Winding up a PRecious Point in My Life

Three days ago I finished my twenty days at PPR and I’m still sat here wondering where the time went! So I guess I want my last blog post to be about the highlights of the experience, the important skills and lessons I have learnt.

In my last week of the internship I conducted some more over the phone interviews with locals in the community and put together some more stories and media releases for Bunnings and Coles. I also did some background research and compiled an Excel spreadsheet for a mining company as well as several other Excel spreadsheets for media listings and other pieces of information for Bunnings and Coles. A lot of my tasks at PPR have revolved around creating written documents and stories which has actually suited me really well as I love the written side of PR!

One thing that was a challenge for me in my internship was navigating Microsoft Excel.  I have done so much work on Excel across the past month for various clients, but I did really struggle with it at times. I now know the very basics of Excel but there were times where I could not figure out how to change settings, conduct formulas or even do simple things like format a table.  I 100% think there should be at least a couple of classes in the PR units at Curtin that teach students how to use Microsoft Excel confidently, as it is such a valuable tool to know how to use and one that is used everywhere in the PR industry. I now wish I had completed a few lessons prior to my internship on learn how to use it efficiently and effectively.  It probably would have cut down the time I spent compiling spreadsheets by at least a quarter! So for everyone yet to complete their internship, I have found a super helpful tutorial on YouTube that will help you to navigate Excel if you are in my boat and aren’t confident using it. Trust me, it will probably be one of the best things you do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L1OVkw2ZQ8

There were definitely several highlights from my time at PPR. Here are my top six in no particular order:

1. Hearing the touching stories of locals I was interviewing for media releases
2. Casual Fridays at the office-having music playing, being a little silly and finishing early to have a chat and a drink at the end of the day
3. Getting my first story that I had pitched myself published in the newspaper
4. Sitting in the lunch room at lunch time chatting to everyone and hearing about their lives, experiences and stories
5. Sitting in on client meets and getting to meet the clients and their ideas (and the catering was pretty good too!)
6. My last at PPR, hearing all of the wonderful feedback about my efforts from      everyone in the office and receiving some hilarious emails about how much  they loved  the baked treats I took in.

There were also many valuable lessons and skills I learnt. Some of the skills included learning how to format media releases for different clients, learning how to pitch stories and releases, finding out the best way to talk to the media and clients over the phone and developing receptionist skills. Although people would think reception work in a consultancy isn’t really ‘proper PR’, I would argue that it definitely is! Not only are you helping your colleagues to carry out tasks for clients, but you are also being the eyes and ears of the office, being the first person clients come into contact with when they come in for meetings and are becoming familiar with clients and journalists and business partners when they phone up. One of the main lessons I learnt whilst at PPR was to make sure you know what information you can give out and what you can’t. This includes small things like emails, as sometimes a consultancy might not want the public to know that they are doing PR work for a certain client. This was a small mistake I made by giving out an email address, but I’m glad I learnt it in the early days, because it certainly made me more careful and vigilant when giving out information! I learnt that it is much better to just ask someone in the office if it is okay to give out a certain piece of information before you do so you can cover your own butt! Here are a few random pictures I took whilst at PPR of some of the quirky things I will remember about my experience.

Picture 1: “Fruit Galore”- There was always so much fruit in the kitchen at PPR to snack on, and I can’t ever remember eating so many bananas!

Picture Two: Sticky notes my life saver -I always had so many sticky notes (at least three at a time!) of things I needed to do stuck to my intern desk or the reception desk.

Picture 3: German themed morning tea for Kevin who was leaving PPR. Kevin is German, so all the cakes and biscuits were German of course! (Source of picture: PPR WA Instagram)

Picture 4: The Ellen Show was a popular TV show among the girls in the PPR kitchen/staff room over lunch time

My internship and PPR has definitely been a life-changing experience. Everyone there was fantastic and I am really going to miss some of the girls I became friends with there! I am feeling so much more confident know about going into the industry after uni and have developed many important skills that will help me in my future ventures. To everyone yet to do their internship, I would just say to enjoy every moment and take any opportunity you can, even if it’s something so small like doing a morning coffee run or helping to organise files, because everything you do will be a learning curve in some way. Also, when it comes to the end of the internship, people do remember all the little things you have done to help and that feeling of appreciation and respect by your colleagues is just something that can’t be beaten easily.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you have enjoyed following my journey at PPR. I wish everyone the best with their internships and can’t wait to read all about them!

-Helen