Friday, February 24, 2012

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Seven

1. In order to reingratiate yourself after being gone for over a week, make sure to show up early at least several times in a row.

Last week, I took both Wednesday and Friday off {kind of by accident-- Wednesday, my alarm never went off, so my only choice was to take the day off and Friday, I was supposed to go adventuring with Steph}. The week before, I took Friday off to study for midterms and write papers. So this past Wednesday was my first time into the office in two weeks. Wow.

Getting there early helps reestablish your commitment to the internship and helps them remember your good traits!

2. Even if you don't have any experience in PR, if you choose the right place to apply, you can get the job.

A girl came in Wednesday for an interview-- either for the internship or for a job, I'm not quite sure. But it was apparent from what I could hear during the short interview that she had absolutely no experience in PR. She had a foot in the fashion industry and had helped with runway shows before, but not writing about those shows in press releases. Her writing sample wasn't quite the voice we use at this firm either.

But because she was personable and sweet and our PR firm has only two paid employees {if you consider the boss/founder an 'employee'; there's just herself and C}, she got a job offer Friday afternoon. It helped that she had had another interview for a bigger PR firm who had a three month paid internship and they had liked her as well.

As soon as A heard that M {the girl interviewing} was considering the other offer because it paid and there was a possibility that a job offer there might be made post-internship, she offered her a position at our firm asap.

If only all job interviews/offers were that easy. On the other hand, because she didn't do any internshipping beforehand, she has no idea what she's getting into... Good luck, M! You might need it...

3. Figure out what needs doing immediately and what can be done after those other things, and prioritize appropriately.

As a general rule, things that A {our boss} gives you to do are first priority; for interns, this usually means making lists for her, so be good at researching. Then come the other writing things you need to do, like press releases. Or you could prioritize by amount of time it will take you. That usually ends up being in about the same order as 'by importance'.

4. If you let your boss know you're done with the current assignment and are waiting for the next one, you'll end up with three new assignments on your to-do list.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since...

5. Having several assignments lined up means you concentrate more and thus get more accomplished.

I rather liked having several things that needed doing. That way I could work on something and then take a break by working on something else. Turns out, I need the pressure of having more than one thing on my to-do list to keep me on track. Plus it felt like I was actually working as opposed to just waiting for time to go by. It was nice.

6. Practice your phone-answering skills.

Especially if you don't have any.

Which is up for debate with me. *grins*

I don't normally have to answer the phone, so when I suddenly had to on Friday, I completely flustered what I was supposed to say. I'm not sure whether to be thankful or horrified that it was actually A on the other end, since she was thankful that no one else had to hear me stumble about, trying to get the right words out of my mouth. I seriously sounded like a preteen girl answering the phone only to find out there's a boy calling her or something. *gaaah*

7. Know your social media.

I feel dumb. As quickly and as efficiently as I can research and ferret out all this information about companies and things that our firm needs to know, I don't know how to use LinkedIn or Twitter. Which made this week particularly awkward.

I need to get an account for both places. But first, I have to create a new email address so that I'm not using the one I made in eighth grade as my professional contact email. Cause that's even more embarrassing than telling your boss that you don't understand Twitter at all.

What can I say; I just don't relish the fact that Twitter's so... *crinkles nose* But oh wells. This is for work.

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How did we get so grown up? Huh.

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