Even in my group of friends in class, there's still varying answers even though we all seem to have the same interests outside of university and work.
For me, it has always been consultancy.
I began my university journey studying nursing straight out of high school. A big change to what I thought I wanted to do with my life. True to my initial instincts, I decided it wasn't for me, so deferred and entered the workforce. It was then that I landed my first administration role. It was at Devahasdin Public Relations and where my love for PR began.
Devahasdin Public Relations is a boutique consultancy operating in West Perth which focuses on five key services: publicity, marketing, events, promotions and writing.
The core team working in the office daily consists of Sandra Devahasdin herself, three other account managers, account support/administration and on my placement days, me :).
So yes, there I was at 19 in my first 'proper' job and being overwhelmed at the fast pace but incredibly exciting environment I had found myself in.
It was after working at Devahasdin for 6 months that I decided to get straight back into studying and applied at Curtin to study a Bachelor of Mass Communication, promising the team that I would be back once I was qualified.
And here I am, nearly completing the first half on my placement.
Being at Devahasdin has shown me how demanding the field of PR can be, but also how rewarding. The team at Devahasdin have once again instilled in me that this is what I want to be doing, I feel like I'm in the right place.
What I love about working in a consultancy environment is that every staff member has the same attitude towards PR and believes it is important. We've heard in class before how some in-house PR professionals struggle to convince a CEO that Public Relations is worth spending some of the budget for or that it is important enough at all.
Consultancy is all about PR and there is no struggle at work to convince your boss that the job you're doing is actually valuable.
In my first ten days at Devahasdin, not only have I gained a large amount of knowledge about the PR field, I have also learnt that working in a consultancy is exactly where I want to be.
Speak to you all again soon!
Claudia x
1 comment:
Hi Claudia,
I really enjoyed reading your reflective post. The inclusion of the Devahasdin logo was definitely what drew me in, as the company name is one that I am very familiar with after Sandra Devahasdin gave a presentation to my PR consultancy class about the industry’s ins and outs. Her balance between friendly warmth and calm professionalism jumped out at me, and I can imagine that those characteristics translate through to the Devahasdin workplace, making you a very lucky individual.
I enjoyed reading about the context behind your reasons to choose this career path. I think that it is a consideration that not many of us reflect upon, as we are all very good at considering the whats, whens and whys of now, but not so good at reflecting on a deeper level. The consideration as to why it is that we decided to make this life altering choice is one that I feel like we should all contemplate, and reading your post is what evoked that mindful thought. I think that you have found a great reflective balance between providing background detail, whilst reflecting on current position as an intern. I would have been really interested to hear about the nature of the work you are engaging with as an intern, but I guess that will perhaps be addressed in a later post?
Above all, I think that your post demonstrates the significance of the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. Granted that in your case, as with us all, we had to study hard for a minimum of three years to establish our “knowhow”, but beyond that, do any of us really know where to go from there? By the sound of it, you are blessed with even more luck through the fact that your drive to enter the industry derived from invaluable connections that I do not doubt will set your career up to be one of immense success.
Good luck with the rest of your placement, and potential future employment opportunities. I look forward to hearing about the rest of your time at Devahasdin.
Kind Regards,
Molly
Post a Comment