My journey through PR: Interviews/placements and all that Jazz

My journey through PR: Interviews/placements and all that Jazz

Interviews/placements and all that Jazz

So having scored a placement in the Yeadon based Direct Marketing Response company the Ashley Bolser Agency I am feeling quite content with my interviewing abilities. Having never had a real interview for an official position I was incredibly nervous and chatted myself through the nerves..which I think could have possibly won my interviewers over.

Over the last week I have been feeling very concerned about my employability at the end of my degree due to placement work.
At present (although this changes regularly) I am not intending on doing a year long placement as I would quite like to get out into the working world before the tender age of 24 (which is what I would be if I were to do a placement year).
Everyone seems so proactive and busy, I am fairly busy but find it difficult to fit everything in with having a regular part time job, placement and university work itself.
Does anyone else feel this pressure bearing down on them when sat in guest lectures and tutorials hearing about the various placements, experiences and published writing that others are getting involved in?

Also I was wondering if any PR employers could give me their opinion on the benefits of doing a placement year. Even though by the end of my degree I will have done at least six placements in a variety of places ranging from the voluntary sector to PR agencies and even magazine work.

First time for everything

A new semester a new blog entry!
Although there is no denying that I could have done one during the summer but it has been an insanely busy period!
This summer consisted of a variety of activities ranging from working on brick lane in a restaurant to serving over 20,000 pies...No I am not kidding!
All in all it was a great experience, as due to contacts I scored a three week work placement in a Soho based PR company going by the name of Mission Media.
Although I didn't come out with any work for my portfolio just being in the environment, contacting the journalists and helping the PR practitioners was fantastic in itself.
But now I am on the hunt for more knowledge...which I think I may have just sorted in the form of a one day a week placement in the offices of the Faversham!
That and more PR placement coming up soon, must dash as am off to first lecture of the year....It's beginning well!

Taxes taxes taxes

Is anyone else concerned that these days you don't get any change from a pound when buying a loaf of bread?Has anyone noticed that within the space of a year the petrol prices have hit an all time high? Every day I read about different things rising in prices ranging from houses to bottles of milk. There appears to be no halt on these rising prices and its not like when they do stop that they are ever going to drop.
How are people coping, wages aren't rising so how are people managing to afford this financial change? Will this coping lead to an increase in the numbers of people already in debt?
What about us students getting ready to head into the big wide and ever increasingly expensive world? How will we be able to afford houses? Let alone be able to live to a comfortable standard that we are currently working towards??

Any PR students got any thoughts on this...

All been incredibly busy as of late! I have received confirmation on my placement with House Beautiful for two weeks in March in the PR capital that is London! I also went for an interview with the Leeds based PR company SLB PR and found out the next day that I had the weekly placement!
Hopefully both these placements will give me lots of material for my portfolio! Fingers crossed

Work with CLIC sargent is also moving along nicely as we have been preparing for the launch of CLICs latest initiative Kick For Children With Cancer.
Kick for Children with Cancer now going into it’s fourth year, is a UK wide initiative organised by CLIC Sargent to encourage children and young people across the country to get out onto the pitch this summer and play football in support of children with cancer.

I have recently compiled a press release for the local launch of the fundraiser in the area of Billingham where last year Northfield Sports College raised £4000, the highest amount raised nation wide.

At the end of last week I recieved an email from the editorial assistant of the well known magazine House Beautiful.
I had recently contacted a friend who worked for the magazine enquiring as to whether there was any possibility of being able to arrange a short term placement.
The woman who contacted me mentioned the possibility of being able to work with the Features team helping them to compile stories and collect material for future stories....

All sounds quite exciting

So far this week has seen quite a development in my activites involving Public Relations!
Firstly I have managed to obtain a placement within the Leeds based company SLB PR, which is fantastic, and I am visiting the office tomorrow afternoon to finalise any details. Also within my other placement with the charity CLIC Sargent I have been assigned to the role of press officer for their latest national event Kick for Children with Cancer. For the north east region I have based my launch upon the Billingham area (near Middlesborough) due to this being the area where the highest amount of money was raised last year.
I contacted the main paper for the area the Evening Gazette in search of creating some form of Media Partnership enabling the event to be publicised as fully as possible within the local area. Unfortunatley I was greeted with a very harrassed journalist who didn't really pay much attention to what I was trying to tell her and fobbed me off with a number that so far has not been answered.
Luckily my second port of call was far more successful. Instead of using just newspapers to launch the event I also contacted a regional radio station and propsed the idea of the media partnership. This time I was more practised with how to approach the situation, this seemed to make the difference as I managed to convince the radio that arranging a media partnership with CLIC was the best decision they could make all year!

And so they agreed to look through our proposal during the week and get back to us with their final decision......................Fingers crossed WHOOOOOOOOH OOOOOOOO

First day of lectures today and felt like i'd never been away...good or bad i'm still deciding!

Various things are different this term such as it being shorter thus meaning we have to work just that little bit hard to fit all the work in which isn't so fun. But spring is coming and the nights are getting brighter so this january depression that appears to have settled on the country will hopefully lift.
Although with rising costs and wages remaining the same why should this feeling of despair lift, being able to afford to live is getting more and more difficult by the day. How large families on low incomes manage i have no idea. Its all rather worrying especially as we the public appear to have completely lost control of our country our finances and pretty much everything else that comes with living in this country.

Roll on 2008, a new year, a new start and bad habits continue to die hard!

Christmas has come and gone quicker than you can say PR and already we are a week into the new year. The ad breaks are crammed with healthy meal ideas, celebrity exercise videos and weight loss companies promoting their products and services.
We as consumers are being bombarded with things that claim to help us lose those excess christmas pounds ready for the spring and summer....

But do we really need all these products to help us achieve our new years resolutions, are companies not just encourging us to look at ourselves in a negative light?????