ramsac a finalist for Toast of Surrey business award

Hopes for ‘Apprenticeship Scheme of the Year’ category win

ramsac, a leading IT solutions consultancy has reached the final stages of the Toast of Surrey Awards 2012, in the category of ‘Apprenticeship Scheme of the Year’. With a record number of entries for 2012, the annual awards celebrate the success of local businesses and recognise their contribution to the economy, community and prosperity of Surrey. As the winner of last year’s ‘Company of the Year’ award, ramsac this year wanted to highlight its commitment to and the benefits from, running a dedicated in-house apprenticeship scheme which nurtures upcoming IT talent and offers an excellent alternative to further education.

Back to University

Yesterday, I was lucky to be invited back to my old stomping ground at Southampton Solent University to take part in a Meet the Alumni session, with current students studying on the Public Relations and Communications BA course. The session’s aim was to introduce to the students the kind of work they can do once the course has been completed and the pros and cons of working in an in-house, or agency situation.

The session was a real eye opener; it showed me just how far the course itself had developed since I graduated in 2009 and how the university and lecturers are working hard preparing students for the world of work. Units such as negotiation and live client campaigns are featured and concentrated on more heavily to allow students to explore what will be expected of them.

The experience of meeting the students and explaining to them what it is like working as a PRO was really valuable, it makes you realise how much practising PR changes your perception of the job and how PR skills are extremely transferrable. After explaining how PR can be used for pretty much anything from a person, a company or a product I tackled the main concern that the students had, which was in-house or agency. Now this is a long serving question and can only really be answered by trying it out for yourself, but I gave the pros and cons as follows:

In-house:
• Focussed on one company
• Know the subject inside out
• Work in a small communications team/often alone
• Typically 9-5 hours
• Long term campaigns
• Slightly better pay
• Reporting is often frequent

Agency:
• Varied work with several clients
• A knowledge of many topics and enhance the ability to learn quickly the information you need
• Work with other PR professionals and can draw on their knowledge and experience
• May be required to work longer hours if a deadline is approaching
• Short term campaigns
• Stable pay often bonuses
• Your client is not sitting next to you so you can prepare and schedule meetings to ensure you are not distracted or unprepared

Explaining to them that whatever path is chosen they still get to use the same PR skill set hadn’t seemed to occur to them, but I was extraordinarily impressed with the amount of experience in the workplace they were trying to obtain to boost their CVs. There will definitely be some brilliant PROs graduating this year!

ramsac teaches schools how to balance IT services costs

IT expert demonstrates how to improve services and save costs at BETT 2012, Olympia 11th-14th January 2012, stand K2

ramsac, a leading IT solutions consultancy, will be demonstrating its ‘menu’ of education IT support services at BETT 2012 (the largest education technology exhibition in the world), which is being held at Olympia in London, from 11th to 14th January 2012. Appearing on Stand K2, ramsac will show how schools can stretch their budgets and make the most of their resources.