By Louise Carter, third year PR & Communications student at Southampton Solent University
Having only ever worked with in-house PR teams, I could only base my view of agencies on horror stories told by fellow students where they would sit in a busy office with no one talking to them except for when they wanted the tea made. However, when I met some of the MCC International team at a CIPR “Meet The Professionals” event my preconceptions of PR agencies suddenly changed - for the better.
After a chat with Kelly I was invited to spend a few days in their office in Winchester to get some work experience. When the day came I was slightly apprehensive of what I might be asked to do and worried that my tea making skills wouldn’t be up to scratch! But it turns out I had no need to worry. I spent the first part of the morning shadowing Sarah who was writing up reports from a client meeting. I eagerly watched, took notes and asked questions as this is something I have to do for one of my University assignments. The rest of the three days I was kept busy with updating clippings books, creating a media database, proof reading and one of my biggest tests, learning to use the binding machine!
The reason I like in-house is because I prefer to work in small teams where you can build strong relationships and work closely with a client/brand so that you can start a campaign from scratch and see it through to fruition, but having worked at MCC International, I have realised that you can still have all this in an agency. So as a final year PR and Communications student I will now be widening my job hunting to agencies too.
No comments:
Post a Comment