Cue the break up music

My relationship with my PR agency has ended. It was a mutual break up … no tears were shed. It was a long two months but we have decided to go our separate ways.

My two month internship has officially come to an end. Saying goodbye to everyone was much harder than I thought. I purchased a few thank you cards (three are pictured above) and wrote little notes in each one. I couldn’t wait to hand them out but I wanted to wait until the end of the day.

This past week was crazy busy as I was finalizing everything. I wrapped up the pitching of a blogger outreach campaign and shipped all of the products to the bloggers so now the agency just has to wait for the reviews to go live. I also finished up a news release and assisted with a media list. I made sure to send all of my documents to myself so I have a copy of the work I have completed. I’m going to update my portfolio next week to include a few pieces of work such as news releases, campaign results etc.

The account managers took me out for lunch today and I’m still stuffed!

When I returned to the office and walked over to my desk, there was a white envelope sitting on top of my notebook. I excitedly opened it up only to see a cheque! I was not expecting anything and the timing could not have been better.

Afterwards I passed out my cards and said my goodbyes. I cannot thank them enough for the opportunity and the money. I’ve learned a lot these past two months. I will definitely miss my supervisor and her little comments and complaints about everything. She was so fun to be around and always had me laughing with her remarks.

Saying goodbye was not easy but I hope to keep in touch with everyone and update them on my whereabouts as soon as I find a position.

THE INTERN DIARY: productive day

I’ve been meaning to blog about a few topics but just can’t seem to find the time. I’m hoping to post them this weekend.

My day was pretty interesting and productive. My boss treated everyone to lunch today so we all sat in the boardroom, eating, talking and laughing.

As I am now on my second blogger outreach campaign, I finalized my media list and started pitching. We have a specific number of products to ship out to the bloggers so this will be a bit time consuming. I don’t want to pitch to everyone on the list and end up getting responses from all and have to turn people away so I will have to pitch a few people at a time. So far I have three people on board which is great as they all responded within an hour of receiving the pitch. I realized I actually love pitching. Creating the pitch to cater to your target, personalizing each one and then getting an email from the target, thrilled to hop on board with the campaign is kind of exciting.

I have one week left of my internship and I think I might speak to my boss so I can continue interning, except only part-time. With quite a few people leaving to go on client business trips or on vacation, I want to finish up everything I’ve started. I would really like to see the results of the campaign I’m working on. The senior account manager that I report to will also be swamped as she has to manage two other accounts while one account manager is on vacation for almost three weeks. I’ve just started applying to jobs (horribly late, I know) so I really won’t expect to hear from anyone calling for an interview for a little while so I might as well keep myself busy

Tomorrow is going to be extremely busy for me as I continue pitching and begin a holiday news release, about three other writing tasks and a few other things.

I should probably get some sleep as I am beyond exhausted and have a long day tomorrow.

Toodles!

THE INTERN DIARY: the end is near

I can see the finish line. I officially have two weeks left of my internship and I’m so excited! I’m definitely ready to move onto the next stage and begin my career, that is if I can find a position of interest to me. I’m finding myself looking at agency positions even though I would like to try in-house or corporate PR. Working at an agency is not as bad as I thought it would be and there are a few agencies I would not mind applying to. For now, I’ll continue to make my list of PR professionals I would like to speak to and set up informational interviews.

Today was the end of my work week as I have requested tomorrow off (the agency has given me a few “personal days” and I haven’t used any of them yet). I was extremely busy as I wanted to make sure I wrapped up everything I was working on. I believe I mentioned last week that I was barely given any writing tasks as there wasn’t much writing to do but that was not the case this week. I had four writing tasks this week, which included three media releases, so I spent all day today finishing them up and editing. I am now pleased with the work I’ve done as I have a variety of writing samples to include in my portfolio. I was reading a blog the other day and the writer had said that she was surprised that she had to write quotes for her boss, well I was too when I was asked to include a quote in each media release from the owner of the agency. I originally had asked him for the quote and when I told my supervisor I was waiting on it so I could send it to her, she told me that we usually write it and send it to the person to review. It was not easy trying to write a quote, hoping it sounded real. I kept trying to think of what my boss would actually say.

