The PA group is the smallest of the main departments in terms of staff, although its client list seems to be one of the longest. I was exposed to a huge range of accounts, from Anglian Water to the British Virgin Islands, to Sainsbury’s and the Open University. For these accounts I carried out a range of tasks including monitoring governmental committee meetings and the media, compiling stakeholder lists, contacting stakeholders, carrying out desk research and preparing biographies of relevant MPs. I helped out at a couple of events, one of which took place in the Lord Mayor’s Parlour in Westminster City Hall.

Public affairs or lobbying, as it may more commonly be known, involves a huge amount of political intelligence. It seemed to me that the foundation for all the work the PA team does is up-to-date information about what is going on in Westminster – as well as in the parliaments of Berlin, Paris and Brussels. The team are a fount of political knowledge of who is doing what where. What’s interesting is how engaged each member of the team is personally – all are members of a political party and are usually active within them – and are thus stakeholders themselves (partisan politics are however confined to inter-pod repartee and all-group emails!)

I learnt more about politics in 5 weeks than in the last 5 years, and I enjoyed making sure I kept abreast of current affairs. The amount of IP coming ceaselessly from the PA team is remarkable – they produced several items while I was there, such as a report on the Autumn Statement, analysis of the London Mayoral Election and the EU treaty veto, the Edelman Capital Staffers Index and multiple breakdowns of parliamentary meetings, bills and reports (such as the Portas Review). The speed at which these documents are put together is impressive; there is so much going on that much of the skill lies in stripping back the irrelevant information from the essential.

In keeping with tradition, every member of the House of Lords celebrated the festive season by dressing up as Father Christmas

The penultimate week before Christmas was particularly fun-filled for me, as it covered both the all-group Christmas party and the PA trip to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. The Edelman Christmas Party 2011 kicked off at the office with an internal awards ceremony (The “Edelman Honours”) – which included such prestigious accolades as the messiest desk and the worst use of PR jargon (the extent of the latter’s incomprehensibility means I will never be able to repeat it) – then continued onto a night club in Covent Garden where we were treated to food, drinks and circus dancers. This was a great chance for us grads to be able to chat to all the people we’ve met throughout the office and it was lovely to see everyone relaxing in social context. We were greeted with bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast the next day, which made the run-up to Christmas all the sweeter. I was off for the PA team afternoon and dinner on the Friday and managed to time my leave nicely taking the final week off.

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I finish my stint in JCPR today and it’s been a hectic but really enjoyable 5 weeks. As with every department in Edelman the people are wonderful , the atmosphere is always buzzing and the clients are incredible. As the year winds down the End of Year reports have been winding up and although this has meant that my time in JC was much more excels and power points than events and press liaisons I have still had a great time and learnt a lot.

There is no denying that Christmas is well and truly in the air at the Edelman offices, music is playing, decorations are hanging and festive jumpers are being worn with pride. I simply can’t sign off for this year without saying a huge thank you to both JCPR and Edelman for hosting such amazing Christmas parties and in particular to the catering team for providing bacon sandwiches the morning after. Evidence of the aforementioned parties can be found below.

Cheers to JCPR!

The Infamous Grads!

My final thought is this. One of the very first things I did in 2011 was hand in my application to Edelman’s Graduate Scheme (on the day of the deadling actually!) and with hindsight and a lot of other experiences behind me over the past 12 months, I have to say it was the best decision I ever made. The first 3-and-a-bit months have been a steep learning curve but a great adventure and I can’t wait to see what next year and my next departments have to offer.

All there is left to say is Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Roll on 2012 and Public Affairs!

p.s – For more on JCPR check out their blog and for more Christmas party joy have a look at my blog.

EDELMAN CHRISTMAS

Being mid-way through our Graduate Scheme, what better way to celebrate our survival than immersing ourselves full-pelter into all of the office Christmas Cheer!

As I sit and write this post, there is ‘White Christmas’ being played throughout the office, fake snow hanging from the ceiling in Healthcare and Christmas post whizzing through the departments with a frenzy similar to that of the Harry Potter Owl Post!

EDELMAN LONDON CHRISTMAS PARTY:

After a busy and exciting year, Edelman always has a fabulous Christmas party to celebrate our hard work and successes (We won PRWeek Large Consultancy of  The Year award).

The party this year was themed with the catch-phrase ‘Escape into a decadent world of spectacle and intrigue!’ and kicked off with the Edelman Beauty Parlour at the office in the afternoon. We then had the Edelman Awards (with champagne, of course!) before heading to the club Circus in the West End.

Edelman Grads being silly

In the Alpine photo booth

CORPORATE & FINANCIAL CHRISTMAS PARTY

To keep the festivities going, the Corp&Fin. Department had their Christmas party in a pub in Chelsea the next day. There was mulled wine, more awards and even Secret Santa!

CHARITY ACTIVITIES

Whilst there were lots of celebrations taking place throughout the office, we still ensured that we spent some time contributing to charitable causes.

Therefore, the Corp.&Fin. department organised a Christmas bake-off that saw a bake sale competition take place between the departments. All of the money raised was donated to the charity Crisis.

Charity cake sale

Charity Cake sale

After all of the festivities and frivolities of the silly season, we will need to start a company exercise team after the holidays to compensate!

