A Week In The Eyes Of A Work Experience

17 April 2015 by Lucie Chilton in General

A Week In The Eyes Of A Work Experience

Breaking up for Easter, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to explore the practice side of Public Relations.                                                                                                                                    

Being a first year and studying PR at Bournemouth University for only two terms, I felt that it was time for me to find out what reality would be really like; whether PR was something I really want to do.  With exceptional recommendations from my sister who previously did her work experience at Defero, I knew exactly where I wanted gain my first bit of PR experience.

My preconceived expectations of working in the industry at the time were that I would be thrown in the deep end, and that I would find it a hostile environment. Defero shortly changed my prejudice concept!

On my first day, I got to meet the dynamic team. Grant, Matt and Lucie!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Instantly I knew I was going to enjoy myself as they were all very welcoming. My day was spent shadowing account executive Lucie; who initially taught me the ins and outs of the framework and the fundamentals to the practice.  Easing me in gently, Lucie who is in charge of social media, showed me all the clients that they are currently working with and explained to me why an online presence for these clients is required and why it is so important. The first bit of responsibility I was delegated was to manage a couple of the the clients social media accounts. I was pleased that the team had so much confidence in me, I felt empowered as I was trusted to manage these big client's accounts. This was educational and motivating, making me want to show them what I was capable of doing, enabling me to put my theory into practice.

For the rest of the week, the team showed me how to produce and send e-shots, boost posts and had me working on press releases for the exciting, new contracts which they had recently signed.                                                                      

Now that my week at Defero is sadly coming to an end, I am having to face the reality of going back to university to continue studying the theory behind PR, writing assignments and revising for exams. As boring as that may sound, in a way I am excited to go back and finish, as it means the sooner I finish, the sooner I am to becoming a qualified PR practitioner. I am hoping to gain more experience throughout the duration of my course. Lucky for me, my third year is a placement year, which means that any experience prior to this time will be more than useful. 

I've learnt valuable lessons whilst working with the Defero team; this is my first ever blog post and now thanks to Lucie, i've been inspired to set up my own personal blog where I hope to continue my blogging! 

For the short space of time I was here at Defero, I can say that I have enjoyed every little moment and there is no doubt that I will be back this summer for a longer duration... that is if they will have me back of course!