#edelman internship

[edelmanhkinterns]

How Edelman adopt the Dragon Boat concept?

Communication is crucial to a company, especially within a PR firm. As communication is the most important element for the company to build relationship with clients, internal communication is as well crucial for the operation of the company. But how to maintain the relationship with high transparency and efficient communication, especially within a firm that consist of more than 70 people and across four main practices?

In order to maintain a high quality of communication and strong motivations to strike for betterment, Edelman Hong Kong’s vision as "Team Dragon Boat" helped us to deliver our best and to show up differently!

The main elements of a dragon boat race, namely the paddles, the boat, the race and water, as well as the paddlers and the team work which are crucial elements of winning a race. Edelman Hong Kong using these elements and philosophy have shown me how Edelman became a successful communication firm.

The Boat The boat is where the paddlers gather and work together to their greatest capability. Overall, the Edelman office design provides us an excellent working environment. The open office setting allows us to interact with each other, sometimes to share some laughs across the office and different teams. It also has a huge and cozy pantry, where we take breaks, have parties and also conduct trainings and hold client events.  The boat is definitely an important factor for the paddlers to perform to their best.

The Paddlers As an intern, I am lucky to be one of the paddlers - the players in a dragon boat race. It is different from other PR agencies, according to my prior experience in the industry. In Edelman, interns' voices are valued, we join in the weekly team meeting, and participate in the brain-storming sessions. Moreover, we can give out opinions in those meetings and help in shaping the ideas which to be presented to the clients.

Water Water means the general environment that we are in - Hong Kong and Asia-pacific region or even globally. We have to understand how the market trend is and target audience’s preference, in order to tailor made campaigns that is best for clients. We are reminded to pay attention to local or global news and contribute to local community.

Race So a paddler is equipped with a paddle, right? In Edelman, a paddle mean the work we have done. We focused to deliver the best work and often we are encouraged to be bold and creative.

When time we come to a race, i.e. when competing with other PR agencies, Edelmates do their best to win by giving out outstanding work and great relationship with both journalists and clients. We are proud of our quality work especially receiving industry awards and being recognized by our clients. In one of our campaign, we have swept a total of 9 awards in one year among a few awards event!

I am also very impressed when our Financial Communications team presents their best work in gaining coverages and new business opportunities via strong relationships to connect and good effort to secure trust.

Team Work Edelman Hong Kong also emphasizes on the unity among the paddlers. Recently, my team at Corporate practice took a half day off and went to play bubble soccer. It was fun and via this team building activity, we learn to work together as a team. It has also bond us more tightly as we got chance to talk to everybody, outside business and office environment.

It is amazing when I first hear this in an internal presentation from Andrew Kirk, our Managing Director about “Team Dragon Boat”. He drives this concept and vision to enhance unity, create a friendly environment, build trust towards a common goal and encouraged us to think big. As an intern, I appreciate this concept very much because this helps me, as a beginner, to blend in quickly and get work done easier and learn how to paddle and race!

  By Viann Chan

[edelmanhkinterns]

Sixteen and Keen (to learn)

We would firstly like to thank everyone who made our experience here at Edelman memorable, fun and helpful. We have loved getting to know everyone and seeing what work all of you do. You created a fantastic working environment for us, and were always there to help...even if it was with the microwave!! Thank you so much for being such fun to work with...we hope we can come back again soon for another internship! Special thanks to Hayley, Stef, Aki, Jacqueline and Michelle, for teaching us the ins and outs of Edelman!

Catherine: The first day of being an Edelman intern came, and I was sweating with nerves the whole way on the MTR. Never before had I been an intern, let alone an intern at such a powerful company like Edelman. Despite the fact that my brother came here in 2012 and told me I’d be fine and have lots of fun, I still didn’t know what to expect. The nerves were soon taken over by excitement, as Grace and I were given a tour of the open office, met many different employees and were taken to our very own desks. The people around us seemed calm and kind, helping us settle into the work environment without any hassles.

  We did lots of charity work for Movember, a global movement aimed to raise awareness of men’s health issues. We have helped to engage all staff in raising fund and also to organize a game competition. This was such a good experience, as it showed us how Edelman really worked as a community to help raise money for a great cause. It also made us realise how far a small donation can go, especially because Movember is an event that is held in so many different countries around the world. In the two weeks that we worked here, the office raised over HKD$9,000 and donated to The Hong Kong Cancer Fund which is a local partnership to Movember Foundation.