I feel like I still have so much to do and so little time. I have to start a blogger outreach campaign next week and two weeks is not enough time to wrap it up. I wanted to see it through but I won’t be able to. My agency will definitely let me stay on longer if I need to so I may ask to work “part-time” and work a few days a week.

In the mean time, I will enjoy my long weekend and catch up on my sleep!

THE INTERN DIARY: good company, good food, good conversation

Today was a pretty easy day.

We have our weekly meetings every Tuesday so when I arrived at work, I made sure I was prepared to discuss what I was working on this week. The meetings are suppose to be half an hour but they end up lasting up to an hour so it didn’t end until after 10. Afterwards, I had a meeting with the owner and two senior account managers to discuss two campaigns for one client. Since I’ve been actively doing a blogger outreach campaign, I was assigned the task of doing another one for another client. Thankfully the campaign is targeting bloggers that I’ve already reached out to so I’m going to compile a list of the top ones and start pitching by the end of the week. This is a great way to continue building the relationships with these bloggers who I’m sure will be more than happy to work with me again.

After the meeting I did a little bit of media monitoring and worked on a project I needed to complete by tomorrow. I didn’t have much time to work on it though as I had a lunch meeting with the owner of the agency I’m interning at and my uncle who works in the industry (he got me my internship as my “boss”/the owner and him often do business together). We headed into the city and met my uncle at his work. We then walked around the corner to this really cool restaurant my uncle recommended. It was such a fun “meeting.” It was nice to get out of the office to do something like this. I listened as they spoke about the industry, chiming in here and there – most of the conversation was about business as my “boss” is looking for more clients. I loved just sitting and listening to them speak. The food was great and the environment was relaxing.

When we finally parted ways and headed back to the office, I had only an hour left of my work day. Seeing as I basically did nothing all day and still had to complete a writing project, I decided to stay an extra hour to get everything done.

Today was definitely my favourite day as an intern. I wish every day consisted of relaxing lunch meetings ..

THE INTERN DIARY: Fun, food and family

What an interesting day.

I started my day off stressed as I had a competitive analysis to complete for one of our client’s and four competitors. I was supposed to have it completed yesterday but it was a large analysis and my supervisor knew it would be difficult to complete in two days. I actually enjoyed writing and researching for the competitive analysis. It required a lot of research as I went through everything each company had done since January. I feel so informed now as I know what others in the market are doing/have been doing.

I was able to relax throughout the day because my “co-workers” can be quite funny – we were all just giggling at our desks. It took my mind off of the deadline and once I relaxed I was able to enjoy doing work. Being the only intern is not easy though – especially at a small agency. Deadlines are no joke so having everyone come to me to help them out can be distracting.

My supervisor scheduled a lunch meeting for the two of us and we ended up going to this amazing burger place we both had never been to. We discussed what I’ve done so far, what I’d like to do more of and talked about the industry. I’m thankful that I have an uncle that has a very high position at the company he works for (in advertising) so when my supervisor told me about this up coming event my uncle’s work was throwing, I emailed him and was able to get an invite for myself and a friend. It will definitely be a great networking opportunity.

Now that I’ve finished the competitive analysis and another clients event, that I mentioned in a previous post, is canceled (we were able to talk them out of it), I can get to the many things on my “to-do” list tomorrow.

By Friday my list should be cleared and I’ll be ready to start some new projects/tasks on Monday!

THE INTERN DIARY: Update

My internship has been pretty boring in terms of the tasks I have been doing lately. I haven’t been able to do as much writing as I would like to because there has been nothing to write. My days are mostly spent creating media lists so we can prepare ourselves to start pitching. I could definitely use a break from Cision. One of our clients wants to pitch something to French speaking outlets and sitting in front of a computer screen, looking for French speaking media contacts and going through their outlets to ensure it is a great fit is not easy. I took French throughout high school so I can understand a few words here and there but Google’s web page translator has been my best friend these past few days.

