Wine Cellars and Murder Mysteries: My Internship with Holyrood PR

HOW Being Wined, Dined and Spending Time With An Edinburgh PR Agency Confirmed My Choice of Career in the Industry

By Sarah Hume

Where to begin…

The last four weeks at Holyrood PR have been absolutely fantastic. I have learned a huge amount in such a short space of time and have come away filled with skills and knowledge that will be incredibly useful in the PR industry and even further afield.

Every morning, I joined in on the daily newspaper sweep to hunt for any newsworthy stories and client coverage. This helped to get me clued up on what was happening worldwide on a daily basis, but also on how to spot stories in the dailies that were relevant to clients and could then be piggy backed on to achieve coverage.

Into the Wine Cellar

During my first week, I was given the opportunity to tag alongside Stuart and videographer Craig to meet Giles Cooke, a Master of Wine. Giles is the producer of Our Fathers wine, a social enterprise which donates all profits to charity and has recently come on as a project client.

We travelled to his house to make a film showcasing himself, his business and his impressive wine cellar, hidden under a trap door in his office floor.

This was a great and unexpected start to my internship and I was more than thrilled to be so involved in on the job client work so quickly. It was also a great opportunity to see how much time, effort and skills goes into Craig’s video work.

Every Day is Different

From then on, each day I was given different tasks to tackle and each day I came away with new knowledge or a new skill.

While at university, writing a press release could sometimes be confusing and challenging but at Holyrood, I was given plenty of practice and hugely built my confidence in this area.

I also quickly mastered the ability to make photo montages using Photoshop, which would then be added into coverage posts on the HPR website to shout about the success of a story.

One of the many perks of working here is that, due to the large spread of different clients the team work with, every day is different.

One day I was researching the Scottish Cyber Awards and the next I was drafting a press release on a lady who was celebrating her 101^st birthday. There really was never a dull moment.

Any task that came my way, I got my head down and did my best. I have to admit, I was particularly nervous when phoning clients and newspapers for the first time but once I had made two or three calls, the nerves completely went away.

Boozy Murder Mysteries and a HUGE Thank You

I was lucky enough to be invited along for the team’s summer work night out – a boozy Murder Mystery and a brilliant three course meal at the Apex Hotel, which was great fun and a fantastic way to get to know the team even better.

In the office in general, the social atmosphere and regular jokes really help you relax and made me realise working day to day in an office in “the real world” is not as strict or scary as I had thought it would be!

As an intern, I was happily surprised at how much responsibility I was given during my four weeks here. I didn’t expect to be given such a great role in such a short amount of time. No one doubted me and happily gave me tasks to keep me busy.

This taste of working in an award-winning PR agency has definitely opened my eyes to what I want to achieve and where I want to go in the future. This is all due to Holyrood PR for letting me come and spend four weeks learning the ins and outs of the industry; I can’t thank them enough for being so lovely and patient and taking the time to sit down and explain tasks to me.

In September, I will now go into my last year at university studying Public Relations with a clearer mind of exactly where my future career lies.