This helped us also understand how important community is in the workplace, and Edelman Hong Kong is definitely a prime example of this.

  During our time at Edelman, we were also able to sit in a brainstorming session with two practices -  Consumer and Technology, to try and figure out ideas to build content for a client’s Facebook page. We were able to see how the posts were thought of. It’s a much longer process than we thought and a lot of thinking behind. We need to build a content calendar to create each post and preparing what would be written weeks in advance. It was really good for us both to realize how much thought goes into each few-sentence post.

    One of my favorite things that I did throughout the two weeks working at Edelman, was sending emails and making phone calls to many famous business magazines across Asia to ask for their editorial calendars. I know, it sounds boring and tedious, but it was something that gave me a sense of international professionalism which I craved as soon as I stepped foot in the Edelman office. Getting replies and talking to these people who work at these well-known magazines was equally as exciting. All of these important editors from these amazing magazines talking to a little intern like myself!

  Grace: To say that I was nervous about this internship would be an understatement. I was clueless! I had never done anything close to an internship, and I had no idea what to expect. A feeling of relief swept over me within the first few hours of the day, when it didn’t take long for me to realize that this was not what I expected. There was no awkward silence or big scary boss. I was so thankful that I wasn’t going to be the only one talking! Everyone was so welcoming and made sure that Catherine and I were comfortable and made us feel we are a team!

    One of the most beneficial for me was being able to listen. Listen to conversations about ideas, conversations about business trips, about events and listening in on brainstorms. Listening allowed me to get a feel for the work ethic behind PR and how hard (yet rewarding) the industry proved itself to be. I remember on my first day as an intern, I was surprised at how hard everyone worked and how much everyone worked together as a team. The thought of endless work and long hours had always bored me, but in the office everyone seems to show love and compassion for their job, no matter the time of day. The openness of the working environment where there is lots of loud conversations, laughs and communication ensure me this is where I like to work.

  One of the highlights of my internship is being able to contribute ideas to big projects or events. One of the projects which I absolutely loved though the task was only little, but I went in-depth with the research and I loved doing work on something I was familiar with. I also loved that my ideas and thoughts were used and taken into consideration for real projects!

  Overall my time at Edelman turned out to be so much more than I was expecting. Being able to physically come to work and interact with people in real life situations and projects was something that allowed me to take away new and different skills. I hope that I will be back soon to do another internship!

  By Catherine & Grace

  Catherine Murphy and Grace Coogans, students at Australian International School attended two weeks full time internship at Edelman. 

[edelmanhkinterns]

What elements that differentiate Edelman Hong Kong

Hello everyone. I am Calista from digital team in Edelman Hong Kong. Here comes to my second months of working in Edelman. I have worked in a relatively small PR agency for three months before joining Edelman. By having the working experiences in the previous PR agency, I would have stronger feelings and a better understanding on my talents, especially on which company would suit me better. Let me share what elements differentiate Edelman from other PR agencies.

1.         Company structure

A large organization like Edelman definitely has a clear company structure. Why do I mention this? It is because I still have no idea on my previous company’s structure till now, which sounds like a bit strange but it’s true. And Edelman is totally different, I still remembered what I was given in my first day of work, a welcome pack including a sheet of Edelman Hong Kong company structure. This seems nothing special but for me, it absolutely warmed my heart when I saw my name appeared on the sheet, and I would proudly say that I am a part of the company. We form a sense of camaraderie within our own team as we face similar challenges and reflect on shared experiences. As soon as you walk in, you will know what your job is, how you fit into your team as Edelman has a great templates already in place.

2.         Working environment

I can truly say one of the main reasons I chose to come to Edelman was because of the working environment. During the interview process, I saw Edelman Hong Kong office pantry has provided a commodious homey environment and a creative area for the staff to communicate and exchange ideas. Also, Edelman provides a large table and big drawers for each staff where you can have your own spaces for work.

Apart from the facilities that Edelman offer, the open and transparent communication is another key element that drives me love Edelman so much. The open communication could address employee’s need to feel that what we have to say has value. More, Edelman not only encourage a productive environment but also offers a fun and relax working environment.

