The Challenges of Interning at a Small Business

I've experienced a little bit of everything working my internship at We Print It and I'm only half way through it. I've multitasked reception duty and managing the planning of Facebook content, I've had a screen of account processing and another composing an internal communication memo open at the same time. Unsurprisingly the most common multitasking situation I've found myself is that of scanning. More than once over the course of my three weeks here I've started scanning a document or two for my own work thinking it would take 5 minutes then found myself still scanning an hour later as every man and his dog had found a handful of vital documents that needed scanning, and since I "already had the scanner set up" would I please do it for them?

Working for a small company where I'm primarily driving the PR initiatives by myself and I have very little budget is far from the fast paced, multi-tasking environment that so many of my peers seem to be interning in. Days like today though where illness sweeping the office and it's a bit of all hands on every deck give me a tiny, tiny glimpse of what that's potentially like. I have a lot of respect for everyone who manages it.

Marketing and PR are so integrated that often it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other stops especially in a small business context. Multiple times over the course of my internship I’ve done tasks I know are actually marketing tasks, especially in planning of Facebook posts. Whilst this isn’t exactly news to me, tutors have told us over the course of our degrees smaller organisations often integrate the two functions; it’s been interesting to see it in action. I’ve also had to be careful to make sure that I’m not getting to distracted by the marketing side of things after all this is a Public Relations Internship.

The final challenge I’ve had to face is communication with my supervisor. For a large portion of my Internship my supervisor has actually been in the Sydney or Melbourne offices due to both regular schedules and unforeseen complications. Because of this majority of my communication with my supervisor has been over the phone or through emails. Though communication through email is something that's obviously very common in this day and age, it can sometimes be frustrating when I've emailed something for approval that won't come until the next day because of meeting or time differences.

Of course don't think I'm  complaining, my Internship so far has been a rewarding experience and these challenges have all been an amazing learning experience, and quite an eye opener. The “Real World” is a lot messier and less structured than our classes and assignments.

So I put a question to you, what’s been the most challenging part of your internship? Was it something you were expecting or not?

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Half way to somewhere

Hello there,

My internship experience at West Australian Ballet has been fantastic so far! I can not believe how the time has flown. I am more than half way through and it seems like I just began my journey yesterday! The office environment is friendly and inviting, and I believe this is the reason why I am enjoying my experience so much. 

The Ballet has closed  over the Christmas period however I will start up again on the 6th of January. 

I have learned a lot about the industry despite the short time I have been interning. I was unsure of what exactly the role would entail. I assumed public relations practitioners to have strict deadlines similar to that of a journalistic career. I thought I would find myself in situations that were just as hectic. But having entered this industry I have realised that it is actually a quite laid back career pathway. I thought deadlines for media releases, newsletters, clippings and  social media plans would be tight. From West Australian Ballet I have learned that organisational skills and a strategic plan are key to success. Once the PR department is organised (like WAB), staff can spend a week working on a brilliant media release and pass it around to ensure perfection. I found this style of a collaborative approach suits me. I can understand the value of having multiple practitioners overlooking multiple project.

It is interesting to enter an organisation as a young person who had never worked in an office before. I felt as if I had gone back in time after my first  few days within the office. Although systems work reasonably well, I feel that West Australian Ballet could develop more contemporary and efficient business information systems within the office to eliminate menial tasks and clerk errors. This would help to produce more effective services for customers and enable staff to attend to more important tasks. Although the staff ranges from a span of young to elderly people I feel that the systems in place do not cover all aspects of the business and that the systems lack a modern approach. Excel spread sheets are used alongside a computer information system known as ACT. Paper is still used as a primary medium within the office and I believe this should be eliminated. On the other hand, the company has a customer base of mainly elderly people and I understand that paper systems are important for the majority of customer. There is a divide within the business industry. Some offices are embracing change whilst others hold on to older methods. As a young person entering the workforce in 2014 I assumed that more than 90% of offices are paperless and that technology is embraced. This is not the case. To me, this was quite a shock.