Work experience is a key step in choosing the right career and we believe that it’s important to give students the chance to understand an office environment. As a company we are very keen on giving students experience as we understand it is essential for self-development and securing a job in the future. During National Work Experience Week, the SBPR team welcomed 14 year old Tom from Twynham School and 15 year old Louise from Bournemouth Collegiate. We asked them both to write a blog at the end of each day to see how they were finding agency life and here’s what they thought…
Tom’s Day 1 blog really showed how the SBPR agency can make a valuable first impression “I found my first day really enjoyable with the access to free drinks supplied for you”, and the kitchen continued to strike a chord with Tom as on Day 3 he went on to explain that SBPR had ‘good kitchen facilities’. Luckily Tom was equally impressed with the rest of the office too “my first impression on Sunny Bird PR is that it is very bright and vibrant and very fun.” Louise also had a great first day: “My experience on the first day was wonderful, everyone was very welcoming and friendly, and the working environment was very happy and relaxed.”
Before the teens arrived, we reached out to brands via social media and invited them to send their teen products into the office for Tom and Louise to review live on the SBPR social channels. Companies all over the country jumped at the chance and before long SBPR HQ was inundated with books, beauty products, food and drink products for them to try and review.
Louise was very pleased with this task “I got a lot of freebies to review and try out which I think is awesome!”, Tom wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the beauty products but discovered a silver lining: “I wrote a review for a lip balm I got,” he said “but I gave it to my girlfriend because I didn’t want it and she did.” While the lip balm wasn’t a hit with Tom, he did make a fashion statement in the office by wearing the Good Night Anti-Snoring Ring every day.
We have a team lunch every Wednesday and this week we took the whole team to Flirt Café in the centre of Bournemouth which was very well received! Tom flexed his new PR muscles and proved that he was already thinking like a PR Pro: “I had BBQ pulled pork nachos and 3 bowls of chips, this was very tasty, so I wrote a review of the café and posted it on Twitter to create good publicity.”
Another team activity that went down well was our SBPR team yoga sessions, we have these twice a week with the amazing Lillie. Louise was brave enough to join us and experience her first ever yoga session: “I took part in a yoga session that the team do on Thursday lunch time. I have never done yoga before and honestly it was so relaxing. I felt sleepy during it as the lights were off and we had this special oil on that smelt so good. I think I might take up yoga class once a week, I feel like it will help me with things like stress, exam pressure and just general life situations that aren’t too good.”
Tom and Louise had a great week with us at Sunny Bird PR and we really enjoyed having them with us in the office. Aside from lunch, drinking free coffee, and reviewing products, Tom and Louise did an impressive job in learning the fundamentals of PR. They both wrote engaging press releases, created brilliant social media posts, developed a strong understanding of media types and helped prepare for the Miss Dorset final by organising over 250 goody bags. We hope they learnt some valuable skills that they can take forward through school and in their future careers.