sides. For instance my boss believed in handing the client what they needed before they even had to call back and ask about it. However it was inevitable for the client to call at times and ask about the progress of our work on certain tasks. Usually following the call we would send the client a progress report to let them know work is being done, however not all clients ask for this so its not a necessity but a positive small touch that makes a world of difference to the client.

I also had a chance to work with NGO’s that have a different corporate culture and require a different sense of communication. When working with NGO’s we were faced with some hostility at times as they expressed their disappointment with the way our client had behaved in the past. This is where damage control came in, we took their criticism, assured them that it will be looked into and asked for their expertise and advice in guiding us to make things better not only for out client but also for the betterment of the society that we planed to work with. Using this approach they seemed to face us with a different attitude as they realised we wanted to work together with them.

In the end I felt that while we may learn the major things from the textbook, the work environment teaches you little details that make or break the deal at times. In FH we are constantly taught to respect teamwork, results, quality service, ethics, clients, media, public, and personal success. The lessons we learn during our internship are truly valuable and unforgettable, this will be our stepping stone and platform to go places in our lives. It was definitely worth the terrible work hours, long trips on the bus and the never ending stress of work and deadlines.

I thank the people who made this internship fulfilling and gratifying on all levels.

All the best to future interns and the rest who are ending theirs soon.
Anna
LUCT