We’ve had a fantastic time celebrating and I hope all of you do as well.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

1. The genius people. I went into healthcare thinking it would all go way over my head but thanks to the fact that everyone who works there are so friendly, patient and helpful (not to mention so much fun) I felt like I learnt an unbelievable amount and could really get stuck in.
2. Media monitoring and report collation manages to be interesting. When you are doing 3 different daily and weekly monitoring reports you would think it would become an almighty bore. Quite the opposite, searching Google News and Factiva for all the latest news on the clients, their competitors, recent drug approvals and rejections, good and bad press and breaking news around relevant diseases is so interesting and really feels valuable.
3. I got to max out my organizational skills. I love logistics, planning, printing, scheduling etc.etc. and helping teams get themselves organized for medical congresses, conferences, message training and so on is common place in the Healthcare Department and it was really great to lend a hand to this and produce materials that are truly useful.
4. The clients. Healthcare works very differently to other forms of PR and although the clients aren’t well known brands, they are massive, in size, revenue, influence and importance. Getting to work on such a variation of clients and doing such a broad range of tasks from monitoring, to new business brainstorms, to media analysis, to reporting, to sell-ins to pharmaceutical trade media (not as daunting as it sounds) was a real pleasure.
5. It was great to be just a tiny part of a team that is helping make a difference to the health and well-being people worldwide.

For all the amazing things I loved about Healthcare there is one big negative. Treats, treats, treats! EVERY single occasion imaginable warrants a barrage of snacks and I think I managed to triple in size! That aside, I really and truly enjoyed every day I spent getting the Healthcare treatment!

Here are just a few facts I’ve learned about LinkedIn over the past few weeks:

• Social networking accounts for one in every six minutes spent online
• 86% of companies will have used LinkedIn to recruit in 2011. Social media is becoming so much more than purely social; nowadays it’s a way to get yourself noticed, to get yourself up the employment ladder.
• The most overused buzzword on LinkedIn in the UK for 2011 is “creative”. This is closely followed by “motivated”. So even if you are both creative and motivated, try to think of a more creative imaginative way to say so. That will make you stand out from the creative and motivated crowd.
• The use of LinkedIn isn’t limited to any one genre of job. During the Christmas period, the LinkedIn team discovered seasonal employees such as turkey farmers, wrapping experts and Christmas tree farmers, all hoping to enhance their business through the use of the site.

So if you’re reading this because you’re beginning to think about your next steps, I strongly suggest that you get yourself on LinkedIn, if you haven’t already. Not only might you find your dream job on the site, but your dream job might actually find you.

Here are some top tips to enhance your career opportunities using LinkedIn from the team here at Edelman:

• Keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date.  Remember to include your previous jobs and relevant experience; you want to prove you are right for the job!
• Match your skill set to the requirements of the industry which you are looking to join. Include relevant skills in your profile and status, as this will help employers find you.
• Set your LinkedIn profile so that others know that you are happy to receive offers for career opportunities, new ventures and job enquiries.
• Use the LinkedIn search tool to find people in industries that inspire you and don’t be afraid to send them an InMail or request an introduction.

Click here to give it a read. Enjoy!

You no longer require a degree and university education to apply. Edelmans is looking for candidates from all backgrounds, graduates and non-graduates, to apply for the scheme. They are searching for candidates with the best creative talent, ambition, commitment and enthusiasm for PR.

THE SCHEME OPENS TODAY – December 1st 2012.

I wanted to post this to reiterate Edleman’s message that if YOU fit the above criteria, don’t hestitate (even for a second) to apply.

Me and the other 2011 Grads were lucky enough to get the amazing opportunity to start our careers at Edleman, you never know, it could be you, and we may all end up as Edelman success stories.

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P.S. Happy 1st of December a.k.a Christmas Music Day!

Having very nearly finished my 5 weeks in Healthcare, I thought I’d pre-empt the standard farewell blog post with some interesting stats and insights about the healthcare industry. These really put into perspective for me what an unimaginably important industry healthcare is (aside from the fact that because of it lives are changed and saved) and even more eager to get stuck in to Edelman’s Healthcare department.

Did you know that…

On average a whopping 9% of Global GDP is spent on healthcare alone

Pharmaceutical sales amount to approximately $880billion every year, one, single top selling drug made its company $11.7 billion in 2010 alone – and the combined total of the top ten selling drugs in the same year came to $76.2 billion.

The National Health Service is the world 4^th largest employer, it has over 1.3 million people – that’s 325 times as many as Edelman’s 4,000.

It takes 10-14 years, multiple phases and trials and several further complex, logistical processes to get a drug to market at an average cost of over $1 billion and even then there is no guarantee that it will be successful. They don’t make it easy!

What makes healthcare different?

Unlike traditional PR that targets public media and the consumer, healthcare PR is much more restricted. Due to pharmaceutical regulations product promotion to the general public is strictly prohibited (apart from in the US and NZ). As a result education becomes central to the role of healthcare PR professionals. The pharmaceutical industry spends more time and money educating their “customers” than any other industry for example through physician led patient education, online learning, medical congress meetings, medical meetings, disease awareness campaigns. Edelman is involved with all of these aspects for a variety of international pharmaceutical clients. It’s all very impressive and it’s been amazing getting involved with lots of different areas of the business and healthcare is a great department to have been a part of, but it’s not goodbye quite yet!

At the moment I’m over half way through my second rotatation. First things first, the tech team are not geeks – I just couldn’t think of a good title.

During my time on tech I have worked on a huge variety of clients - hardware, software, printing , mobile, gaming, a music platform and loads more that I have forgotten about. The one thing that really strikes me about tech is the variety of work you do. It’s a really nice mixture of all the different forms of PR. One day it’s corp, the next consumer, analyst relations etc. You really never know what the day is going to throw at you.

Tech is also not just about software or super high-tech specialist products. Their clients are really broad and vary from consumer focused products to specialist products to online clients – the list is endless. The fact that the clients are all so different means the work is always interesting, different and challenging.

I’ve learned tonnes and I’ve only been here for 4 weeks!!

April x