Get yourself an internship – Part 1
Prepare – It seems to be the most obvious advice anybody would give you if you were thinking about applying for an intern position. You read all kinds of articles, you speak to PR professionals to gain more insights, maybe you even get your hands on a book to study interview techniques and how to deal with certain questions.
What if you were not thinking about applying for an internship at all? What if – like in my case – life offers you the awesome chance to grab a trainee position within a major PR consultancy on the market? What if you had one single afternoon – and the night – to get prepared for an interview which may give a significant boost to your early career?
When I had to face that issue two months ago I realized immediately that I simply didn’t have time to waste. I thought that almost three years of college studies combined with my enthusiasm for the profession – including endless studying of up-to-date PR trends, PRIME and this blog – will get me through the tough questions. What I had my focus on was something which I was sure will come up during the interview: knowledge on the consultancy itself.
Living in the brave new world of the new media you can find every piece of information you would like (and more). In the case of a PR consultancy you will have an even easier job.
What I’ve done first was studying the webpage of my hopefully future employer to gain a wide knowledge of who they were, what they were doing and what clients they were/are working for.
After the wide spectrum I wanted to deepen that knowledge. I was focusing on the major events that had happened in the past 5-6 years in the life of the consultancy. Mergers, acquisitions, awards, successfull campaigns, articles, everything.
Next step was to get to know the senior staff. CEO and senior managers (especially the person/people who will have you interviewed) are the prime targets to be covered. New media is a major advantage here. Check professional websites (senior professionals moving from one job to another are usually reported), their blogs, and their MySpace stuff. Never forget: you are about to enter a profession in which persuasion through a two-way open communication stands in the center. Your job in this case is no different: you persuade them to hire you as an intern. Obviously you have to focus on fields of interest (hobbies for example) you have in common with your possible interviewer.
A final but equally important step in my case was to get to know the consultancy’s clients. Make a list on every single client the consultancy was working on in the past 12 months (I had like 20 of them…:D ). Don’t make it too difficult – time management! – just make a reminder of 5-6 words for yourself what the purpose of the project/campaign was and what were the outcomes.
Still, never forget: your main weapons remain your personality, your knowledge and your skills. These cannot be acquired within a single day – and I guess that’s the main point.
