Little Lessons learnt in the office

When I first started my internship, I realised that I had to learn all these tiny lessons first in order to make things easier.


#1: Pick up the phone
I've always had a pretty irrational dislike of phone calls. I realise this sounds pretty foolish for someone that is studying Public Relations. I just don't like having to call a person who is often too busy and rushed to listen to what you are trying to say. I've never had the task of contacting the media however I was often put on the task of sourcing for venues or event partners.  Looking for partners was a completely new experience (which I will blog about another time)

Initially, I would email to touch base and only call several days later if I was forced to, usually due to non replies. I soon found out that this was very unproductive.

In order to get all my tasks done as quickly as possible, I had to move out of my comfort zone and pick up the phone.  The more phone calls I made, the better I felt about making them. Sometimes the calls were still nerve-wrecking to make. Especially when I was looking for partners/information when our company was simply bidding for, and had not been awarded the project yet.  There is always an issue of how much information was alright to reveal.

I have found that many people will ultimately still tell me: "Okay, why don't you just drop me an email" before I am even done talking. But that being said, it is still easier to get your foot in the door after making that initial contact. Due to the fact that people are expecting you to email them, they are quicker to respond and will not simply skip over your email thinking its unimportant.

One more thing that I found out was, often after the first introductory call, most of my communication resumed to be via emails.
 
So if there is anyone else out there as phone-shy as me (kind of ironic because I'm really not a shy person) remember, pick up the phone! It'll almost definitely help in making your to-do list quicker to complete.

#2: Wordy emails are not always your friend
When I first started because I was not always sure of how much information to reveal to the client, my emails would sometimes be wordy and overly formal.

Luckily my director gave me some advice on this and explained that often clients did not have the time to sift through long emails. To make things easier for them I was told it would be perfectly fine to create bulleted lists to aid their reading. However, this did not mean that my grammer could be anything less than perfect and that the tone could be overly informal.


#3: Casual does not mean sloppy

This is not really a lesson I learnt but rather is something I was glad I already knew before I started at my placement. 

My placement was at a small office with a casual environment, this meant that jeans were okay for day to day work. However, this did not mean that slippers and sloppy t-shirts would be accepted.  For my duration there, while I did go to work in jeans and leggings (if there were no meetings scheduled), I was always sure to wear covered shoes and to ensure my clothes were not to revealing.

I was also always more dressed up for meetings or project briefings with potential clients.

I'm glad to say that judging from my own director's attire, I did make good choices on my wardrobe. 

Here are some other commonly made internship mistakes as according to BBC. I found this list to be very true and even though we've already gotten our internships, it is a good read to ensure we aren't making mistakes that could cost us future job opportunities or a good reference.  
(Link via click-through, in case you missed it)

Til my next entry! I hope everyone is having a good time at their internship!

Cheers!
Nicolette, Curtin (Singapore)