Hi everyone
Late last year, with 2011 fast approaching, I decided to start looking at work experience placements in order to find somewhere and settle in to the workplace before the heavy university work load once again started.
Finding in-house public relations more appealing than consultancy, I approached a few small West Australian companies in the music industry before hearing word that Scitech in West Perth was seeking a work experience student.
Bearing in mind what Zoey from Purple Communications had talked to our PR Consultancy class about (in terms of how to approach companies and potential employers), I emailed the Marketing Director and PR Coordinator at Scitech with a job-specific resumé and attached cover page, asking if we could meet and discuss what I could offer them as a work experience student.
In mid December I was interviewed for the position and commenced later that month, working two days a week with the possibility of cutting it down to one day a week if my university load got a bit much to handle.
I have been at Scitech for nearly 20 work experience days and have just recently been employed as the Public Relations assistant, which I am really overjoyed about, not only because it has made me feel valued in the organisation but because getting paid has alleviated a lot of pressure with working many hours at a second job.
So my role in the PR/marketing department is easier to define after a brief explanation of Scitech’s business operations…
Scitech is a not-for-profit science education institution that relies heavily on 60% of its funding from the state government, support from leading industry figures and partnerships with a variety of businesses. The organisation’s aim is to make science accessible to everyone, so not only are operations conducted in the City West venue, Scitech also reaches schools, teachers and centers in metropolitan and regional Western Australia. Additionally, Scitech liaises with science institutions worldwide to rent exhibitions to and from them – Scitech is world renown for designing and building high quality science exhibitions.
In the past, due to extensive business operations and limited time and resources, the PR Coordinator focused mainly on publicizing metropolitan and internal events, tours, etc and the regional aspect of Scitech took a low priority. This was not because it is not as important as metro activities (one of Scitech’s largest departments is the Outreach team that coordinates and runs regional tours) but because the regional tours vary in details, type of tour, and sponsors involved, and therefore require a lot of time to personalise media releases and send to and communicate with, various media outlets across WA.
So this is where I come in. My top priority at Scitech is to promote and gain publicity for the regional tours. I have to liaise with the Outreach, Early Childhood and Professional Learning teams to find out the tour details, understand the aims of the tours, the science concepts of activities being run, etc and then write up sometimes only one media release or many for each tour (depending on if they have are including a community session, or how long the tour is - if it is beneficial to do a pre, during and/or post tour release).
It has definitely been challenging to get my head around all the different departments of Scitech, the extent of their operations and multitude of programs – we often have people telling us that they had no idea that Scitech did more than what goes on in the City West centre – this alone is a huge weakness which the business needs to overcome.
As well as promoting regional tours, I have been writing up a collection of short articles for the next edition of Scitalk – a quarterly publication sent to our Scitrekkers (members), corporate partners, sponsors and other stakeholders. I have also been gathering data and collating it in Excel documents to evaluate PR activities, updating media contacts, organizing for Scitech to attend various events to conduct ‘buzz marketing’, and interviewing participants and taking photos at Scitech events.
All in all I am really enjoying my time at Scitech so far. Scitech staff are very open and welcoming and the working atmosphere is such that everyone feels like they are valued. It’s refreshing being part of an organisation where the top directors and even the CEO make an effort to say hello and have a friendly chat as they walk by you in the corridor.
My supervisor has recently left on a two week holiday so it will be interesting to see if and how this will affect me – if I get any larger tasks that my supervisor would usually deal with and if I gain more confidence by being ‘thrown in the deep end’ with these tasks.
I hope everyone else is settling into their placements well and I look forward to reading/hearing about other’s experiences.
Please feel free to comment or ask any questions.
Until next time,
Charli
Bentley Campus
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