Navigation

Home

Week Nine: 13-20 Nov

It’s week nine of the Brunswick internship programme. The team takes you through what happened, day by day…

This is the ninth blog entry from the 2009 Brunswick Six, click here to return to the blog index

By Brunswick Interns

Friday 13 November (Param)

This week’s Brunswick session was another insightful and learned one. Newspapers were the topic for discussion once more.

First we met Tristan Vanhagen, a former investment banker, who spoke to us about how to get a “feel” for the different areas of the media, and to work out which ones you personally enjoy. He also reminded us of the importance of reading newspapers regularly.

Then we met Mike Harrison, who is a former business journalist. He talked us through his career move from journalism into PR, and about the challenges of working with clients. He reminded us that, even in a media relations role, there is more to PR than just keeping journalists happy!

Finally, we met with Roberta Whitter again, who gave us some useful tips for how best to talk to journalists: preparation is key, and you need a thick skin!

All in all it was another great afternoon at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Monday 16 November (Jenard)

This week four of us will attend an assessment day for trainee roles at Brunswick. The assessment takes place tomorrow. So today was preparation day really, and I don’t know about the others … but I sure needed it!

Roberta Whitter from Brunswick kindly came to the Unicorn Jobs office to prepare us for the ‘media review’ exercise we would have to do as part of the assessment centre. If you don’t know what a media review is, let me tell you. You are given media clippings of articles about a specific company – what would be one of your clients if you were working for a PR agency – and your task is to write a clear summary or overview of what has been said about the company in the newspapers.

It sounds simple enough, till you get told that you have only 45 minutes to do it in! And that includes reading time. Roberta took us through an example Brunswick review to show us the standard layout, and then gave us an hour (because she is nice!) to prepare one for her. It wasn’t easy at all, but I am so glad that she gave up her time to come and teach us how to do them. It really helped us get to grips with what would the process was about.

After the media review, Sarah at Unicorn Jobs took each of us who were attending the assessment day into the meeting room for an interview prep session. It was so helpful to have someone with her knowledge and experience advise us on how best to sell ourselves in a proper interview situation. Her advice was priceless.

Today I went away feeling a little more confident about tomorrow. Thanks Sarah and Roberta… now bring on the assessment day!!

Tuesday 17 November – at Unicorn House (Param)

Tuesday was a quiet day at Unicorn House, because four of the interns went to Brunswick for their assessment day.

Claude and I, who had decided not to go for the trainee roles, were back at base working on the group presentations we would be giving later in the week. Fortunately Claude and I were on different teams, so neither side had the advantage of a team member with extra time on their hands.

I was quite surprised at how much work I had completed for the presentation by the end of the day, but it just goes to show how much one can get done if you are focused and under pressure.

Meanwhile, at the back of our minds we were both thinking about the rest of the interns and how they were getting on at Brunswick – we have been rooting for them all the way…

Tuesday 17 November at Brunswick (Charlotte)

“Nothing is more important than this day…” – Goethe

I remember how I felt the first time I walked into the Brunswick offices. It was very different from environments I had been and worked in before – navy carpets, bronze railings and pearl wearing secretaries – it made quite an impression.

Today, myself, Junior, Jenard and Tina went for job interviews at Brunswick. For those of you that don’t know, Brunswick recently told us that a trainee position was available and, having read through our CV applications, they invited us down for an assessment day involving several interviews, a written test and presentation.

We were expected at Brunswick for 9am. The four of us met up at 8.15 for a coffee and some pep talk. I had a shaky start having left my journalism portfolio on the Central Line. But I was feeling prepared, and even a little excited. I think between us we had bought almost every paper of the day, and we quizzed each other about current affairs until it was time to go.

On arrival we were separated and taken to a room and told to expect our first interviewer shortly. What was about 15 minutes felt like an hour, and I was relieved when my “buddy” Bertie popped her head around the door for some last minute words of encouragement. We each had four interviews. Surprisingly, they felt more like informal chats than interviews. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in my experience on the programme, my life experiences and ambitions, I never once felt like they were trying to catch me off guard.

