Two months of interning at Carrington has come to end and what a couple of months it’s been!
Eight weeks in student time is pretty much a lifetime, so you could say I’m qualified enough to write a little bit about what my fellow students and graduates can expect from an internship at a PR agency.
Work experience? I’m a student, that’s enough isn’t it?
In the competitive world of job hunting, great grades alone just don’t cut it so work experience is really important. Uni can only teach you so much about an industry (aside from drinking, how to successfully miss every 9am lecture, how long can you go without washing your bedding, etc), especially in an uber practical, dynamic sector like PR.
I was lucky enough to get my work experience through LinkedIn, saving me hours of emails and phone calls to agencies far and wide. Instead, when I finished uni, I set my LinkedIn profile to ‘open to recruiters’ and at the end of June, Rob got in touch to ask if I wanted a job.
Two months later, I’ve put my PR know-how into practice, picked up lots of new skills and even have a job interview lined up back at home!
Press releases, pitching and plenty of coverage
I can’t speak for all internships, but expect to be thrown into the deep end and learn quickly. Tea-making and thumb-twiddling will be non-existent in the right agency.
For starters, I had to learn how to use Google Drive (I’ve lived a very sheltered life Google-wise up until now) and get used to an office environment. I’ll touch on that more later on.
I worked on a wide range of clients and was trusted from the start to talk to them on my own and share my ideas. Creativity is a big part of PR so it was great to be given the scope to come up with new concepts and have the freedom to put them into action.
After working with multiple clients, I would advise making sure you differentiate clearly between client work – there were a few times in the early days when I had to stop myself confusing client details and information! Take that time to think; ‘right, I’ve stopped that client work, I’m going to move on to another one now.’
It’s super important to make yourself useful. Not in terms of how your mum would say make yourself useful, no vacuuming needed here, but asking for new tasks will help you learn more and make the most out of the experience. It’ll also make you invaluable which is especially important if you’re hoping to land the coveted first-job-out-of-uni.
I’ve honestly had the best time at Carrington. I’ve learned how to use key PR tools, honed my writing skills by crafting press releases, features and social media (and then had the satisfaction of logging their coverage too, hurrah!) and gained invaluable “real-life” agency experience.
Toto, I have a feeling we’re not at uni anymore
I mentioned the alien world that is the office. You may never have worked in an office before. It’s cool – there’s just a few things to remember before you start.
- Everyone who works in an office starts the day with coffee. Even if you did not like coffee before, you must now succumb to caffeine and drink copious amounts of it. It’s just a thing.
- Practice your ‘answering the phone’ voice. A good greeting is “hellocarringtoncommunicationsgoodmorningmeganspeakinghowcanihelp”. Or something shorter can also work.
- Take regular breaks from the screen. Although avoid prolonged periods of staring into space otherwise your colleagues may refer to you as “that weird staring work experience girl”.
Overall, an internship is a fantastic opportunity to learn as much as you can, make great contacts, and also have that experience of what a full-time job will be like. It’s important to be open and ready to learn, ask questions and enjoy yourself!
So, time to say bye to Carrington and the team, I will miss the daily “can you log out of so-and-so?” moments, the clients, but most of all the sociable atmosphere and all-round great place to work that is Carrington. That’s down to Rob, Dave and Gaby – thank you!
