My
one month internship just ended. Looking back to this very short period, I feel
lucky that I have so many supports from my department and their trust in me for
me to try.
As
this is the last post, I will be sharing my opinion of how to be a better PR
person.
1)
Be flexible
This
is a “must have personality” in workplace, especially in PR field. I was
assigned to do social media operation and daily media monitoring. But I was expected
to contribute in other tasks (In charge of two campaigns which are not related
to my main job) and dealing with emergency (As what I mentioned in the first
post: a girl committee suicide in one of our hotel branch in a Sunday morning).
Only the weak people see challenges as bullying from the surrounding people. I
have told by the others that how to say “no” for extra works. But I think it is
better to say “yes” because we know every challenge is a chance for you to
learn and grow up.
2)
Move fast, and faster
In
real world, it is not always giving you three months to plan a campaign. It can
just start from an idea on the weekly meeting and you have to make it real in
one week. There is not much time for you to organize and hesitate. You have to
move as fast as you can, with a clear mind.
3)
Build your basic skills
Many
people criticise that learning in university is more on theory and practicing
in real world is another thing. It is true sometimes. But if you did not pick
up those theories in university, you don’t even have a chance to practice in
real world. You could feel blur when you are given a task. To avoid this, you
have to make the theory into practical skills before you even enter the
workplace. People say don’t bother with crisis management and so on because an
intern will probably doing media clipping every day. Who knows I met a
potential crisis just the 7th day in my internship? Have the basic
theories in mind and build some skills will help you, even though you don’t know
when it can be used.
4)
Be ethical
As
we all know that PR is bridge between the organization and the public. It is
called “Guanxi” in China. You are going to face a lot of temptation. I am
serious. You have to build good relationship with the others but also a lot of
people out there are approaching you to seek some opportunities for future
cooperation. And what they use sometimes is money or unethical benefit. We have
to be smart enough to say “NO” unless you are pushing yourself to prison.
So
be flexible, be prepared, be ethical and move fast in your PR career and I wish
all of us a bright future.
Have a good PR day!
Claudia
Xinyin Xie
2 comments:
Hi Claudia, yes i was given a lot of tasks to handle while interning. i had to juggle a few tasks at once and deadlines were almost the same day. there were time where i wanted to say to my supervisor that i cannot handle the stress and the workload and then i think back at my time in Curtin and wonder how did i managed to complete assignments after assignments and meeting deadlines and what not. i decided to implement my time management skills from uni and apply during my internship. and the end result was fascinating. i ended up learning a lot instead of the things we know from uni. and that build trust with my supervisor because it shows that i can handle the task and i can have it done. everything is a learning process it's up to you whether or not you want learn.
Dear Claudia,
Fantastic recommendations on how to be a better PR person! *Applaud* I would like to thank you for sharing them and I could relate to what you've written. When you said be flexible, I thought of certain times where I would be stubborn to the way I wanted to deal with things. It could have been better if I would just take a step back and let the other solutions run into the picture. I also had to do things that I was not very comfortable with but then i realized, it made me a more courageous person and I was able to discover other capabilities of mine that was hidden. So do not be afraid to try and undertake more work than the others because you will gain more and prosper!
Time management! It is a very important skill that will lead you to success. Yes, we have to be proactive and pace ourselves in order to produce quality work on time! Accepting constructive criticism is important to help one improve for the better. However, it is also important to critically judge whether a given criticism should be taken into account or not. Some criticism are given based on personal emotion and could lead to damage rather than improvement. I have seen that happened to other colleague during my internship. For example, being called names and what not.
Overall, this is a great post and I sincerely wish that no matter where you are right now, you will be successful and enjoy life to the fullest with the experience that you gain in life each and every day!
Kindest regards,
June Ting Mei Jiun
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