How PR Interns should put the 'P' in PR

I have now completed one month and a half as an intern at Cockburn Integrated Health. Despite only needing to complete 20 mandatory days, the staff at CIH have fortunately taken me under their wing and are allowing me to continue to assist them with their projects and PR activities.

Throughout my internship I have observed, learnt and picked up essential traits that all interns should possess whether that being your dream internship or an 'accidental' internship.

These are summarised in by 5 'P's -

Purpose: I have found that employers like a sense of purpose and direction in your work. Simply saying 'I like that' or 'That is a good idea' does not help the team. You must know first hand the reasons behind every decision. Use resources, ask questions and do your research. Every decision must have a purpose.

Passion: Passon is essential for public relations practitioners and allows us to put 100% into all tasks.  PR is constantly changing and dynamic. Those people with the passion to learn, adapt and push boundaries will excite managers. Passion and enthusiasm means something to employers.

Persistence: Coming into my internship I did not really understand the level of persistence required in public relations. I have done countless drafts on the same newsletter for weeks on end, facing rejection and changes by the staff and I have spent weeks on end chasing up interview times with staff members in the centre. However when I over came all these challenges to meet my deadlines, there was definitely a feeling of achievement! Be persistent, no matter how long it takes.

Praise: One of my supervisors really emphasises is the need to praise, support and acknowledge good work. Appreciation and respect will drive your team and co-workers to continue to work hard. As interns we should also compliment and respect others for their time and help.

Pace: Use every opportunity as a learning experience and pick up the pace. Don't repeat what you did yesterday, strive to improve and better your self. As an intern I have learnt that I can't be doing the same thing over and over again without improving or getting faster.

Enjoy, learn and strive to be better than yesterday!


Until next time,
Haleh

Jack Of All Trades and master of a "Few"

Being employed as a PR practitioner you are expected to prove your capabilities as such. The thing is, as opposed to what you may think,  you are rarely compensated for demonstrating what you are expected to demonstrate when performing your task as a PR practitioner.

 
This is why it is always good to master few other skills to aid you reach your personal goals or at least the goals of the company for which you are working. For example I am very confident talking in front of crowds but little did I know that I would be a bit shy at first talking on the phone. That was something new to me. Of course as anyone else I had plenty of conversations on the phone but the things is this time it was about selling booths to exhibitors, booths at high prices which was even too expensive for me to afford and my goal was to sell them to potential exhibitors and make them see value in them.

I am slowly starting to be good at it though slow at start. Many thinks that when given a job the tasks will be always finite and the same. This is false and especially in Public Relations as even though there is a routine, that establishes itself after sometime, there can always be surprises.

The other day my boss's pc had a problem. None were able to fix it and my boss was loosing patience since that same pc was THE PC on which everything was done and with it all contacts were lost as they were stored in a file. Without entering into too much details I recovered the files at the end of the day and that after attempting to call IT services who just advised to buy a new program. At the end of the day my boss was happy to have saved money and so was I to have helped her. I am thankful to be a "techy" guy otherwise the whole day would have gone wrong unless buying a new pc which was one of the alternatives at the start but since I like challenges I just opposed it and did my best to find a solution which paid off.

Thanks for reading !

Thierry