"Wait until you enter the real world"

Hi guys,

Until I’d started my internship at BCRC-WA I’d always scoffed at people who made remarks about university life being ‘the best time of your life,’ ‘so relaxed,’ ‘relatively stress-free.’ I thought these people were insane, and they drove me insane! I was always thinking “do you know how many assignments I have to do, how many all-nighters I’m pulling!?”

Now that I’m in the real workforce, so to speak, I completely understand. My stress levels are “through the roof” and I’m only an intern! 

Being that I am the only PR person here, the workload is very intensive and there’s a lot of pressure being put on me to deliver results. 

Similarly, there’s no one here to bounce ideas off in the same way there is at uni. It’s all up to you, and if something goes wrong, you don’t just get a bad mark, you get a bad reputation.

The idea that this is my reality next year is completely terrifying, but still quite exhilarating. Knowing that I’m five weeks away from being a professional PR consultant is mind-blowing. Seventeen years of schooling and it’s all coming to an end; the real world awaits me, whether I’m ready or not.

I know a lot of you guys are in the same boat here too; terrified of the reality that we will be in the workforce next year and thinking that we’re not ready for it. The truth is though, we are. We’ve studied for three years, undertaken internships, work experience, volunteered, spoken with industry professionals and so on. We are ready, and we are prepared. We just need to make ourselves realise it!

Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!

Ashni

The Beginning - PR in the Real World

I am Rebecca and I am currently working for an ATM company in a marketing and public relations role, gaining experience in dealing with a wide variety of stakeholders. The company is called Ezeatm and offers generic, non-bank ATMs to small business owners around Australia. Our most important customers would be small business owners in rural areas, particularly rural and remote New South Wales and Queensland.

Communication is key

I am currently working for the Managing Director of the company who wanted me on board to assist in the development of the company website and company communications directed towards key customers and organisations we work alongside. Ezeatm works in conjunction with two large organisations in order to provide reliable and efficient products to their customers.

Crisis Management

Dealing with technology on a regular basis can cause a variety of operational issues, customer dissatisfaction and tension between collaborating organisations. Crisis management is of great importance within a company like this. I have worked with the Managing Director to devise effective plans to combat or prevent a crisis from occurring.

Internal Relations

The internal set up of the organisation is challenging also as there are three offices, the Head Office being in Perth and two others in Sydney and Brisbane. The company operates largely as a team where each department relies on each other in order to carry out their individual duties. It is important that internal relations are maintained and effective communication between the three offices is maintained at all times. This often fails in busy periods, which is something the Managing Director has asked me to help with.

In my first week I had a meeting with an outsourced website design consultancy who trained me to use a program which involves sending email "blasts" to our key stakeholder groups. We send them to staff (internally) and customers (externally). We also constantly communication with organisations we collaborate with to ensure the smooth delivery of our product and our service.

I hope this first blog posts provides an insight into how the organisation works. My future blog posts will focus on the key areas I have briefly touched on in this first blog post. Stay tuned for more interesting experiences!

Rebecca

First steps into the real world

Third year, half way through semester one.. The panic set in. I had no placement to complete my Public Relationships Internship in semester two. Luckily Marie-Louise Malkin was willing and able to help me out. Some emails were sent out but sadly no response. Another hope and a bulk email was sent and I started losing hope, until I finally received an email back. Chantelle from Bauxite Alumina Joint Ventures was one of the only ones out of about 20 applications responded and I finally got my interview. The interview consisted of coffee and an explanation of what I would be doing, so I knew I was in.  

My first day arrived, I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect. Bound for Osborne Park, a 45 to 60 minutes drive, depending on traffic, I arrived at my internship. My first day was a bit of a blur, I was very nervous, I didn’t really know how office jobs worked and soon found out it was nothing like school or university. I found you didn’t exactly have to be busy all the time as I was stuck doing odd jobs to keep busy. Meeting everyone in the office I was overloaded with names to remember but I knew that everyone was so nice and welcoming and were all willing to help if and when I lost my way. Not understanding or knowing what to do, Lia and Chantelle are the ones that take care of me. Both are really nice and between the two of them manage to keep me busy. Lia is the communications officer and Chantelle is the managers external and public affairs person, she is my main supervisor, although she seems to be out of the office quite a bit, Lia is there as a back up if needed.

As the weeks go by I’m slowly finding my place and becoming more confortable within the office. I’ve moved from odd jobs like photo copying newspaper articles, to updating their media contact list, editing documents as well as their website and making spread sheets to show the layout for their agriculture shows. My recent activities have included creating, working on and promoting their facebook page as well as helping to organising and understanding what’s required at agriculture shows as well as working on documents that include business goals, objectives and strategies.

I’m really enjoying this as it’s different from anything I’ve done before, I wasn’t sure how I would go, despite the slow start. I’m really looking forward to working on some media releases and talking to journalists about promoting their business as well as participate in their agricultural shows to see different ways they promote their company and deal with local communities they need support from.  

Stay tuned to see how I fair in the real world!