Amey Rayns

As Monday 9am approached I felt quite nervous to say the least as although I have recently finished university I don’t have a lot of experience within an office environment and a PR department and I didn’t really know what to expect. But as soon as I walked in and Hannah introduced me to everyone and gave me a guided tour I quickly settled in.

I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of my week, from learning how to write press releases to doing the tea and coffee rounds. Although I studied marketing and advertising within my business management degree, I had no real understanding of PR before this week or how important it is. I definitely do now; in fact it has really made me wish I’d taken a different degree!

The most interesting part I think was the extent to which the PR department deals with property, I have always been thoroughly interested in property and researching and writing press releases surrounding current developments has been wonderful. I wrote blog posts, compiled documents of journalism information, investigated how social networking can be used to benefit clients, created contact lists and updated AVE information.

The team at Unsworth Sugden is so nice, and everyone is so helpful and inviting. It is a brilliantly motivating working environment!

I will take a lot away from my week at Unsworth Sugden. My confidence in my ability to speak with clients, colleagues and multi task has improved and my writing skills now for press releases compared to only a few days ago are worlds apart.

I have really enjoyed my week at Unsworth Sugden and want to say a huge thank you to Hannah and her team for being so lovely and teaching me such a lot!

My work experience in the PR department at Unsworth Sugden did not get off to the best start; I got spectacularly lost on Tuesday morning, resulting in me walking over the New Walk bridge about four times before I finally realised where I actually needed to go. Thankfully, the rest of the week went brilliantly.

As it was my first time working at a PR agency, I was slightly nervous. I had worked with press releases before, whilst completing placements at newspapers; but I was well aware that there was a lot more to Public Relations than simply writing these. Luckily, Hannah Elwell and her team were lovely, and I immediately felt welcomed.

After a talk about my interests and why I’d chosen to apply for work experience here, Hannah gave me a guided tour around the company’s office. The quirky building is inhabited by some very interesting people and I immediately looked forward to having them as colleagues for my few days there.

An enlightening experience, my work placement has allowed me to grasp an idea of how a successful PR department is run. The staff work hard on a daily basis and so I pushed myself to try to achieve good results in the tasks I was set. In the time I spent at Unsworth Sugden, I wrote press releases, an advertorial, blog posts, an e-bulletin, researched companies, learnt about AVEs and analysed how the PR department use photography to further enhance their work.

I feel my communications, analysis and research skills have all been vastly improved, which is fantastic; but most importantly, I have thoroughly enjoyed every task I have been given. Whilst working in the PR department, I have been set specific briefs, but in order to create these, I have been allowed free rein to explore different styles of writing.  The work I have completed has allowed me to be creative and imaginative, which is what I love most about writing.

I have loved my time here at Unsworth Sugden and wish to thank everyone for all their support and guidance.

Dessa Rebecca Hadfield

I’m Charlie Thacker, I’m 15 and I have done my two weeks work experience here at Unsworth Sugden and it has been great. I have learnt a lot and I will take this experience with me and make the most of it.

Over the two weeks most of my time has been spent in the studio with Matt and Steve. I’d like to thank them for all their help and I’m sure that they really enjoyed having their picture taken for my newsletter. For my newsletter I had to go round and interview most people about their area of expertise so I got to know some really nice people along the way. For one day I helped out downstairs in recruitment advertising and I really enjoyed that too.

The last two weeks have been a fantastic experience and I’d like to say thank you to everyone at Unsworth Sugden for giving me this opportunity.

Thank you.

Charlie hard at work on the newsletter

We recently welcomed De Montfort uni student Liam Grimmette to the PR department for work experience.  Here’s how he got on…

I’m just coming to the end of three weeks work experience at Unsworth Sugden which has been fantastic. My first day started with a brief tour of the building where I got a very positive vibe. Everyone had a smile on their face which was welcoming in itself. It wasn’t long before I felt like a genuine member of the team and I had a list of jobs to do.

My first jobs included coming up with competition ideas for a future newsletter and updating the company marketing calendar. I remember one of my lecturers at university saying that no day is ever the same when working in PR, and they weren’t wrong. Over the past three weeks, I have done everything from writing press releases and putting together launch event packs to arranging press-cuttings for meetings and researching strawberry-shaped balloons. The work experience has also enabled me to gain insight into how a PR company works together to create successful results.

Overall, my experience at Unsworth Sugden has been priceless and has been genuinely enjoyable throughout. The clients at Unsworth Sugden are very fortunate to have an extraordinary PR company representing them.