PR should be experienced, not just taught

Hi future PR practitioners,

This will be my last post and it will wrap up some of the things that weren't taught and experienced in previous PR units. I firmly believe that a PR degree is just a starting point and as Harrison (2011, 15) has said, “Graduation is not an end to study. It is the start of a lifelong process”. By now, I can tell that only a portion of what I have learnt at university will be useful in the workplace because not only I will always be learning new things as a PR practitioner but also some of these things have to be experienced. Likewise, PR is a fast-evolving profession, so every PR practitioner has to constantly adapt to the changes in this demanding profession.

Things I didn't learn and experience at university:

1. Drafting media releases and communication plans in French (Written communication is mostly done in French in Mauritius and most PR Practitioners need to have an excellent grasp of the French language)

2. Media monitoring – Writing and sending daily Media Alerts to clients on positive and negative articles about them.

3. Calculating Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) for media coverage of PR generated news stories by measuring the dimensions of these articles and multiplying to the newspapers’ advertising rates.

4. Assisting in Press Conferences – Greeting journalists, marking their presence, noting down their contact details and distributing goodies/media kits to them.

5. Contacting and following up with journalists – confirming if they have received invitations for event/media function/press conference/round table and calling them again to mark their presence.

6. Working without a proper brief – Sometimes, we are not given a written brief for a particular task while at university we always had those for every PR assignment that we had to submit.

7. Implementing a PR Plan – We've been writing a few PR plans for real life clients at university although we've never executed any of these and this is the most complex part.

Although this internship is just a foretaste of the real thing since it was relatively short and we didn't experience everything, it actually prepares us to join the workplace confidently. Moreover, I do believe that I've done quite a lot in one month and learnt many new things. If it wasn't for the PR 393 Professional Practice unit, my knowledge and understanding of PR would be limited to only general PR concepts and guidelines. So, kudos to Curtin for having introduced that unit a few years back because it certainly allowed us to put some of the teachings of the other PR units into practice.

Okay fellow PR 393 students, now that most of us have already completed our internships and we are nearing the end of this semester, it's time to move on to other things. It felt great to share my internship experience with you and to read about yours during the last few months. I would like to seize this opportunity to wish you all best of luck with the report writing and for your future endeavors.

P.S: Do you guys have any anything else to add to the list above? You’re most welcome to do so in your comments :)

Much love,

Houmaira Ramjaun

15102108

CTI, Mauritius

References: 

Harrison, Kim. 2011. Strategic Public Relations - A practical guide to success. South Yarra: Palgrave Macmillan

Keep Calm and Stay Professional...

Hello everyone,

Hope that your internships are treating you well and you’re making the most of this learning experience. I'm sure that we’ve all had our fair share of difficulties during our internships and this is one of mine:

While interning at Blast Communications, I had to contact many parastatal bodies, embassies and consulates in Mauritius to obtain the contact details of senior officers for a list of database. It got tedious at times because I had to talk to 3 people in order to obtain that information and each time I had to repeat the same thing. I also had to phone journalists from different media outlets on a number of occasions to confirm whether they had received invitations for a round table and call them again 1 to 2 days later to mark their presence. Sometimes I had to phone the media outlets up to 3 times in order to obtain an answer and I had to do it because I had to provide my supervisor with an updated list of the attendance sheet.

Well, to be honest, I found that task quite nerve-wracking because I’m not much of a talker and I really didn’t know how to make intelligent and constructive conversations with those people. One of my colleagues has really encouraged me because she sensed at the beginning that I was feeling stressed and unsure. So, I drafted my phone call script in advance because I didn’t want to stumble when talking to them and I found this very helpful. Also, I did my own research and gathered some information in case they asked me a few questions. I’d sound really unprofessional and sloppy if I didn’t know what to reply to them. So it’s important to be well prepared before contacting people.

At times, I felt like the people on the other end of the line were being annoyed because I had to phone several times. There were also people who were really rude and cold to me on the phone, but I still had to keep my cool and stay courteous when speaking to them because that’s part of the job. It is also an important aspect of being professional which is paramount in the PR Realm. Likewise, certain people put me on hold for a long time but I had to remain patient. If I hung up on them which might be considered as impolite, I could face the possibility of not having them cooperate with me when phoning them again.


That's pretty much it for my third post. Keep me posted with your internships :)

Until next time,

Houmaira Ramjaun

15102108

CTI, Mauritius

When a door closes....

When a Door Closes....

Yes, as many of us are, I have finished my last day at the Department of Sport and Recreation. I have completed my time at DSR and loved it. In my time I have learnt big things like writing a ministerial press release, to something as simple as how to speak professionally on the phone. The time in my placement has been invaluable as I have learnt so much more than a classroom could ever teach me.

My last few days were just as eventful as my first day. I was responsible for completing the media monitoring as the lady who usually did it wasn’t at work. Suddenly as no one was also double checking the news, I had to make sure I picked up on everything that was relevant, it was up to me! Total responsibility was not something I was used to. This is great experience for a job because your boss will not always be looking over your shoulder to make sure you are doing everything correctly. I also was working on more news stories and e newsletters for events. Many of which still required approval and involved me calling people for quotes, all great practice for real life work.

 

That is exactly how I have been looking at this placement, a pre job. All of the small things are all helping me to be more job ready. Observing office interactions, how your boss interacts with her boss and even how they ask for help. All of this is going to help me be better at my job and make my transition from university to the real world hopefully a little bit less scary. 

As this is my last blog, the inevitable topic of highlights will be discussed. I really enjoyed the media monitoring. I loved how reading the news was work! It is something I did in my own time anyway and loved being able to go on all the news websites. I also enjoyed writing media releases and seeing them in the paper. I felt such a sense of accomplishment seeing them. The jobs in which I learnt the most from definitely had to be when I had to ring the media when a story fell through. I had to explain that the football match did not occur so there was no story, whilst being careful to not place any blame, therefore creating a story in the fact that the football match did not happen. Writing a ministerial release was also a huge learning curve as those are written in a whole different style compared to what we learnt.

Example of one of my stories in the paper

 

Link to Ministerial releases to look at how different they are written

I am disappointed that my time at DSR is over but like I said when a door closes, a window opens as whilst I was there I learnt about their graduate program which I have applied for, hopefully I get it as I loved working there! Maybe this placement will lead to more than just experience.