My First Week as an Intern at the Award Winning Holyrood PR
By Jessica Cook
I ALWAYS thought leaving home would be daunting, especially moving city, but thanks to an internship at Scottish PR agency Holyrood PR, I’ve overcome this and many other intimidating prospects.
I’m only one week in to this month long stint and already I’ve learnt a whole new list of skills on web, video and PR, while also getting a glimpse into the future career I have chosen.
I am in my third year of a Public Relations degree at Robert Gordon University and as part of the course we get the opportunity to either study another module or go out and get work experience for a month. So, it came down to either staying in uni and carrying on with the daily lectures and tutorials or to move city and experience something completely new… Easy decision.
As this is my first ever work experience in PR, to say I was nervous for my first day at Holyrood PR would be an understatement.
I woke up at 7am, which is a time of morning I rarely ever encounter and as I walked through the doors of Holyrood PR I was cheerily greeted by the office manager, Linsay, who then showed me to my desk where I was immediately welcomed by everyone in the team – which calmed the nerves a lot.
I always had the perception of a 9-5 job being a very long, boring and tiring day, but there’s no time to waste at Holyrood and you get thrown straight in, so my first day flew by and when the clock hit five, I really didn’t know where the time had gone.
From reading the ‘Intern Bible’ to being a part of the daily team meetings to learning the ropes on how to upload press releases to the all important website, the first day had me learning all sorts and it was great to be getting this kind of experience under my belt so quickly.
My second day started with the same routine, 7am start (still a struggle), but again I was immediately thrown into something new when I got in as I was asked to help out with the filming for HPRTV, which is a weekly video update on what’s been going on at Holyrood PR.
The theme was rugby as it was set to be Scotland’s first home game of the six nations, so Videographer Craig, Digital Account Executive Sarah and I set off to Murrayfield with a rugby ball to film the opening scene.
By Wednesday I was starting to get used to the morning routine. My main tasks for the day was to put together media coverage for HPR client Thames Water Commercial Services and to gather quotes from schools around Scotland for the Scottish Schools Pipe Band Championships.
Find out more about these clients in the dedicated client hubs
This involved a number of phone calls to various schools across the country. This was a nerve racking task for me as I am not the most confident on the phone. However, I am learning that in this industry there is no room for shyness.
On Thursday I started working on my first blog for Eagle Couriers. This was exciting and new as I have never written a blog before and it was great to get guidance and feedback from the more experienced members of the team.
I rounded off the week by phoning a list of journalists to see if they would be interested in attending an event by Sodexo Prestige. Once again this was a daunting task, but a helping hand from Account Executive Vickie made me feel more at ease. This is something that I hope and expect to overcome during my time here at Holyrood PR, which I know will help in my future career once I finish my course.
There’s never a moment where there’s nothing to get on with and I am eager to see what’s in store for next three weeks!
