It has been a fantastic 5 months so far, it really has. The time has flown by! We have rotated through 6 departments over 6 months – Financial and SMU, JCPR, Healthcare, Tech, Corporate and Digital. Each department has been very different and I have learned a lot about each industry. I actually feel quite sad that it is coming to an end!

Although I have only been in the Digital department for a week, I am already really enjoying it. It is such an important department to rotate through. You learn about the importance of social media and engaging with the public through platforms like twitter and facebook. In fact, I have been working on a Seven Seas project raising support for Death Valley Jack, a 75-year old grandfather from Kent who is running an ultra-marathon for his local Cerebral Palsy Care charity. He needs 5,000 followers by Monday to raise £3,000. It is a fantastic project, very rewarding and exciting. (You can follow Jack here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/deathvalleyjack?ref=ts)

We have our Edelman summer party on Thursday which sounds like it’s going to be great. I was working as an intern for the Corporate team before I applied for the Grad Scheme, so I was here for the Christmas Panto which was really fun. (If you follow the blogs, you’ll remember Clare was the unforgettable PR horse and Heather was Princess Jasmin). ’EdelFest’ will have a festival theme, with bands playing and a BBQ so fingers crossed for sunshine!

I better get back to work, so ciao for now…

So what now?!

Heather and Clare have both been offered positions in two of the departments at the company which is fantastic news. Unfortunately my two chosen departments do not have a position for a grad and so no job for me. However, PA (one of my two choices) have offered me an internship with them for three months.

Therefore I will be doing a similar role as I did through out the grad scheme but for three months. The most exciting part is that I will be going back to them two weeks before the general election. Things will be extremely exciting and it will be fantastic experience! As there wasn’t any possibility of a permanent position with them this is definitely the next best thing, I wouldn’t want to be in a department where I was suited to the work.

Even if I leave Edelman at the end of the internship I will have gotten a year’s fantastic experience with the company to take me into another position, hopefully. I have begun to think about what I would like to do after the internship.

At 24 (yes ok nearly 25 *shudder*)  it’s time to begin to seriously think about where I want to focus my career and I think it will either be in Public Affairs or Sport. I am also doing a course in PR and Events which will give me further experience and skills in the industry. This together with a part time job and working at Edelman keep me extremely busy.

I’m with the Healthcare department for my final rotation and the team are really lovely – especially my pod and the two pods next to me but like Clare said the treats are vast and it is difficult to resist.

I have started cycling to and from work each day (two weeks in) and getting here for 8 and leaving a bit earlier (5 or a bit after) so that I have still worked 9 hours but the extra was at the beginning of the day. The routine is possible in the this department and due to the way my body works it is great because it gives me a break before going home to do uni work.I work better in the morning and the fresh air and lack of people on my commute puts me in a good, awake mood.

I have to say that the work at Healthcare has been extremely interesting but I prefer the type of work in PA as I am not the most scientifically minded. However it has been fantastic experience.

I have made some great friends here – especially the other interns and grads and I’m lucky enough to live near some of them. Hopefully we will keep in touch even if I do leave after the internship.

So at the moment the future is not certain – I will be looking around for positions whilst doing the internship and hopefully the next role I’m offered will be the perfect one!

The next blog I will be writing is one when I eventually manage to do a bit of travelling – but that wont be for a few years – but maybe I’ll be working on a few others in the meantime.

Overall the Graduate Scheme at Edelman has been fantastic. To have worked in each of the four departments for two months has enabled us to be immersed into teams and really get a taste of the type of work the company does. Since September Edelman have won wuite a few awards and also celebrated many pitch wins. This company if a fantastic place to be and I have received extremely positive feedback from its presence on my CV. I recommend this scheme to every potential PR!

I want to wish Maggie, Livi, Francesca, Erin, Charlotte, Louise, Natalie, Clare and Heather lots of luck with the rest of their time at the company (however long it will be), and thank everyone from all four departments and everyone whom I’ve worked with for all their support and help.

Signing off now..

The fantastic news is that I’ve been offered a position in the Corporate department, which I am so excited about. I’ve just got to finish off my last rotation in Digital and then my first day is Monday 26th March. I cannot wait to get settled into my new team- knowing I won’t be moved onto another one in two months time!

My time in my Healthcare rotation was brilliant, it’s a form of PR I had no idea about, so my two months there gave me a real insight into what they do. It’s one of the largest teams in the office, and that means many birthdays/celebrations, which also means many treats; I’m just glad I also joined a local gym with Edelman’s corporate membership discount!

I discovered that you definitely do not need to have a science background to work in Healthcare, and actually I found (the basic!) science easy to understand and very interesting.

