Are you looking for a career in Public Relations?

My placement has shown me two key attributes that I believe are essential to pursuing a successful career in public relations. 

I have been studying public relations for almost a decade. During this time I have held positions in fields such as sales and marketing, conservation, taxation, teaching, management and administration. During my degree I have been able to apply public relations theory to each position I have held. University has taught me knowledge of the field, and the theory behind it, but some things are not learnt in the classroom.

I organised my internship with an organisation that places high value on student placements and mentoring. For confidentiality reasons I can't identify the organisation but I can tell you a bit about what I'm learning. My placement team has shown me that I've got the skills and education to pursue a career in a public relations role. They are also teaching me a bit more...... that a career in public relations requires passion and perseverance.

Passion: The first three days in my internship placement have been really rewarding. I have enjoyed using the theory from university along with the skills developed in the workforce. More importantly it has given me the confidence that a career in public relations is the right thing for me. With every job there is some give and take.

I am going home exhausted at the end of each day.

I am required to work some unusual hours.

I have to do things outside of my comfort zone.

Despite all this there is no doubt in my mind that it is all worth it. I look forward to my placement days and the challenges and experiences it brings.

Perseverance: I’ve been thrown in the deep end at work as we received unexpected grant funding allowing us to run an event at less than two weeks’ notice. My role has included producing promotional material, seeking event sponsors and writing a media release.

One of my duties was to produce a promotional poster for the event. I drafted a poster but it was not accepted as it did not comply with the organisations style guide.  My team was keen to use my poster as it was more relevant to our target audience than the sample head office had sent us. I redesigned the poster over a dozen times before finding a suitable middle ground that would be approved.

Normally this is something that would frustrate and disappoint me; however I had been talking to a co-worker in my team. Once graduating she had applied for over 160 jobs and taken over two years to get a position in her field. She was a member of professional bodies and sought assistance from the careers team at her university. Her perseverance to gain a career in her field inspired me. It allowed me to see the drawn out process of getting a poster approved as a lesson in perseverance, staying focused and remaining positive.

The Lesson: Sometimes finding a job might be hard work. It might involve unpaid internships, volunteering, multiple job applications and rejections. The challenges you come across during your internship are similar to the challenges you will face when looking for work or in your chosen career. Finding something you are passion about is a good grounding for perseverance and can help you get through whatever challenges your workplace throws at you.

I would love to hear how your internships are going. What key attributes do you see as essential to getting the most out of your placements and pursuing a career in public relations?
 

Amalgamation, voting, protests – it’s all happening!

Over the last few weeks the office has been buzzing with countless phone calls, interviews and emails! And what has caused it is the government’s proposal for amalgamation – reducing the number of local governments from 30 to 12.

The reasons as to why the Kalamunda shire don’t want to amalgamate was because there would be an increase in unemployment, fees and rates and most importantly the identity and sense of community the shire has worked so hard to build will also be lost.

So in an attempt to save the Shire, we started a campaign called “Vote NO, Save Kalamunda!” and decided to run a poll. We needed at least 50% of votes for our voice to be heard against amalgamation to present it to the state government board and the way we thought to reach out to spread the word was through mass marketing material and social media!

We designed brochures, flyers, had balloons with the campaign title on it, t-shirts designed and a whole range of marketing material made for the campaign.

One of my Fridays was spent creating over 80 packages, which included a balloon, t-shirt, brochure and sticker, and mailing it out to all recipients (schools, local clubs, libraries, recreation centers).

Information booklets and voting package were sent out to every household in the Shire urging them to vote no.

On the local Kalamunda Community Radio 102.5FM, my manager interviewed the Acting CEO at the time Rhonda Hardy. The interview was meant to go for only 10 minutes however with the numerous phone calls during the interview and all the questions, it stretched to 30 minutes!!!!

As a PR student, I understood the need for the marketing and how important it was for the residents of the shire to vote no however one thing I wasn’t aware of was the cost of all of it!

Here I was thinking, yeah, OK… conducting a community poll… All they will need is a venue, a couple of booths, some people to mark names down, paper, pens… Similar to what I see when I’m voting for things like day light savings and local government positions etc at the primary school down the road. However it was only after I asked my manager how this poll affected the Shire financially that I was actually shocked. This poll was costing the Shire $40,000 to conduct!

During the lead up to the closing date of the voting, I overheard my manager talking to a collegue saying that they weren’t sure if we were going to get enough votes in and the only thing the Shire can now do is to keep up the public relations and marketing and maximise the minimal opportunity and time we have left.

To cut the long story short, the poll was conducted and the votes were in… Finally after months of talk, countless media releases, marketing material, radio interviews and numerous phone calls, we got the result that we wanted! 80% NO VOTES!!!

Everyone in the office came down to congratulate my manager and our team saying that it was thanks to all PR teams hard work and effort, our message got across to the Shire residents.

I learned that although you may be able to simply post information up online and perhaps make an announcement or two over the radio – it is not always enough. The success of this campaign was based on the persistence and perseverance of the public relations and marketing team because without them, the residents may not have fully understood what the consequences are and what amalgamation could have potentially done to the future of the Shire!

- K