Organisation 101

Today my internship officially ended (queue loud chorus of cheers) and for my final blog I’d like to share some tips on one of the most important lessons I learnt over the past three months.

Here goes!

'BE ORGANISED. BE, BE ORGANISED'

Moment of truth, I’m terribly unorganised. Give me a filing cabinet and I’ll destroy it in about five minutes. Give me an assignment and I can guarantee I’ll be doing the final edit just minutes before it’s due. In saying all that, I learnt very, very quickly that organisation is absolutely imperative in a PR department. At first it was daunting, but by the end of the internship the word deadline didn’t terrify me quite so much – in fact I even completed some tasks early! I can definitely say I came a long way in developing time management and organisational skills under the guidance of my Activ supervisor, and I know those are skills that are crucial in future employment.

So, what organisational tips do I have for future students doing their PR internship?

1.       Have a diary - and use it! Keeping a consistent track of meetings, deadlines, and projects means that you will never be caught by surprise and stuck doing something last minute. Trust me, one week of using a diary and you’ll be ready to buy it a BFF necklace.

2.        Don’t sleep in – ever! It may seem tempting to press snooze for that extra ten minutes (or hour) but rushing around because you’re running late is just a recipe for disaster.  Beginning your day stressed has this terrible knock on effect to the rest of the day where it sets you up for failure before you’ve even left the house.

3.       As soon as you complete a project, file it properly. At the end of the semester you’re going to have to compile a portfolio of all the fantastic, wonderful work you’ve done and it would totally suck if you forgot about something or – even worse – couldn’t find it.

4.       Pack everything you need for your internship the night before. I know, I know; I sound like your Mum. But trust me, going back to your Primary School days and packing your ‘backpack’ the night before will save you the embarrassment of forgetting an important document or project (or, worse still, your lunch).

5.       Make a list at the beginning of your workday about everything you need to achieve and tick them off one-by-one. Seriously, nothing is more satisfying than finishing up and looking at a list of crossed-off tasks. Plus, it means you haven’t missed doing something important. Double score!

Well, that's everything from me. I had a blast during my internship and I hope everyone else did too! To anyone reading this, best of luck for the future. We're all in this exciting adventure together. 

6 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your Internship

During my two internships there are things I did that worked to my advantage and things I wish I had done differently. Below are my tips to ensuring you get the most out of your internship.

1.   Triple check your work

No matter how small or insignificant the task may seem, always take the time to ensure you have completed the task correctly. Check your grammar is correct and that you have finalized the task to the standard requested.

When you are doing the same task over and over it is easy to slip up and make a typo. It might not seem like a big deal. However if you pass this work to your boss who picks up the mistake (or worse, the client) you are unlikely to be trusted with jobs with bigger tasks.

At the end of the day the work you output is a reflection of you and your professional standards.

2.   Complete the small tasks with a good attitude

I am not going to lie, there were times during my internships where I was completing a task thinking ‘three years of my life and $30,000 on a degree has lead to me spending half a day scanning documents’. It is frustrating, but at the end of the day you are an intern. You are going to be given the tasks that no one else wants to do.

My advice is to try and learn as much as you can from that task. Even if it is just scanning, get to know the documents you’re scanning, learn from them. Do these tasks fast and to a high standard. Only then will you be trusted to take on jobs that require more responsibility. No one is going to let the intern who can’t even scan a document strait write a media release.

3.   The answer is yes

You might just be lucky enough to be given a task that is challenging or even scary, that think you are incapable of completing. Never decline such an offer. You have been allocated the task because your supervisor believes in you. You should too. 

Don’t think about the worst that could happen. It is more than likely that you will do a fantastic job and impress everyone, including yourself.

4.   Dress for the job you want not the job you have

You might be surprised at the opportunities that can present them self if you are dressed like a corporate professional. If you have read my previous blogs you will know I attended a press conference during my internship. My job was media registration. With the knowledge that I would be meeting the client I dressed as professionally as my wardrobe would allow me. 

I ended up being asked to MC the press conference. I spoke to 30 media from Malaysia’s most successful media outlets. I have no doubt that I would not have been asked to MC if I was not dressed corporate.

See my blog post ‘From intern to press conference MC’ for more information on this story.

5.   It’s not what you know, it’s who you know

Networking has been absolutely hammered into us throughout university. Yet still I just cannot stress how important simply knowing the right person can be. Meeting one individual can change the way your career progresses.

When I start a new job, particularly an internship, I do my best to talk to everyone. Better yet, make a good impression on them. Chat to the person in front of you in the down stairs café, strike up a conversation with the lady heating up her lunch in the kitchen, pick up the pen the guy dropped because his hands were full of files. You just never know where that conversation might lead you.

6.   Talk to your supervisor about what you want to experience

A simple conversation might be the difference between you getting little out of your internship and getting the rewarding experience you want. Tell your supervisor what you want to be exposed to during the internship. Whether it is writing a media release, a story for the intranet, organising an event or interviewing people. At the end of the day if you don’t tell them they won’t know. 

Communication with your supervisor is just an important as any other form of communication, and I know you are great at communication, after all you are about to get a degree in it.

My internships at GO Communications and the Public Transport Authority have taught me a lot about Public Relations in the real word. I even learnt a thing or two about myself. 

Good luck to you all.

Whitney

Small company, big goals!

Hi fellow PR393 bloggers!

After getting advice from older friends, who recently entered the ‘real’ working world, I fixed my resume and casually searched on Google for ‘PR companies Perth’. I have to admit that I had only heard of PPR and Linc and I was surprised to see quite a few others that I had never heard of.