And now I have a month left in Digital. This is also a crucial department to rotate in, as I have learned so much about social media and the importance of engaging audiences online. I have finally broken my silence on Twitter and have even uploaded Tweetdeck onto my computer so that I can ‘manage’ my tweets!

With the intention of setting up a blog (jointly managed by myself and another grad-Heather now permanent in the Healthcare department) I’ll endeavour to post much more frequently! Links to blog to follow, once all set up.

I’ve just returned from holiday so I need to get tis blog up to date.

The weeks with the PA team passed extremely fast but the work was extremely interesting – I was given some projects to get my teeth into as well as other things to help on. I’ve been helping with work in preparation of the election and for new business.

The team were fantastic and Paul gave me a great debriefing at the end, as well as a pretty good speech – ear muffs were the main subject! (please excuse joke i think only those who see me in the morning and leaving the office will understand)

After a week off I am now in the Healthcare team. They have welcomed me with open arms and lots of work to get my head round. I have been here for almost a week now and I think I am finally beginning to understand it all.

I have been given some great things to work on and am definitely being kept busy.

Clare, Heather and I are now into our final 7 weeks of the Graduate Scheme and hopefully our futures will be more certain soon.

On a side note Well Done to Edelman for being named 76th best company to work by the Times (and notably the only PR firm) – 2 companies I have worked for made it into the top 100 – well done Bravissimo!

Rightio back to work

Well I have been in the corporate team for five weeks now. It feels very strange sitting up in this end of the office! An absolute highlight of being part of the corporate team was the fact that they have been two grads here, myself and the lovely Erin, it has been great fun to work alongside another grad. Sadly Erin has now left and is working with the digital team, where I am certain she will have a complete blast. Erin and I also joined the corporate team in an Edelman pub quiz, although we don’t really want to talk about that anymore, due to coming last. It was a fix, for sure.

I was immediately thrown into several large and interesting projects, working with the clients match.com, shell, Reed in Partnership, Sime Darby, Levis, Diageo, to name but a few. It has been interesting working on the planning stages of many of these projects due to it being the start of the year. It has also been different dealing so closely with the media; I was pretty apprehensive to start with but feel much more confident speaking to journalists now.

In two weeks time I will heading off to the PA department, which I am particularly looking forward to, Clare and Abi have both really enjoyed this department. I cannot believe that PA will be my last rotation; it only seems like yesterday that I started the grad scheme at Edelman. See you in PA!

I was very apprehensive going into this hardworking area of the office. I have very little political background – I only studied political history until GSCE level and a bit of political philosophy during my degree. I had become interested in UK politics during recent years as I got older and changes in government/bills began to affect my day to day life. As a country girl I was one of the many to march in Hyde Park about the hunting ban, and David Cameron is my home MP for Witney, so I was looking forward to learning more about this world.

I didn’t know what to expect in terms of work when I started three weeks ago. Clare was here before me and she told me about some of it and the clients’ accounts she worked on, but nothing prepared me. In my first week (first week of January) the buzz word was new business so I was doing lots of research into new ideas. I was also shown how to do some monitoring for press mentions about one of the clients and research for clients in the news.

PA deals with so many different aspects of client work that every day is different.

In the second week everything began to get very busy as I was asked to help with work for a new and really exciting client. I also asked if it would be possible to help on one of the new pitches and was able to do some research, so at least I can feel I helped, a bit!

With the General Election coming up there is work related to Parliament, with some work for Reed in Partnership where I was liasing with MP offices and writing biographies. David (the new intern) and I have also been asked to put together biographies to help the team in their preparation for the Election period. This is helping me to learn more and more about current UK politics and also about how the team works.

The team have been fantastic, when I came in Paul (my line manager) was on holiday and Lyndsey, Peter and Mark took care of me. When Paul came back he has helped me to get to work on some great clients and asked me who I would like to work on and if there is anything I feel I haven’t done yet.

Last night Spook challenged the office to a pub quiz – It was great fun as the  PA team are competitive and we did manage to win! No hard feelings ‘eh Marcus – but we did beat you by a little bit. Plus anyone who says there were too many PA related questions – our best rounds were Literature and Food and Drink!! It was a really good opportunity to get to know more of the team who have made me feel very welcome.

I’ve got four and a half weeks left with this team during the grad scheme and then it will be on to Healthcare (my last rotation). The new grads have started now – there are three more girls to make up a pretty good group of us, together with the interns David and Olivia (who I have met). I was very pleased that Francesca joined the grad scheme after being an intern at Corporate with me, and I wish Francesca, Erin and Maggie loads of luck.

