Public Relations = Being Versatile, Polymath and Multitask!

Today was the 8^th day of my internship. I actually cannot believe it, I feel like I have started months ago. Indeed, those 8 days have been quite demanding and stressful but I have to admit it was worth it!

During those two and a half years at university I have learnt that to be a good PR one will have to be versatile and often multitasking. However I never really realized how true this was until now. I always thought that in ‘real life’, I would only be dealing with the journalists and writing several press releases and kits, while designers and event planners would be doing the rest. The past days proved me wrong; I have learnt that the role of a PR is much more than that! 

Sunday 1^st of August, 12 Monkeys (My organisation), organized a charity event called the ‘Charity Run, Ride, Walk by SKC Surat’. Before the event, I wrote the media releases, called the press and helped for the Facebook page. I thought that as a PR, my job was done.

The track for the races was in the sugar cane fields around the Bagatelle Mall of Mauritius in Moka. On the day of the event, at 6:30 a.m. we went to put the markups in the sugar cane. I came back full of mud and dust and was now posted at the registration table as to take more candidates. At the end of the event I said to myself, ‘maybe the person in charge of this was not here’.

On the Monday morning, I started my PR task, which is Media clipping, when my supervisor called everyone for a meeting. One of our clients, Permoglaze (a paint manufacturer) was sponsoring a major sport event and needed an idea to attract people on the day without proposing paint (as it was not really relevant). There I was, giving ideas about how to design the Permoglaze tent! We came up with an idea of ‘photo booth’, where the participant would be able to take a picture and print it directly. It was a great experience to see the brainstorming during the meeting and I was proud as one of my ideas was approved. 

I spent the whole week juggling between designing banners, newsletters, bibs for coming sport events and Facebook pages. I am actually planning and organizing two different event at the same time, a press conference which will be held this Tuesday and a sport event which will be held on the 24^th. In the meantime, I am helping on photo shoots for newsletters.

To resume, it has been 8 days, and I worked as an event organizer, a PR, a receptionist, a designer and a photographer, all of these, in the office as well as on the field.  One might think that my supervisor just wants me to touch a bit of everything, but this is not true as even she is doing every single job. I thus realized that all of these forms part of a PR job. 

To be a good PR, one must be versatile, polymath and multitask!!

Isabelle 

My first internship !

Hello dear PR people, 

I am Keshya Rassen and I wanted to share my personal experience as being an intern as well as my first footsteps in the working world. I have just started my internship at PROAKTIV PR Ltd which is a Public Relations Consultancy company in Mauritius since 2008. It is a small company with a few staff members but a very efficient and effective team. It’s been one week today and what I can say it’s been one of the busiest and the most knowledgeable week of my life! 

I think that most of us doing the internship module was quite stressed and worried like me before starting the internship. Personally, I was so stressed about not finding a suitable internship as per the assignment requirements but I did find an excellent one.

The first day I was so stressed about not being able to meet the expectations of my employer as I have actually never worked before and did not what was really expected from me.  However, everyone at the office knew how to put you at your ease and helped me to integrate myself in their team. Being a versatile person, I did not take long to adapt to the new situation. One thing that really marked me, is the convivial atmosphere that reigned there and this gave a boost to my motivation to work harder and give the best of myself. 

After several briefing sessions on my first and on second day on the ongoing files, I was given real responsibilities in the company. I helped the Account Officer to do the Press Monitoring and since I loved doing Maths in High School and that I loved to deal with numbers and calculations, they asked me to manage and calculate the Advertising Value Equivalent(AVE). Later in the week, the senior partner asked me that I would be the one to draft a Press Release for one of our clients. Oh, I can tell that it was not a piece of cake at all in the beginning to draft my first Press Release with only three lines of information on the subject! However, I did manage to write it after three-days of thorough research on the given subject! 

Overall, what I can tell after one week is that the working world and what we have learned throughout a three-study course and accumulated theories learnt from different modules are completely not the same. Of course, at some point it helped, but, since each company has its own way of working, it differed from what I have learnt. This is how I realised that although having done almost a three-year course in Public Relations and can be considered as a future graduate, I knew nothing about the real working world and, of course, less in the real Public Relations working field. This is why I came to a conclusion that I have everything yet to learn from my employers and from their own work experiences.

However, I really think that it is going to be a wonderful experience and I hope that you are all enjoying your internships like me!

I am looking forward to you sharing your internship experience with me.

Best regards,

Keshya Rassen.