"Being a professional comes naturally" is a statement said by very few people on this Earth.
I've been at my internship with Guide Dogs WA for five days over a five week period -- and I love it. It's everything I could have possibly wanted in a PR internship.
My two main supervisors are teaching me all kinds of skills: how to call clients and fundraisers, how to use the various specialised programs they're subscribed to, how to lay out an e-mail, how to generate a contact list...
It's safe to say I'm learning the kinds of necessary hands-on skills I should know as an almost graduate.
Of course, I knew I'd be flexing these skills to give them a good workout. I hadn't anticipated, however, how much my professional skill set would change over such a short space of time.
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| Image via ken yee / Flickr / Creative Commons |
The main area professionalism has shown itself recently is in client and operating confidentiality.
I love to talk about things that excite me, whether its something new I've learnt online, a random book that has fully engaged me, or an interesting insight someone has brought up in my presence.
I'm like an excited puppy (which is highly appropriate given the location of my internship), but now I'm being forced to 're-train' my reactive sharing.
What's saved me is my ability to keep necessary private information private; what's challenged me is my expanding definition of the word 'private'.
In a peer-to-peer situation, or personal situation, this has meant identifying delicate information which needs to be handled discreetly. Whether it's information that could harm the person (or someone else) should it be found out, or information that is just best left unsaid, the distinction between private and public handling has always been straightforward.
In an office, the distinction is much more complex.
I've been privy to exciting meetings, stories, and other insights which make me want to run around and share the fantastic news, stories, and thought processes. Knowing that information has to stay in the office is sad, but the lessons I've learnt on professionalism and discretion have been invaluable.
Regardless, I'm proud of what has been has been a very impressive show of restraint!
About to enjoy reading everyone else's blogs, so will see you in the comment sections.
- Elena
6 comments:
Loved this read, Elena. Guide Dogs WA would be such an interesting and rewarding internship! What types of activities have you been doing? Do you deal much with guide dogs and their owners, or strictly PR for the non-profit? Professionalism has been a particularly difficult road to navigate, as like you, I am an over-sharer! Luckily for me, this office is quite hilarious and I've found I can be myself (with a little restraint). Learning to judge when and when not to share and the type of information to share is of the utmost importance! Hope you enjoy the rest of your internship.
Hi Elena,
As I'm completing my placement at a high school I can really relate to your post in terms of having to be able to determine which information needs to be kept private. My placement even went as far as to get me to sign a privacy contract so as to further protect their public's privacy.
Like with your experience, I have had to make the distinction between information that needs to be kept private in terms of face-to-face interactions as well as whole office interactions. For example, I am becoming better by the day at determining which information needs to be kept between which colleague, versus which department and so on.
As an act of courtesy, most of my colleagues have been very helpful in terms of telling me when I have come across delicate and/or private information and who is already privy to this information and who shouldn't be made privy to it. Thankfully, I haven't made any mistakes thus far (touch wood) and it's my hope that I will continue to be mistake-free throughout the duration of placement.
I am extremely thankful for this learning curve/experience at my placement. Before I began my internship, I assumed that when you are employed by an organisation you are instantly granted access to every public's private information, and that this information is made available to everyone working there. Having now completed around half of my placement I have learnt that this is not at all true, and I can only imagine that my experience has been somewhat similar to when only the senior consultants have access to high-profile clients personal information in PR consultancies.
Thanks for sharing your experience,
Emily
Hey Elena! This was a good read and I feel that I can definitely relate to you! I thought professionalism was making sure a skirt wasn't too short, or a blouse wasn't too sheer but there's way more than meets the eye!
I've just started my internship at a consultancy and on my first day in our first meeting, I was told by my supervisor that everything that goes on in the office is confidential, as courtesy to our clients. I've always been that person at family and social events who loves to share good stories about what goes on and what things I hear, so this has been a bit of an experience for me, and I've had to tell myself to shut my mouth on a number of occasions when I've wanted to share some stories with family members at the dinner table or when I've been out with friends. Obviously I understand completely why this rule is in place, so as to not tarnish our client's reputation or accidentally tell the wrong person and risk our media strategy being heard by the wrong people.
The same goes for professionalism in the office. I love people, and I love being around people, so naturally have wanted to get to know my colleagues in the office that I'll be spending my internship with. It's so difficult to maintain professional but friendly at the same time, as you don't want to be seen as the annoyingly loud and over chatty intern, but don't want to be seen as a boring robot either - PR is all about being dynamic and being good with people so I've had to make sure I've made small talk where necessary and tried to get to know the girls, but also shut up and knuckled down to work when I've needed to!
Look forward to hearing more about your internship!
Tayla
@Tori Lockley:
Apologies for getting back to you so late. I didn't think to check if I had comments!
Glad you liked it! Guide Dogs WA is indeed a super rewarding place to intern. I've been doing all kinds of activities, from taking the PR dog (Gidgee) to Perth schools, to researching potential partnerships and brainstorming ideas for ambassadors.
Yay, a fellow oversharer! Deciding which parts of your personality to let loose is definitely a challenge, but I'm lucky in that my office are all pretty inappropriate/oversharing at times. Glad you can be yourself, too.
@Emily Fromson
Once again, sorry for late replies! I thought my post would disappear into the blog archive really quickly.
I've had supervisors tip me off to what's confidential, too. A deliberate "This information is private because ___ and ____. So don't tell your PR friends!" is helpful for when I'm being really oblivious. It must show on my face that I'm too keen to share.
I hope your internship is working well for you. I've always thought working as a PR officer at a school would be really rewarding! Looking forward to reading over your blog posts.
Thanks for commenting,
Elena
@Tayla TouTountzis
I totally identify with your dinner table/out with friends oversharing issue. I'm so used to having barely any boundaries with conversational topics that I almost pop a blood vessel holding in great information. For example (I can say this now), we were notified we were voted Australia's Most Trusted Charity before they announced it. Sigh!
Getting to know the girls in my office has been fantastic, too. It's great to be in an environment where we can do that :-)
Thanking you kindly for your lovely comment!
Elena
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