My week’s work experience

I recently completed a week’s work experience, it was so great that I felt the need to share my experience! I am going travelling in January, and I had lots of plans for summer so getting a ‘real’ job wasn’t really feasible for me. I wanted to make sure that whilst I’d enjoyed a lovely summer with friends and family, that I’d also done something worthwhile and beneficial for me when I got back from travelling…something ‘career’ related if you will. I’m doing a course at the FRA next week, blog post to follow…but the other career related thing I’ve done is a weeks work experience in PR.

PR is something that my great friend Fenella studies, and said I’d be great at. I’d never really given it much thought until I read a job advert about it and did some further research about the industry. I was lucky enough to be able to organise a week working with the lovely ladies at Jennie Holland PR , a really fast-paced and extremely successful business based in Nottingham city centre. Whilst the whole team were so busy with all their different clients, they made sure that I felt so welcome by everyone and that I could ask any questions when I had them, big or small.

The company work with some great clients, one of my favourites being the Lincoln Cathedral for their connected project. I was given real tasks to complete and actual projects to work on, which is often not the case with work experience. This helped me learn so much more about their business and the world of PR in itself, I drafted press releases, created social media content for their clients, researched for clients and much more…all of which helping me to learn by doing, the most effective way to learn in my opinion! Kelly one of the ladies there also gave me feedback on some of the work I did which I’ve kept and will definitely be referring to in the future, it was so helpful.

The whole team were so fun and we even went for a team lunch at the end of the week to chat and learn more about each other. I was really quite apprehensive and nervous beforehand but I couldn’t have been more wrong to be like that, it was genuinely one of the highlights of my summer and I miss the team so much! I’ve learnt so much about the industry and confirmed for myself that PR is something I’d love to do, and hopefully something I’d be good at.

Work experience has so many benefits; it’s a way to learn more about an industry, deciding for yourself through actual experience whether a certain role/industry would be well suited to you, as well as meeting new people and broadening you’re network and making the best impression possible which brings about endless possibilities. The biggest benefit it had for me was building up some confidence about the ‘working world’, it made me realise that I can do ‘real’ jobs, I’m perfectly able to go into a new work place and meet new people and try new things. It’s made the all daunting working world seem less daunting, more exciting and I’m feeling more motivated than ever.

If there’s something you’re interested in learning more about, try contacting a company in the industry and sharing you’re interest. Whilst I know that having someone in for work experience is really the company doing you a favour, if you’re lucky enough you might too land totally on your feet and have the best week ever…just like I did! Make sure you practice a can-do attitude and give everything they give you to complete you’re all, appreciate everything they teach you and give for you to do, truly make the most of it!

I genuinely had an amazing week and I feel lucky to have been able to meet such a wonderful team. I hope to get the opportunity to work with them again in the future, thank you Jennie Holland PR! Any tips or help with work experience I’d love to help, drop me a message! I’ll include the link to Jennie Holland PR’s LinkedIn to see a bit more about them.

Until next time

Megan

xx