The four of us were then reunited for stage two – the media review. We were each given a laptop, a stack of press coverage and 45 minutes to produce something decent. After that we had a delightful lunch and were joined by other Brunswick employees.

After lunch, one-by-one we went in for our last interview/presentation about our media reviews. And then it was over.

I felt as though I tried my best. The good thing is, this internship is transparent, and so they already know where my strengths and weaknesses lie, so there is no need to try and hide anything. And if I don’t get the job, while I will be disheartened, I trust their judgement and will know it just wasn’t meant to be. Either way, I am so grateful for the experience.

Good luck guys!

Wednesday 18 November (Tina)

This morning we went to Taylor Bennett where we met Annita Bennett, who had some general career advice to offer. One of TB’s founders, Annita has an amazing air about her and commands the room whenever she speaks. She gave us much to think about as young people starting out in the communications industry, and had a lot of very handy advice which would be beneficial to remember regardless of which sector you are working in.

After Annita left, we were joined by Christine Chinnery, who we hadn’t previously met. She gave as a lot of information on the financial markets, all from a PR perspective, having worked in-house in the banking sector for several years before joining Taylor Bennett. She also gave us a financial glossary containing the meanings of words that we will probably come across in certain business media, especially the Financial Times. It was very beneficial to get her perspective.

In the afternoon, Junior, Param and I went to sit in on the Observer political conference. The other interns did this trip the previous week, and Claude wrote about it on last week’s blog.

Once at the Guardian/Observer HQ, we were met by Comment Editor Ruaridh Nicholl who gave us a quick tour of the building. He showed us where the Guardian writers work and were the Observer journalists are seated – it was quite surprising how far apart these open plan offices were!

We were then lead to the room were the conference was held and witnessed the editors and journalists participating in hearty discussions about the possible contents of the next issue of The Observer. We felt very privileged.

Thursday 19 November (Claude)

A packed afternoon with Chris at Unicorn House. In one session we returned to our previous discussion on press releases, while other topics covered included copyright and printing – neither central to a PR job, but both areas where it is very helpful to have some basic knowledge when embarking on a communications career.

Chris introduced us to the concept of ‘intellectual property’ and talked about copyright and trademarks. It’s a tricky area! Copyright grants the creators of books and songs and the like certain rights over their work for a period of time. Trademarks usually apply to names, logos or slogans, like the Nike swoosh or McDonalds big yellow ‘M’. It was a very interesting session.

Next Chris gave us an insight into printing – just in case we have to organise the printing of a brochure or annual report in our first comms job! We learned all about colour – the Red Green Blue of RGB and Cyan Magenta Yellow Black of CMYK – and discussed why this information was important when printing things. We also learned about the different ways things are printed, and the impact that has on time and price – both important factors for any communicator getting things printed I’d imagine.

As always, a fact packed session.

Friday 20 November (Junior)

Today was seriously windy and sometimes I ask myself if opening an umbrella is really worth the embarrassment.

We had to give our weekly presentations at Taylor Bennett this week, and we were discussing our ideas for a PR campaign to promote the Brunswick Internship. Spilt into two groups of three, there was a real competitive spirit again this week. It was interesting given we were in different groups than the last time we had been competing in this way, on our Kraft/Cadbury presentations.

The presentations went well and, while improvements can always be made, our audience – which included Heather McGregor and Brunswick’s Jo Moss – were generally pleased with our input and effort. With no clear winner, however, we had to find another thing to compete on, and that was just a few hours away.

The afternoon held promise for a serious competition. It was like a World Cup final with X-Factor on the same channel, as the boys went head to head with the girls on an extra presentation assignment that had been given to us a few weeks earlier by the team at Brunswick, a presentation on the future of media.

Both presentations went quite well, and both had strong points as well as weak. But who won? Well, I think we all agreed I wouldn’t mention that the boys won!

Friday afternoon however did not end there. There was more to learn, with a session hosted by Sandra Carlisle on sustainability and then later with Tom Batcheler who talked to us about broadcasting.

Another great if tiring day!