Holyrood PR: Saving students and young hopefuls from dull internships since 2002

Get ahead in the agency recognised as the best in Scotland for nurturing talent

I’ll start this piece off with a frank admission: I never attempted an internship while at university.

At 26 I feel I’m finally big enough to admit that this was a mistake, so I urge any undergrads to read this post, then scan our very own intern blogs (and our recent post on how we won our latest Young Communicator of the Year) and pose the question: is a four week internship at Holyrood PR a productive way to spend part of my (enormous) holidays?

Look, you will (quite rightly) be told on multiple occasions that during your student days you should be applying for internships – but this will hopefully not seem like another tiring lecture from somebody who knows best, or from that top student who really gets on your wick.

From experience I know that this bombardment can lead to what I’ve personally coined headinthesanditis – where it is much easier to get by, enjoying the free time, the socialising and the sleeping.

The hope is that this post will help you make a positive, well-informed decision to apply for an internship which will leave you standing tall, head and shoulders above the competition – and perhaps on the way to earning a new career in PR.

Here is our one of our Interns last week blog

Holyrood PR crowned most outstanding small public relations agency

Why Holyrood PR

To put it simply, we’re a small(ish) agency that punches well above its weight.

This means two things; our interns get to work on some great client accounts and secondly, because of our size they actually do get the opportunity to experience what it is like to work in a PR agency.

This second point certainly isn’t to be scoffed at and puts to rest any suspicions that a PR internship is just about constant coffee runs and tedious shadowing. Our interns become part of the team, involved in rewarding work – although, of course, we never have them taking the place of an actual staff member.

Founded in 2002, Holyrood PR has gone from strength-to-strength, culminating in a gold award win for ‘Outstanding Small Agency’ at the 2015 Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRide Awards in Glasgow.

But perhaps of more value to the agency is its superb record for developing young talent. With three CIPR Scotland PRide award wins for ‘Young Communicator of the Year’ – the most recent picked up in October – it is safe to say that this agency has grown thanks to the development and good work of invigorated young staff.

In fact, in their citation the judges said: “Holyrood PR is a great example of an employer committed to the CIPR’s CPD scheme, along with not only training its team but also encouraging them to capture and share that training via blogging on the website.”

Find out why it is students love the internship we offer at Holyrood PR

Why during my studies?

Look, we know students. Many of us at Holyrood PR were students just a few years ago and still long for the days of daytime TV and the Wednesday night routine, going out clubbing.

An internship will do some miraculous things. Firstly, it will instil in you a genuine confidence in interview situations. No longer will there be any need to blag that you ‘get’ the importance of social mediabecause you have your own ‘Instagram account’.

Secondly you will be able to rebuff the most dreaded of all responses and the bane of the out-of-work graduate: That email or letter which starts so positively, with a … ‘thank you for your application’ and yet finishes so crushingly with a … ‘however due to a lack of experience you have unfortunately not been considered for the role on this instance’.

You may even have the rare pleasure of discovering a career path that you are 100 per cent passionate about before the end of university and before the post-graduation fear sets in.

Conversely, there is always the slim chance that you may discover that PR and especially agency work is not for you – and it is most certainly better to find that out before graduation than after.

The bottom line is that there are always positives to a PR internship. But we fundamentally believe that our agency has proven itself time and time again as the place to be for young PR hopefuls.

Don’t go on suffering with headinthesanditis – get involved and apply for an internship during your uni holidays.