Hello!

My name is Raj and I am currently studying MA Public Relations at De Montfort University, Leicester. I am a big football fan and I support Newcastle United. About a year and a half ago when Newcastle’s owner was faced with a backlash from the fans he stopped communicating with us and this is when I first took an interest in PR. If I could choose my career it would be to work within Sports PR as I have a big interest in this and it would be great if I could work in a sector which I have a huge passion for. If only it was that easy to pick and choose your job!

Yesterday I started my two week work experience placement at The Phoenix Partners. The Phoenix Partners is a fully integrated communications agency and although I will be getting involved with all aspects of the business I will mainly be focusing on the PR side of things. From this work experience I hope to gain some hands on experience and put into practice the skills and knowledge that I have learnt from my course. Hopefully this will put me in a good position to get a job in the PR industry when I finish University.

One of the main projects I will be working on is the Vantis Corporate Challenge. This is held by Vantis, who are a Financial Services company based nationwide but with an active office in Leicester. Now in its third year the Challenge is simple. Vantis give £50 to 100 local businesses who must then use this money to raise as much as possible. The only rule is that whatever they do must be legal and ethical. All the money which is raised is going to be donated to two local charities, Rainbow’s Hospice for Children and Young People and LOROS. Part of what I will be doing is to find and motivate local businesses to take part in the Challenge as well as creating media attention for their efforts. From this my communication skills will be developed when talking to businesses and the media.

In my Public Relations course I have been learning about things such as blogging, writing press releases, contacting the media and preparing PR proposals. I hope to get involved with as many of these things as possible as there is only so much you can learn in a classroom environment, and more of the learning comes from actually putting the knowledge into practice. I am grateful to The Phoenix Partners for allowing me the opportunity to learn more about PR by undertaking my work experience with them and I hope I can give something back by making a good contribution to their agency.