Advice: listen clearly, take notes and reflect!

When someone gives you a piece of educated advice it can stick with you forever! Having an open mind in a workplace with individuals with years of experience and great expertise has helped with listening to and taking on board advice.

Advice can come in many different forms and sizes, it can be anything from a coworker or peer suggesting a specific way to achieve a simple task, to the managing director giving you career advice.

The first piece of advice I was offered was prior to commencing this internship. It was when I went in for an interview with the Managing Director where I asked her to take me on board as an intern and presented myself professionally. She asked me what my career goals were. What I wanted to do when I graduated and in the future. My reply was that throughout studying my degree and due to experience within the not for profit sector that I had always thought I would like to work for a charity. Her advice which has since steered my chosen direction was to be careful when applying for jobs within that sector. She said to choose a company with a large skilled Public Relations Team, that way you start off as the small fish in the big pond, with bigger fish that you can learn from. Instead of starting off as being paid to be a big fish in a little pond with no one to learn from. Upon reflection this was extremely sensible as to further my career in the future, I need to learn and absorb knowledge in order to develop my own skills.

Once I commenced my internship I found that advice was given to me each and every day. Peers gave me advice on how to complete several processes such as media monitoring, event planning or even writing media releases. They gave me advice on how to track time spent on each task that is completed – which is important for a consultancy which requires billable hours.

A lot of the advice I have taken time to note down. Especially the several pieces of advice one of my peers who was once in my shoes gave me. The two best pieces of advice she gave me was “always have a solution before you ask a question, because 75% of the time you will get asked your thoughts on the matter at hand” and “always have a reason behind everything you do, you will not get in trouble for thinking.”

I believe without the advice offered by my peers at this internship, I would not be able to learn as much as I am. In the majority of these situations these peers are not required to offer me any advice but they do anyway and it definitely makes me feel as if they want me to learn as much as I want to learn.

It’s also important to reflect on the advice given to whilst you work. At the end of the day, what is the point in listening to advice if you aren’t going to take it on board and use it in the future?

Being given advice can also come from asking the right questions at the right time. If your question isn’t urgent, plan the right time when your peers aren’t rushing to meet a deadline, or when they aren’t fully engaged in what they are doing. Perhaps when they get up to get a coffee, ask them your question and more often than not they will be willing to share their experience and knowledge with you.

An important question to ask yourself when you come to the end of your Internship is what advice has stuck with you?