3.         Edelman’s Culture

The values of quality, integrity, respect, entrepreneurial spirit, mutual benefits and citizenship remain at the core of Edelman’s culture. Most of our clients are leaders in their fields who are initiating change and seeking new solution. For me, I am very impressed what our clients like as when I tell my parents and friends, they are all familiar with the names of our clients.

Edelman has an ideal feedback system and they won’t let you wonder if you are on the right track. Most of the supervisors will give you feedback when you handed in a piece of work even there are just some minor formatting issues or spelling mistakes. It helps us to understand ourselves better through others and helps us to further develop. With the open environment that Edelman had, you will dare to ask questions. 

  4.         Extensive training opportunities

How do you think of training? For me, I love the internal training provided by Edelman Hong Kong. The company often organize some training program like lunch & learn as well as inviting other companies to give our employees a talk on specific subject or their industries. The training programs allow us to develop the skills needed to be proficient in our position and be able to grow to a better PR professional.

  You never know what will happen in the future, none of us do. If I didn’t come to Edelman, I won’t know large organization fits me better than small company do. You may be surprised to find that this brings your goals and dreams faster than you ever thought possible. Come and join us!

  By Calista Hung

[edelmanhkinterns]

The Every Little behinds the Mickle - All About Research

The Every Little behinds the Mickle - All About Research

Telling you that I work in a PR agency, what pops up in your mind? Professional crisis crackers preparing glamourous speeches? Thoughtful campaigners organizing eye-catching events? Seasoned clients dealers showing up bright in socializing drinks sessions?

True, but these are JUST the ‘show time’. I’m here to reveal our day-to-day behind-the-scene work.

Greetings from Carol of the Corporate practice. Since I only work two days a week, instead of daily news monitoring, I usually work on ad hoc duties. Amongst these, research has taken up most of my time – yes, surfing around the internet, flipping through newspapers and magazines, and finding the way out from numbers in front of my desk.

Client Research

One major thing that drew me into PR is, clients come from all types of industries that never bores you, and we often has to manage these accounts simultaneously.  Before meeting up with the client, we should always understand their businesses and their recent movements, who are their major competitors etc. Ultimately, the team has to base on these information and figure out where can we kick in and offer help and provide our service strategically. I still remember the frustration due to lack of the industry knowledge I had when researching for a company deals with hedge fund – a total new term for me. I only had a-few-hours-time to digest the jargons before preparing a two-page summary for my manager. On top of quick comprehension and consolidation, I have a boost in general knowledge about different industries through client research.

Media Research

Pitching media probably makes up almost half of the lives of PR consultants. Before mass-emailing press releases, we have to first figure out our target media. Media are selected based on the related aspect of the pitch, the circulation of the media, the audience class etc. Sometimes I will be asked to do news search for some similar stories, and spot out the media that are usually interested in related pitch. This speeds up our media search process and increase the chance of the pitch being picked up. I have to come up with a media list, comprising of all the contact information of individual journalists who are responsible for the relevant sections in our target media. The list will then be used for sending out pitch emails and perhaps ringing the journalists up later for follow-up.

There are some other forms of media research as well. I was once asked to look for some byline article placement opportunities for a client, who planned to write about starting up online business. I first flipped through various newspapers and magazines for some existing byline articles that shares similar theme, to see what media may be interested in my client’s byline. Then I phoned the media, got into contact with responsible editors and asked how byline article placement is to be committed: how often do we have to submit articles and what are some criterion or restrictions in writing, etc. While we should not expose too much of the client’s information in the research stage, I could not be too vague. I would say during this process, it taught me a lesson how to best communicate with journalists under these circumstances. I also getting to know a bit about their editorial job!

Data Research

Data are plain facts which we need to process and get them organized as useful information. Before any brainstorming session, we always search for data that supports our idea. I was once required to find data support for the notion ‘low income families in Hong Kong people are very unhappy’. What I did was to go through recent news for international rankings of how ‘happy’ people in each country are, and look into some local indexes of happiness and its trend. After consolidating the data, organized and presented these information to my team, we were surprised to learn that the most distressed class in the society is actually not the poorest but the ‘sandwich’ class. Hence, the findings often provide different perspective to our ideas and enable the team to provide the best proposals. I am glad that I can contribute via doing research!