As I explained in my last blog, I was somewhat aprehensive about life in Digital, especially considering that I cannot operate my own DVD player and the world of twitter was an alien language to me! However, the digital team (very patiently) took me under their little wings and introduced me to the likes of Google Chrome and Radian 6!! I worked on many really interesting pieces of work during my two months with digital, my favourite being for the client BBC. Again, after the two months of this rotation I felt as though I had learnt so much, with a new found digital confidence. One thing I will certainly take away from this rotation is how fun everyone in the digital team is, once I had learnt that I could type with drum and bass in the background on a monday morning and Jazz Thursday, I felt quite at home! My time with digital absolutely flew by, with very fond memories!

Another big event that us grads threw ourselves into was the Christmas panto!! My fellow grad Clare did herself proud with lots of the pre-organising of the event and a finely tuned version of a pantomime horse. Abi also did a fine job of keeping us all under control backstage! Alas, I fear that there will never be another occassion where I can perform both Princess Jasmine and Cheryl Cole. The after party was fantastic, with a really good vibe after an epic panto!

Afer a fab Christmas (oh and getting married) I have now found myself in Corporate, the others have really enjoyed the range of client work and buzzing atmosphere that there is here, so I can’t wait to get stuck in! I will report back to you (before the end of this rotation) I promise.

Last week the Corporate team had the Christmas lunch – I think I was possibly the only person who left their present at home and had to rush out and buy another one. It was a great afternoon as we all hid in a pub from the snow with plenty of..water, honest.

The lovely intern at Corporate also got onto the next intake of Grads for January so I want to extend my congratulations to her – she’s been great to work with and I wish her all the luck the world.

So far whilst working for Edelman I have been in two totally different departments but I have enjoyed the challenges of all of the work. We are now halfway through the Graduate Scheme and we have done two rotations. I have been at Corporate and Digital. These teams differ in clients and type of work – for example at Digital you very rarely pick up the phone to call a jounralist.

At Corporate I have now also had the chance to work on some sport clients which has been very enjoyable, and I hope to carry on working on this in the New Year.

So, off to PA next! It will be a learning experience for me who has not studied Politics before. I have been interested in it, but as David Cameron is my home MP it is from a less objective stand point.

I  hope that everything is going well and that the teams are pleased with my work, especially as I feel I have learnt so much in the past 4 months.

I’ve now been in London for 7 months and it feels like years! Having come here in June to settle in before starting work I feel like I have gotten to know the city better (although there is so much I don’t know – the East, West and North for example!) I definitely think that I have made the right move, and although I miss home and the countryside, London is a great place to be.

I feel that within the Grad Scheme we are looked after and hopefully gaining the experience we need. I am still not sure what area of PR I would like to specialise in but I think that the next two rotations should help me to decide.

So I leave the office in 2009, when I come back it will be a new decade, possibly with a broken leg (I’ve never been skiing before!!). Have a great Christmas break everyone and a merry New Year’s!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this rotation and the experience has definitely reignited my interest in politics that I left behind at A-level and only briefly dabbled in at university with American political science. The team have been fantastic, very patient and supportive, especially when I was off helping with the panto.

I know Abi has already written a little bit about the panto, so all that’s left to say is that it did go fantastically well (even if I do say so myself!) I was responsible for organising all the actors and coordinating rehearsals. The actors were brilliant and I was so proud of what we had achieved. (And loved performing as the Panto horse!) The panto was also a great way to get to know lots of people across different departments. And the party was a lot of fun, the hangover afterwards…not so much.

So a big thank you to PA, and here’s to Healthcare in the new year. Merry Christmas!

A few months ago it as announced that the theme for this year was a pantomine – meaning we were going to be putting on a pantomine – acting, costumes, crew, make up, food the works!

Last night all the hard work paid off – the performance was brilliant and as the last notes of ‘Reach’ boomed out I felt a huge surge of relief. I was doing the stage management (together with my partner in crime Francesca, an intern with the Corporate team) and cueing actors onto the stage, which involved two stressful days of hoping everything would go ok. It did, and the fabulous actors and band received a standing ovation. Everything was brought together by our wonderful directors Jon and Lucy, and the endless working and organisation of Edleman’s finest: Pip, Tori and Vanessa.

I got to see senior members of staff in drag, singing on stage, and dressed as animals! It was surreal but all 60 plus members who got involved came together as one team to produce something we can be proud of – and all in my first few months of working here!

After the panto…was the party! Lots of drinking, dancing and rock band!

Hence why today everyone seems to be feeling a bit on the fuzzy side. I think the adrenaline has finally worn off.

Work wise I have been involved with working on some Shell research together with Starbucks, Get Safe Online and Mitsubishi. It’s great to get to work on all these different clients within the team. I’ve spoken to some of the members of the team about working other clients and they have promised to give me the chance.

I cannot believe there are only two weeks until the end of my Corporate rotation, it’s nearly Christmas (and nearly my holiday) but the weeks are still flying by.