University has taught me that any experience is good experience and therefore it didn’t really matter where my placement was going to be. Therefore, I continued searching with an open mind. However, as I fielded through the different company sites I realised I wanted to complete my placement in an organisation that dealt with both not-for-profit and for-profit work. If this didn’t work out for me (of course doubt comes with every first timer) I was more than happy to take any experience and put in my best effort no matter what.

Looking at my resume I wished I had taken a university break to complete some other PR or Journalism related experience. I started to lose confidence in my abilities and worthiness to apply at any of the companies I was looking at. However, this was the opportunity to do exactly what I had never had the time or confidence to do.

Since I am doing Journalism as well I learnt that the best way to make a phone call is to be prepared with exactly what you’re going to say to avoid any umm’s and ahh’s or ‘likes!’ I phoned up each of the companies I was interested in and all of them asked me to send through my CV.

I finally got a call from 32 Degrees South (32dsg) and I was asked to come in for an interview. What to expect! No matter what, this was a great time to learn what its like to go for an interview. At university we learn to tell the truth about everything we have done and can offer. Therefore my approach to it was to say:

I haven’t had much out-of-university PR experience, probably because of my total commitment to university work and my casual job. However I can offer you what I have learnt so far and hopefully learn from you and everyone else who works at 32 Degrees South if given the opportunity.

I also prepared answers to questions that they may ask me such as:

Q. Why did you choose 32 Degrees south as the place to complete your work experience?

Q. Why do you think we should choose you to complete your work placement at 32 degrees south?

Q. What do you think is your biggest flaw as a person or as a worker?

Q. Why did you choose journalism and PR?

Q. What skills have you learnt in PR that you could bring with you to 32 degrees south?

A.  (Media releases, events planning, Social Media strategies, Strategic consulting plans, Website design, Sponsorship understanding, Issue analysis. Journalism background (interview techniques, current affairs, writing articles)

Q. What does PR mean to you or how would you define it?

A. PR is the relationship and communication between an organisation and its publics whether internal or external. How a company communicates its vision and mission to its publics and ultimately achieves its goals. And that’s where we come in to show them how to do this in the most effective way.

I was way too over prepared! Nevertheless, I like to feel that way before going into anything I do because then you feel like you can deal with anything that comes your way. As well as the fact that no matter what happens you know you did the ‘best that you could of possibly done’.

I got the placement! And have just completed my first week at 32dsg! (3 days a week Wed, Thurs and Fri)

32dsg is an events management and communication-consulting firm in Shenton Park consisting of three main employees. While a small company their goal is to grow even bigger, using the digital world to their full advantage. The idea they had for me was to be involved in getting their company name out there. They have a lot of clients including oZAPPs (previously WApps), Emergence, Feeding WA, Six Senses and Ngala and therefore do not have time to focus on themselves as a company.

I have therefore come at a good time to create for them a Public Relations Plan for their own company to map out where they need and want to go as a consultancy firm and what are the best methods of getting there.

Working with the Social Media Coordinator I will also be helping out with monitoring, content creating and moving them onto different social media platforms to allow for wider exposure.

This was all daunting to me but I did not let this show! Because of University units throughout my degree I have a Blogger account and a Twitter account (and of course a Facebook account) however I never go on Blogger or Twitter. I went to a friend and she taught me everything there was to know about twitter so I could come into ‘work’ the next week no longer a ‘twitter dummy’.

What I’ve been up to:

Day 1, I worked mainly on researching prominent bloggers and tweeters, developing a database of those who had potential for us to approach them to come and feature blog for 32DSG. I collected and collated them into an excel document (linked below) according to which clients they would suit as well as documenting how many followers they had on twitter. It was quite difficult to find bloggers that suited 32dsg’s client base.

Blogging seems to be such a woman dominated platform (very fashion orientated, and emotional- which makes sense because as you can see from what I have written so far, we cant stop talking or thinking!) I was looking for bloggers who spoke about technology, charity, parenting or adventure. I managed to find at least 12 that were worthy of looking into and by then it was 5pm! Days seem to go so fast here (must be because I’m enjoying it!)

Day 2, I was asked to write an article about the launch of the oZAPPS awards, using my journalism skills to add to the news page on 32dsg’s website. This was the first time I really saw why journalism and PR people don’t get on! PR people do all the work for journalists! All the quotes were available in media releases written by 32dsg employees and all the information on the event and prominent organisers were on the websites. The trickiest part was making the article sound professional, not let it sound like a media release (had to have something newsworthy in it) and make sure it does not sound like a blog! I managed to turn a media release into a journalistic article.

I sent it through to the Social Media Coordinator and the Director and both were extremely happy with it. After a few touch ups it should be going onto their news page on their website! Day 2 and I already start to feel worthwhile and confident in my work. While this was more journalism then PR, I truly saw how they work together and how important they are to each other in order promote a company.

Day 3 and I have begun looking into writing a PR plan for 32dsg. This is a HUGE task since in university we have always worked in groups to produce a plan. However I do have a lot of time here and this is the experience we hope for. I don’t necessarily have to finish it by the end of my placement but I will be putting in my over all best effort!

I am truly enjoying my experience so far at 32dsg and love the relaxed yet busy lifestyle every employee leads.

Gosh, from starting off with thinking ‘what am I going to say’, I have truly over done this blogg! I hope I have not bored any of you to tears!

Until next week!

Enjoy everyone, no matter what were all doing, it’s an experience!!!

Martine xxx

http://32dsg.com/

file:///Users/martinehotz/Documents/Bloggers.htm

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