Mundane? Boring? Unimportant? Just as the Chinese saying ‘One minute on the stage, ten years of practice off the stage’. Intensive research work is exactly what builds PR up. My internship experience had taught me to appreciate the importance of paper-and-phone research work. It is important to know the role your current piece of job does in the big picture, that you would start to see the fun in it. To end with, I sincerely hope my sharing is helpful as part of YOUR RESEARCH about an Internship at Edelman, just as how I found the intern blogs were before I proudly join the Edelman team!

  By Carol Yam

[edelmanhkinterns]

My best moments in Edelman

Hi! This is Cheryl from technology practice. I have just “re-started” my internship in September after the wonderful 2-month-summer-internship in Edelman Hong Kong. Working in Edelman Hong Kong is full of happiness. Here are my favourite moments highlighted the few months.

 1.   Event - Bring in your Parents Day

  This is the most recent activity held in Edelman office. We participate this global event because #LinkedIn is the organizer. In November 6, Edelman’s employees brought their parents to their working desks! I would never miss this precious opportunity to let my parents know my daily work, working environment and my nice colleagues so HERE THEY ARE.

    They are so joyful joining the Parents Day with deeper understanding of PR industry, Edelman’s worldwide offices and the successful campaigns we have launched. They are impressed by Edelman’s scale, communication strategies and the family-like culture. I really appreciate our company supporting and organizing this global meaningful event which brings our family full of joy.

 2.    Fun Employee Engagement Activities

On the day of October 24, it is the big day of Edelman Hong Kong’s Halloween! We have had several meetings discussing the theme, decorations and dress code on the day because we take it SERIOUS! We all dressed up as scary cartoon characters and we created the most environmental-friendly castle in the world! Our team, from directors to interns, have all contributed in building the castle. Paper box collected in the office, our fantastic hand-painting and most importantly our best team spirit, formed a wonderful castle built inside the office. What impressed me most is our team all enjoyed creating a new work by joint-together-hands, just like what we are doing for our clients!

 3.   My Work

During internship, I have to contribute in difference projects as well as their press releases or media notes. As I grow in Hong Kong, I take my local knowledge as an advantage to contribute in the content. My work is mostly translating and localizing press releases, or creating a press release by myself. I learnt how to catch the angle of story-telling, as well as how to use casual or business tone to write up the content. Every time I see my work distributing to the media, or after that published – no matter it is on internet or magazines – I feel really excited to see my work not in my own computer but on paper!

 4.   Brainstorming session

We always spend time on crowdsourcing to create fun ideas for clients’ projects. When we are engaging in brainstorming, it is amazing to see the different ways of thinking among different people.  Edelman is a diversified workplace. Our colleagues came from countries all over the world and grew up with their own culture. The same similarity they have is that they always absorb up-to-date ideas and develop their own insights. What I have learnt from them is to take as many inputs as I can, and grow the knowledge to become my creativity. Always store knowledge in my brain and bring it out whenever it is needed. I really enjoy the time when our ideas crash and form a new, fruitful direction for clients.

   I hope you’ll be interested in joining Edelman and the PR industry after reading my intern blog. Take action and don’t hesitate! You will definitely gain much more than you expected!

  #LinkedIn is an Edelman client

  By Cheryl Chan

[edelmanhkinterns]

TOPIC THUNDER – INSIDE EDELMAN’S CREATIVE BRAIN

Howdy

The encouragement I’ve received at Edelman has been imperative in helping me tackle every new task and has remained constant through successes or failure. With my colleagues and managers at my side, it’s the PR industry today and the world tomorrow. So take my hand, friends, and join me in a very slow lunging towards the beckoning sunset.                              

Content creation

At Edelman we work with calendars, digital ones that help us manage client posts for all approved media platforms in our scope of work. As a visual guide it allows us to accessibly outline seasonal themes, key dates and subsequently plan content for greatest viewership around trending narratives. Brainstorming is step one to developing a concise messaging plan; it’s a no-holds-bar affair where all are equal and whiteboard transcribers embrace rapid fire, it’s safe to say most of Edelman’s prosperity lies in its creative “do things differently” workforce. In synergy, Edelman’s diversity (another key importance in developing effective content) allow it to hone its eclectic and socially open mix of employee backgrounds in successfully targeting the full range of client demographics.

