By Season Ho - Student Category Winner 2014
Original post: http://www.cprfhk.org/2015/02/young-pr-professionals-competition-how-i-started-my-pr-career/
Time flies. It has already been a year since I joined the Young Public Relations Professionals Competition, organized annually by the Council of Public Relations Firms in Hong Kong. Winning the competition kick-started my career in PR and communications. Though I am still an undergraduate student, I am fortunate enough to have worked in different international PR and marketing agencies, where I gained practical experience and found my career path.
The brief of the competition last year was set against a week-long art festival for performance arts on Sai Yeung Choi Street. Entrants have to come up with a six month integrated PR campaign for the event. At the time, my knowledge and understanding of PR came mainly from textbooks and case studies. Once I started working on the PR plan for the competition, I found it quite difficult as I never had a chance to develop such a plan from the beginning to the end. The case studies and examples of successful PR campaigns I read in textbooks were huge, and I finally got a chance to plan a similar one. I spent a lot of time brainstorming what makes a street art festival successful, and my friends and teachers gave me some great, inspiring ideas as well. Finally, I proposed a series of creative events under the campaign, ‘Let Art Out’, which aims to encourage young people to express their feelings, ideas and artistic personality in daily life. I was thrilled to win the award of the competition for the Student Category.
As a part of the award, I got to do a 1.5-month internship with FleishmanHillard. It was my first proper internship with a PR agency. I was in the consumer team and I gained exposure to a wide spectrum of PR work, ranging from product launch and award presentation ceremony, to employee engagement and media roundtables, all of which were eye-opening.
Overall, my time at FleishmanHillard turned out to be so much more fruitful and unforgettable than I had expected. By physically going to work full-time and interacting with people and clients in real life situations, I was able to acquire various new skills, not to mention the lunch-time staff training sessions and the awesome Give Me Five parties we had in the office. I had fun at FleishmanHillard.
Afterwards I moved to JWT for another 2-month summer internship where I acquired other client-servicing skills. Working in an advertising agency is quite different, but still it is all about communication.
Right now, I am working as a part-time intern in Edelman’s corporate and finance team. Thanks to previous agency experience, I am more equipped with essential PR skills and I am more confident in taking up new challenges. The work environment, corporate culture, the people - almost everything is very innovative and youthful at Edelman. I am so glad to have accumulated such valuable work experience before graduation and I have treasured every second of it. What is better than doing what you love, and loving what you do?
Looking back, 2014 was really a life-changing year. Since I won the Young PR Professional Competition, I have embarked on a journey that brought me to the real PR world, which convinced me to start my career in PR. I would say that the internship opportunity lined up by CPRFHK as part of the prize is extremely helpful for university students, whether they are from PR, journalism, communication or other marketing related disciplines. I highly recommend interested students to give it a try. 2015 might be the year for you to kick-start your PR career. Game on!
Original post: http://www.cprfhk.org/2015/02/young-pr-professionals-competition-how-i-started-my-pr-career/
Time flies. It has already been a year since I joined the Young Public Relations Professionals Competition, organized annually by the Council of Public Relations Firms in Hong Kong. Winning the competition kick-started my career in PR and communications. Though I am still an undergraduate student, I am fortunate enough to have worked in different international PR and marketing agencies, where I gained practical experience and found my career path.
The brief of the competition last year was set against a week-long art festival for performance arts on Sai Yeung Choi Street. Entrants have to come up with a six month integrated PR campaign for the event. At the time, my knowledge and understanding of PR came mainly from textbooks and case studies. Once I started working on the PR plan for the competition, I found it quite difficult as I never had a chance to develop such a plan from the beginning to the end. The case studies and examples of successful PR campaigns I read in textbooks were huge, and I finally got a chance to plan a similar one. I spent a lot of time brainstorming what makes a street art festival successful, and my friends and teachers gave me some great, inspiring ideas as well. Finally, I proposed a series of creative events under the campaign, ‘Let Art Out’, which aims to encourage young people to express their feelings, ideas and artistic personality in daily life. I was thrilled to win the award of the competition for the Student Category.
As a part of the award, I got to do a 1.5-month internship with FleishmanHillard. It was my first proper internship with a PR agency. I was in the consumer team and I gained exposure to a wide spectrum of PR work, ranging from product launch and award presentation ceremony, to employee engagement and media roundtables, all of which were eye-opening.
Overall, my time at FleishmanHillard turned out to be so much more fruitful and unforgettable than I had expected. By physically going to work full-time and interacting with people and clients in real life situations, I was able to acquire various new skills, not to mention the lunch-time staff training sessions and the awesome Give Me Five parties we had in the office. I had fun at FleishmanHillard.
Afterwards I moved to JWT for another 2-month summer internship where I acquired other client-servicing skills. Working in an advertising agency is quite different, but still it is all about communication.
Right now, I am working as a part-time intern in Edelman’s corporate and finance team. Thanks to previous agency experience, I am more equipped with essential PR skills and I am more confident in taking up new challenges. The work environment, corporate culture, the people - almost everything is very innovative and youthful at Edelman. I am so glad to have accumulated such valuable work experience before graduation and I have treasured every second of it. What is better than doing what you love, and loving what you do?
Looking back, 2014 was really a life-changing year. Since I won the Young PR Professional Competition, I have embarked on a journey that brought me to the real PR world, which convinced me to start my career in PR. I would say that the internship opportunity lined up by CPRFHK as part of the prize is extremely helpful for university students, whether they are from PR, journalism, communication or other marketing related disciplines. I highly recommend interested students to give it a try. 2015 might be the year for you to kick-start your PR career. Game on!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.