Reflections of a PPR Intern

Hi folks!

Unfortunately, this will be my last blog entry as my internship with Professional Public Relations has now drawn to an end.

As I walked into the office on my last day knowing it would be the final time I would as a PPR intern, it made me reflect on my time here. Did I do enough? Had I immersed myself in the culture of the organisation? Did I leave a meaningful impact on PPR or would I soon become a distant memory meshed in with every other intern who was there?

I knew the one thing I wanted to do was to make myself stand out from other PPR interns. PPR only accepts 12 interns a year and when I was talking to the consultants, they could barely remember who the intern before me was. How was I going to prevent this from happening to me? Obviously, I wanted to be remembered as PPR is definitely an organisation I would like to stay in contact with, not only for potential employment but also networking opportunities. Perth, the market it is, I would likely come across many of these people again sometime in my career so it would be nice to maintain a relationship that I had fostered over the past four weeks which would extend the life of my internship.

Reading the article, Nine Tips for Ending Your Internship on a Positive Note made me realise I had to leave my internship believing I did make a positive impact not only with regards to the work I produced but also with the relationships I has formed. The article goes on to say there are certain things you should do on your last day (which I would definitely recommend doing for those of you still completing your internships). The following tips are slanted towards a consultancy only because that's where I undertook my internship but they are easily transferred to in-house.

My farewell email I sent everyone

Tie Up Loose Ends
I made sure that all the tasks I was given were completed and those that weren't, I made sure I told the consultant who I was doing it for that I was unable to get it done. As I had to brief the next intern, I made sure they were aware of what to do when they got to the office on Monday morning.

Set Up Time To Talk To Your Supervisor
I discussed with the HR manager the positives as well as the negatives I experienced during my internship and also thanked her for the opportunity.

Give A Standout Gift
As you should have read from my farewell email (sorry it's a bit blurry), I came into the office on my last day with donuts, cupcakes and spring rolls. I didn't think it was much but the comments I got back raving about the food was amazing. A little tip for you guys, food is always something that will make people happy so I would definitely suggest bringing something in on your last days. Chatting to one of the senior consultants, she told me it was great that I brought so much food in because as I said before, interns are usually forgotten in a month or so and a scenario to remember me she said: "Oh you don't remember Jamie? He was the intern that brought all that food in." Distinguish yourself and make yourself standout in more ways than just quality work!

Thank Everyone!
I literally thanked everyone at PPR; of course I thanked the HR manager like I said before for giving me the opportunity to complete my internship here but beyond that, I thanked the consultants, account managers, group directors and even the admin staff. I also had a chat with the executive director, personally thanking him and also to talk about what my future endeavours were. It was a great opportunity to pick his brain about what it's like to search for a job in the PR industry in Perth.
In my farewell email, I also thanked everyone again as I didn't want them to think that I took their efforts in providing me with work as unimportant. It took a lot of trust for them to give me work, particularly because they had known me for less than four weeks and that what I would do had real implications on their professional reputations. I was and still am extremely grateful and appreciative of this.

Ask For Feedback
Feedback is such an important part of any internship. How are we to improve if we don't know how our performance actually stood up? It was so important to me to get this feedback so I could work on my professional skills and to see if what I thought my weaknesses were ran parallel with what others thought. This will be discussed further in the second part of this blog post.

Stay In Touch
In the email I sent out (I know I keep referring to this email I wrote but a final email is really a great way to conclude an internship, complemented with personally going up to people) I included my personal mobile, email address as well as LinkedIn account details. As I have already said Perth is a small market and maintaining these connections is instrumental in my career longevity. Talking to the executive director, he told me to stay in contact with the HR manager emailing her once every couple of months saying what I am doing now even if I have already got a job.

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As you know, I asked for feedback if anyone had time in my farewell email. I invited them to my desk or just to send me a brief email about anything regarding my performance. Quality of work, meeting deadlines and communication were things I particularly wanted to know about though. Obviously, this internship meant more to me than just a grade on my transcript; I wanted to know how I would perform in a role within a consultancy because of course, what we're all looking for after graduation is employment. Any feedback I received while at PPR, I would use as constructive and help myself improve for any future employment opportunities be it at PPR or at another organisation.

After I sent out that email, it was so humbling to have so many of the consultants come up to me and tell me that I did a great job and that they would definitely recommend me to other organisations, particularly because it was coming from such a credible source as PPR. If any of you had read one of my earlier blogs, I was daunted by the fact that the consultants wouldn't accept me as a valid and reliable intern which turned out to be all in my head. This is my message to all of those who have just started their internships or haven't started as yet: as long as you are 100% committed to producing quality work, you should have no problems being considered as reliable, trustworthy and responsible. If you were in an intern role like mine, I had to generate my own work and it was important to be seen as reliable because the consultants wouldn't have given me any extra work to do, if they saw me as incompetent and unorganised. Looking back on it, I'm glad I had to find my own work because if I was given tasks to do, I may have become complacent and not have taken as much pride in my work. Having to "work for work" made me just that much more motivated to keep deadlines and produce quality work. It has definitely made me more work-ready and now believe that every task done, no matter how menial I think it is, fits into the larger picture of PR and is something to be proud of.

Reflecting back on my entire internship, I now realise how beneficial it actually was. Particularly because this is my last unit, I will be entering the job market as of now. The experience gained at PPR has helped shape my idea of employment as well as the field of public relations. It has allowed me to explore different elements of PR with a wide variety of clients. The one question that still remains is whether I want be employed in a consultancy or as an in-house PR professional. Having never worked in-house before, I cannot answer this question without bias and unfortunately, until I myself figure out which career path I want to head down, I cannot conclusively give you my thoughts on this. I sincerely apologise but as you know, it is not a decision I can make lightly.

As I now look to the future and graduation in February, I now look onwards and upwards with the new found knowledge I have gained through my internship. It will be interesting to see how I apply everything I have learnt here into getting a job in the PR industry. I have had a pleasure reading all of your blog posts and hope you have enjoyed reading mine. Best of luck to you all and hope to see you guys at graduation next year!

Happy Interning!

Jamie :)