With 6 weeks of shadowing Digital Practice I’ve drafted posts with varying purposes from real time event monitoring to planned promotional updates, for the latter, calendars are structured in a sustainable way to continuously innovate without the fiscal pressures of over-servicing. And despite my innate ability to write superfluously I’ve been taught to draft concise, valuable and interesting content. As an added bonus, I have the responsibility of picking out all imagery that accompanies our posts, if and when I need to illustrate an argument or topic I have the supportive element of Edelman’s subscribed stock-image service which, fortunately, doesn’t exclude the likes of red nosed rabbits with sports booties or more significantly; eucalyptus-eating koalas.

In summary, I love content creation, in fact I love it so much I write on my hands in my spare time. I find that my palms provide me with very spatially restrictive canvases that mimic the character limits of Twitter and Edelman’s suggested allowance for Facebook. But in all seriousness, it’s one of the more enjoyable and self-expressive tasks I get to do on a day-to-day basis and despite my humor (questionably labelled) the “Edel-team” has been more than nurturing in distilling the acidity out of my creative juices.

Transitioning back to Corporate Practice; I’ve spent the last two weeks training to draft emails, newsletters, meeting minutes, PowerPoint presentations, scripts and headlines, and since Edelman employees have an inherent ability to pass on very strong feelings of responsibility and ownership (engagement) their tutelage had to be a proactive none. My manager, Stephanie Chan took me under her expansive wing; coaching me through events, workshops and highlighting key insights and narratives for context– her delegation in project management prompted my most immersive industry experience yet. Today I feel a lot more comfortable in my ability to manage time, create purposeful work and take on responsibility.

I have thoroughly enjoyed diving Edelman’s well-oiled mechanics and would highly suggest the experience to anyone wanting a professional, friendly experience that’s on the frontier of innovation.

(Playing games with my lovely colleagues)

By Bhavish Daswani

[edelmanhkinterns]

3 Things You Should Know

1. Read and write  

Edelman makes no exception for interns - When you do read, write and translate over 70% of the time from 9 to 6 every day, it can be quite intense - in a good way if you are a wordsmith! This point should be a given if you do your research before breaking into PR. To give you a better idea of my responsibilities at the technology practice, here are some main tasks I usually take on:

News Monitoring  The first thing to start off my day: I read the news about our clients, their competitors, as well as the Internet and cyber security industries. News monitoring is not just about scanning for keywords. To execute the task error-free in minimal time, you need to narrow down your selection by choosing the right headline and newspaper section, as well as skimming the article to grasp the general picture. I enjoy this morning routine as it is a great chance to get acquainted with the industry. Every now and then I stumble upon interesting articles about the latest technologies that I might not read about. I often find myself reading about things firsthand and then hearing tech-savvy friends talk about them later. It’s great to (finally) have that ‘I know what you’re talking about’ feeling if you know what I mean. By tracking these information early, it provides market insights and also we can demonstrate a wider understanding of our client’s business and stay ahead of their competitors.

Coverage/Intelligence Report After doing a few rounds of search for news articles, I put all the relevant pieces together and compile the coverage/intelligence report. This is done on a daily or weekly basis, depending on the client’s needs. Furthermore, I have to do a little bit of translating from Chinese to English and summarize the content in concise, journalistic language – and of course triple check the formatting before I turn it in.

Media Alerts While I did try translating press releases in my previous internships, I did not get to prepare media alerts until my internship here. Drafting a pitch is usually challenging to craft a lively piece and preserve that fun element when I translated it to another language. That is what fascinates me about PR – you learn to convey your ideas in different voices to engage your audience. This is especially true when you work at Edelman as you learn to juggle with a number of tasks for different accounts.

2. At Edelman, you lunch and learn!

Lunch & Learn session is an internal training at Edelman where we could grab a sandwich, sit down in the boardroom and learn new things from senior staff or sometimes from external speakers. This week I joined a session’s theme was “media pitching” – great for us juniors as this is among the tasks we are responsible for. While I have yet to call up the journalists to pitch any story ideas, from this session I got some great tips which would prepare me for this task.

