Hello everyone!
I’m Justine Lai, currently pursuing my final semester as an
undergraduate for BA in Marketing and Public Relations.
This is my 15th week with Porter Novelli
Singapore (PN) and so far it’s been a really great experience working here. One
thing I’ve learnt as a Public Relations (PR) intern is that time really flies
without knowing during work, because there’s never really having nothing to do.
There are never ending tasks, millions of news published around the world to
read about, and so many skills and theories to pick up in PR. And I think every
PR professional all started out as blur as I am, hit many obstacles and crawled
up step by step before reaching the position they’re in today.
I started sourcing out for internship opportunities three months
before the start of my semester, and it was really quite an experience as I
went for four interviews before landing in PN. Unacceptable job scopes,
different timings, I shall not bore you with details.
I felt really lucky when I received a call to attend an
interview with PN (I sent out my resume two months before receiving the call so
I was extremely surprised). I prepped myself from top to bottom - goggled for
successful interview tips, worked on my speech, collated my reports and did my
best to make sure I was fully prepared. I met Jimmy, the Vice-President for
Consumer and Lifestyle, and Gabriel Wong, then Vice-President for Technology,
during the one-hour long interview (Yes it was that long, I can’t remember what
we talked about either), and I thought I fumbled a lot. I received another call
from Jimmy the very next day and I was accepted (in my head, I was throwing confetti
and hopping around with joy.)
To be honest, I was quite stressed out before beginning my
internship. I heard about the heavy responsibilities that the previous intern
was undertaking and I doubt my capabilities of handling them. On my very first
day, I felt like a total amateur – I took more than an hour to monitor the
newspapers, explored Microsoft Outlook for the very first time and I couldn’t
even speak properly during the supposedly relaxed lunch outing with Jimmy and
Gabriel. I guess my colleagues were all looking at me speculatively.
Thankfully, the work environment at PN was really comforting, and despite my awkwardness, I blended in and adapted to the working culture with ease. Everyone was nice and guided me with patience and sincerity, and I began to focus on my work effectively.
This internship gave me a huge exposure to many industries,
from consumer and lifestyle, to corporate and technology. I supported several
accounts such as Mercedes-Benz, HP Singapore, Bosch Home Appliances, Imedeen, SKF,
Yahoo! and a few others. My job scope entitles me to draft press releases,
research content for conversational calendars, liaise with media, compile media
lists, collate monthly and quarterly reports, and other responsibilities. It was
definitely an awesome experience which broadens my knowledge on media
relations, corporate cultures, industry markets, client servicing and many
other useful insights.
I’ve come to the realization that learning PR and applying
PR are two very different things. However, the reason to everything that we do
still dials down to the theories that we learnt during our academic semesters, which
people often neglect during their hectic schedules, such as the implementation
of Two-way symmetrical model by Grunig that is shaping the current industry
now.
Overall, I think the PR world is really diverse, and you can
really learn a lot by being in this industry. Nevertheless, there’ll be occasions
where people start to get bored or frustrated with their work load, but I think
these can be overcome with the right attitude and a balanced life style.
Till
the next, have a great internship!
Best Regards,
Justine Lai
15215640
Curtin Singapore
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