These next few days, however, should be a little more interesting for me. One of the account managers asked me to create a calendar for four of his clients so he knows when their products will appear in stores and when the news releases must be sent out. He told me I can get creative with it and I already have a few interesting ideas. Another client uses a really creative looking calendar and I think I’m going to do something similar. I also get to help him create fact sheets for some very non-interesting products but it involves writing so I’m looking forward to it.

As soon as I get this media list completed I can move on to the more interesting work.

6,000 jobs? Don’t mind if I DON’T!

As an intern halfway through my internship, I’ve been searching the web for entry-level public relations/marketing jobs. I often enjoy looking through job postings to see what’s out there but I’ve realized a growing epidemic affecting the job posting community a.k.a job search websites. The epidemic? The lack of removing old job postings!

There is no need for me to go through 6,000 job postings when 5,796 of them have expired. Why can’t they go through and clean them up? Or somehow set a time limit on it to automatically remove it once it expires? The sites I’m referring to also don’t order the postings by date so the new postings are mixed up with the old ones.

If I was just browsing, I wouldn’t mind as much but when I could possibly miss a great job posting because it’s located on page 52 than there is a bit of an issue.

Hopefully I’ll find something soon so I can end this job search once and for all.

Seeing the change.

It’s been about four weeks since I began my internship and I can already see a change. This morning while driving to my internship, a radio station had an interview with the host of a show one of our clients products is often featured on. Normally, I would have changed the station to find a good song or plugged in my iPod but I didn’t – I listened to the whole interview. I’ve even been watching shows that I have never watched before just to see a client’s product.

PR is taking over my life but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love it.

THE INTERN DIARY: Time consuming

Today felt ridiculously long and I barely did anything. When I arrived at work (my internship), the power was out in the area which meant no work – what a relief. I got to flip through some magazines while people in the area tried to figure out how to fix the problem, which apparently happens often. Unfortunately, the power outage only lasted for half an hour. When we got everything up and running again, we watched one of our clients on a TV show which meant another half an hour of no work. After an hour of doing absolutely nothing, I went back to the task I wasn’t able to finish yesterday. One of the account managers had asked me to update his contact list in Outlook which took such a long time. The contact list was two years old and his Outlook list only had ten contacts so I had to add every contact from the excel sheet he sent me. I had to make sure the contacts were up-to-date and still working at the places he had them listed at – if not, I had to find replacements. It was such a tedious task, I was afraid I would mess up spelling or mix up information. I hated the fact that it took so long but I really did not mind doing it. I was able to go through media outlets and learn the hosts and producers which is extremely important in this profession.

I also got to take another 30 minute break and watch a PR webinar. The beautiful weather makes it extremely difficult to work – especially when you’re working in a building with so many windows. I’m pretty sure there’s no actual wall in the upstairs office, it’s all windows so you can’t help but stare outside. I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday.

THE INTERN DIARY: Drowning in Emails

This picture sums up my day quite nicely. I was literally drowning in emails. I finished pitching to bloggers and spent my whole day responding to emails. As soon as I would attempt to do something else, I would get another email. My senior account manager basically put me in charge of the whole project so other than forwarding emails to her and asking her how to respond to certain ones, I get to work on this alone which I love.

I got to meet a TV personality today which was interesting – I was just watching her show on the weekend. She came into our offices to discuss partnering with a client and she’s on board. I’ll be working on that project with another account manager so hopefully I’ll get to work with her so I can add that to my resume.

I was also assigned the task of writing a news release for a clients product and I’m having the hardest time doing so. I’ve had it since Monday and I barely have anything done. I know nothing about this product, nor do I know how to include the technical terms as I have no idea how to properly use them. Google has been no help so I’m just hoping and praying it will work out. I don’t want to ask for help so I’m going to spend the rest of the evening working on it so I can submit it tomorrow, although I have until Friday.

Even though responding to all of the emails is quite time consuming, I’m actually anxious to get to work tomorrow to see who has emailed me. So far all of the bloggers I’ve pitched to are on board which feels amazing.