If there’s one thing I have learnt about
working in a consultancy it’s that there is so much research to do and so
little time to do it in! If you’re working in a non-for-profit organisation or
a particular corporate industry then most often than not you will know your
organisation inside and out.
Working in a public relations consultancy
on the other hand means you have many clients and many organisations. The
negative thing about this is that there is so much research to do especially if
you are working with a completely new client!
On Tuesday at my prac placement at Shine
Communications, I had the task of creating all the information to go on a
website for one our clients. This client was a high end fashion and hair
stylist who has a salon in Subiaco called Jas
International. Our client wanted to create a website to create more
publicity for his clients and give people more information about what he does.
Now I thought this was all very interesting
but the only problem was I knew nothing about this client and knew nothing
about high-end hairdressers! And I had to send everything to my supervisor to
read by that afternoon!
I was given a list of things the client
wanted included in his website such as information about the salon, where it’s
located, style trends, products they offer and how to buy online. I only had about 4 hours to do it all so got
cracking right away because I didn’t want to let my supervisor down.
I started at 9:30 in the morning and
straight away researched high-end salons in Australia, New York, London and
Paris to find out how exactly they worded their information and the kind of
style of writing they were using. I then had to research lots of different hair
products, hair extensions, fashion trends, popular hair colours and styles, you
name it - I researched it! I then had to try and take this knowledge and put it
into sentences with a posh or luxurious flow to it due to the nature of the
high-end salon – very difficult!
I had to use a lot of descriptive and
creative language to position the readers of the website into feeling they
would be in a high-end fashion and beauty palace if they were to visit the
salon. I had to set the scene to give clients the idea that the treatment
you’ll receive at this hair salon is like the treatment celebrities would
receive if they were in Paris or Milan or New York. Using descriptive language in everyday
sentences is very hard but thankfully having done feature writing in one of my
journalism units at university the task was a little bit easier.
Safe to say after those 4-5 long and
stressful hours I pretty much knew everything there was to know about the
latest fashion and trends in hair and beauty. I sent everything off to my
supervisor about 2pm and she was happy with it, which I was stoked about. There
were a few things that needed touching up and so I spent the rest of the
afternoon chopping and changing bits of information until my supervisor and I
were happy with it. I finished everything about 5:30pm and realised how
exhausted I was.
My supervisor is a one-man show. She runs
her consultancy all by herself with the help of only one other employee who is
leaving next week. It just made me think “I don’t know how she does it!”
People that work in a consultancy must be
bombarded with copious amounts of research they have to do before they are
assigned any work for the clients. I have always wanted to work in a
consultancy simply because I think I would get bored working for just one
organisation. I like a bit of variation in what I do. However today showed me
just how stressful working in a consultancy can be, especially when you are
working with brand new clients!
At the same time though, consultancies
normally only take on as many clients as they can handle. Receiving a brand new
client is stressful at the start trying to find out everything you can about
them, but I guess once this is done, and if you do a good job, they can
potentially be one of your clients for many more years to come. Overall I guess
working in a consultancy is pretty good, but today definitely made me think more
about my future career choices!