3. Doing a full-time internship after graduation at Edelman is more common than you think.

Before my first day, I was a little concerned about doing an internship as a graduate. It turns out that a few fellow interns are in the same boat as well, so we aren't alone after all. Job search is daunting upon your graduation from university, but let’s be honest, no one at the age of 22 is 100% sure about what kind of career he or she wants. So, an internship does give you the flexibility to plan your next step, especially a good one. 

I would highly suggest if you will graduate next year or even undergraduates to start thinking about joining Edelman as an intern. You’ll learn the basic skills deeper to prepare yourself for a career in PR industry. Good luck!

By Cora Mok

[edelmanhkinterns]

Finding the perfect internship is not always easy. Why Edelman?

With more than 67 offices and 5,000 employees worldwide, Edelman is the world's largest independently owned public relations company. Edelman Hong Kong has over 65 staff and has been established over 28 years. Can you imagine that how excited am I to receive the internship from Edelman Hong Kong? Well, it doesn’t have to be a dream anymore.

    I am Michelle and I am a fresh graduate from University of Queensland in Australia, majoring in public relations. Gaining a PR internship is a key to building a successful career. Achieving not only an internship position, but one at such a prominent company, was extremely exciting.

  Starting My Internship Experience

I am lucky enough to work in two teams under the Corporate practice during my internship at Edelman, Marketing and Crisis Management & Media training practice. My supervisors have created a motivating list of tasks and assignments that I would complete during the internship. These included handling social media platforms for brand management, and assisting in media training. There were other projects listed as well, including training materials preparation and scenarios development, etc.

  What is scenarios development?

Since Edelman has provided media training, presentation and crisis management sessions to our clients, one of the most interesting activities is scenarios practice.

It helps clients to understand how the media thinks in order to maximize opportunities and minimize risks. Indeed it is remarkable for helping the company to use storytelling, reshaping the analysis of what may happen.

  Although it was my first time to develop the scenarios, our regional director and training specialist, Ray and Jennifer explained to me clearly and taught me step by step with patience. Hence, I was able to create a scenario background and establish potential questions for interview role-plays. For example, it started by interviewing senior leaders: what are you challenged by? How can you make things happen in a world that is susceptible to change?

  It is a totally new and interesting experience for me! Scenarios are neither predictions, nor preferences. They show the art of exploring plausible future space, which help to sense things that are happening.

  Furthermore, I am lucky enough that my internship allows me to contribute meaningful work to ongoing projects and tasks.

  On the marketing side, I have to work on various tasks such as:

  Opportunity to develop/extend the social networking capability in keeping with our brand mission

Create content calendar and update Facebook posts to generate attention to the page. It helps to develop creativity and tech skills to effectively reuse materials on the profuse social networking media

Edit and update intern blog posts which can be easily maintained in conjunction with the Facebook page in the most efficient manner

    What is an effective internship in general?

Provides the intern with sufficient information and experiences to assess whether career goals are achievable

Gives the intern responsibility for one or more projects which result in an identifiable product

Prepares the intern to compete for professional jobs consistent with his/her educational and work experience

Receives helpful feedback from his/her supervisor about performance and workplace behavior

 Exposes the intern to people who routinely interact with the company, e.g. colleagues, clients and interest group members, etc.

  Finding the perfect internship is not always easy.

But here it is.

  Internships at Edelman almost provide all of the above great learning experiences and help us learn the knowledge and skills it takes to be successful in the real world, particularly in PR field. I suggest that not only fresh graduates but university students as well should seek out these opportunities.

  I’ve learned valuable lessons including the importance of having perseverance and innovative thinking in the workplace. Since an internship can well turn out to be a first job, it’s important to go into it in the right frame of mind so that you will do your best and be able to show employers that you have what it takes to be successful. Looking forward to the new challenges!

  Lastly, one more thing – the most amazing element in Edelman:

  ATMOSPHERE

  (Corporate “jungle” team – Halloween party)

  Atmosphere and team members’ relationships that make for a happier and more enjoyable workplace. The people who work here are one of the main reasons I enjoy EDELMAN so much. What a privilege to spend most of my day with smart communications pros. They are fun people that I want to spend my time OUTSIDE of work with!

  If you want to know more about our awesome working atmosphere, please stay with us.

  By Michelle Tung