dariasb-1998-blog

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Interview and last college assignment ever!!!

This morning I had an interview at a non-profit in LA for an entry level PR position. I was so excited that all my hard work had paid off applying for jobs the past month had finally paid off in an interview, and especially for one at a company I’m passionate about. The non-profit focuses on children with serious illnesses and bringing them happiness. Yesterday when I was chatting with Danielle she said her best interview advice is to be yourself. Before I got on the call with her I was actually on LinkedIn learning watching interview tip videos. While the tips were super helpful, I felt like the answers they deemed “good” were so polished and didn’t really leave a lot of room for self expression. I didn’t really see myself saying any of these things in real life and personally I hate being inauthentic. Hearing her advice came at such a perfect time and really helped me bring myself to answer the interview questions. I think the interview went really well and I was excited to learn more about the position and organization!

On another note this is the end of my finals week and this is actually my last college assignment ever!! I can’t believe how fast four years went by and even though this wasn’t the ending I pictured I’m so beyond grateful for my time at LMU and am excited for the future post-grad wherever that may lead :)

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Informational Interview with Danielle

When researching agencies I’d like to work at, I came across an agency with a Playa Vista location that is focused on healthcare. I know right now a lot of agencies are hurting, but figured for one in healthcare business must be booming. I connected with Danielle, who is an Account Associate, over LinkedIn and we found a time to chat over the phone. My conversation with her yesterday was really great and I left with so much valuable advice and a meaningful connection. She had graduated last year and was able to give awesome advice about the job search process. She discovered PR her last semester of college and started doing what I’ve been doing now and reaching out the people over LinkedIn to connect. We bonded over both really liking PR and wanting to do the work in an industry that makes meaningful change in people’s lives. It was really interesting hearing how the agency is doing after CoVid because they are in the healthcare industry.  For them everything is doing great and besides work from home, business is usual. Learning about healthcare PR and hearing about Danielle’s experiences, I’m definitely more interested in the field. She also gave me interview advice for an interview I had earlier today which was SO helpful. Speaking with Danielle has been one of the most meaningful connections I’ve made so far and I’m definitely going to keep in contact with her in the future. 

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Informational Interview with Olivia

Over the past few weeks I’ve connected with a lot of people on zoom or over the phone and my conversation with Olivia, an account coordinator at a tech and B2B PR agency focused on startups, was one of the most meaningful. I had actually interviewed with this agency at the beginning of the school year for an internship and was offered the position, but unfortunately it didn’t work out with my schedule. I had such a positive experience interviewing with and meeting the team and have been really interested in the company ever since. Olivia was really friendly and sweet and gave me such helpful advice. I think what made connecting with her stand out was that it felt more like conversation, than just me asking questions. It was easy to relate to her and the whole process was less intimidating since she had graduated last spring. I learned a lot more about the agency and hearing about it as her perspective in an entry level position was really helpful. She mentioned that her day to day includes a lot of pitching and when I asked how she formulates a good one, she said that she likes to grab coffee with journalists and build relationships with them. She recommended I do that, even know, to better understand the relationship between pr and journalism from a journalists perspective. It was awesome advice. I ended up connecting with her manager at the agency and am going to chat with her over the phone next week!

[dariasb-1998-blog]

CPD (why didn’t I start going to them earlier??)

Throwing a global pandemic into the already anxiety-filled 2 months before graduation has not been fun to say the least. Even before CoVid was a thing I was someone who was constantly worried about getting a job after graduation. I started interning my sophomore year of college and have been doing so ever since not only because I like being busy and gaining the experience, but also because I wanted to ensure I’d be employed after graduation. When the pandemic hit and the job market started looking not too hot, I was devastated. I had already carefully planned out my summer and post-graduation job search and was honestly really excited about it. My supervisor had offered to extend my internship through the summer and the family I babysit for had also offered a part time nanny gig for me, so I would’ve had my finances covered and more free time to focus on the job search. My apartment lease is up mid August so I had a solid three and a half months to find an entry-level agency job in LA, which was my ultimate goal. Right before shelter in place I was applying to jobs and had a few leads. Unfortunately these all dissolved after the pandemic started to progress. I felt hopeless and upset and just powerless in a situation that I had thought I created a fool-proof plan for. It sucked and it still sucks, but what started giving me hope again was CPD. One of my friends works there and really recommended I talk with them. After my first zoom session with one of the advisors, Elena, I started feeling a lot better. Hearing someone encourage and believe in me when I was really starting to doubt myself was awesome. I’ve been meeting with her for the most part every week since about career strategy, networking, resumes and cover letters, and LinkedIn and it's been so beyond helpful. I always leave the zoom feeling so inspired and confident and with such valuable help and guidance. Elena, and CPD in general, have been so extremely helpful and I really wish I would’ve started going to them sooner!

[dariasb-1998-blog]

(net)Work from home

For one of my classes, I conducted an informational interview. In light of everything going on right now these would now be over zoom as opposed to in person. I was pretty disappointed by this because last semester I had done an in person informational interview that was super insightful and actually ended up in a job referral for me. Either way I got to work on finding people on LinkedIn and reaching out to people I had worked with from previous internships. Reaching out to people on LinkedIn was a lot harder than I thought. I wasn’t getting a lot of responses from people and the deadline for the assignment was coming up soon. Luckily my professor connected me with one of her colleague that resulted in a really inspiring conversation and meaningful connection in the future! As time went on and people began responding to me on LinkedIn I figured why not continue doing informational interviews and learning more since this last one with Becca was so helpful. I made a goal for myself to conduct at least one informational interview a week and reach out to at least ten people who’s career path inspired me on LinkedIn. So far so good! I’ve made a lot of awesome new connections and have learned really valuable information about working in PR.

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Post-Spring Break Update

After a stressful few weeks of midterm it was finally spring break! My friends and I planned a last minute trip to Cabo, Mexico and I had never been before so I was super excited. We all had a blast and made it back to Los Angeles safe and corona-free. I took the rest of the week off from my internship to relax and catch up on some homework. Unfortunately while we were in Cabo, my friends and I got the news that the rest of the month would consist of online classes. We were all sad, but excited about the extra free time we would have. I planned to use the time to apply for jobs after graduation. Knowing that companies had begun working from home I emailed my supervisor to see if I should come into work the following week. She emailed back quickly and said they would be transitioning to work from home and that she would provide us with some updates about interns continuing to work from home. Unfortunately a week later I got a call from her saying that clients had begun dropping them and the company could no longer afford to continue to internship program. I was shocked and devastated. I really enjoyed working at there and felt that I still had a lot to learn. I was even planning on continuing my internship with them through the rest of the summer, while I looked for jobs in LA. This news on top of the rest of my senior year being online and events being cancelled was hard on me. It’s taken a lot of adjustments, but I planned to use this free time to work on my resume, job applications, and networking.

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Feedback

A few weeks ago one of my project was to draft a pitch, using specific messaging, for a new promotional deal at a hotel we work with. I had never written a pitch before or worked on projects for this client. After I was given the project I was pretty lost as to where to start, so I went back to one of my colleagues who gave me the project for guidance. She ended up sending me a past pitch she had used for the client, but said that the messaging on this one had to be specific as the client had given them a blurb that could not be changed. After writing and re-writing the pitch I sent it over to my colleague who promptly sent it back with really helpful feedback. She gave really great advice for writing pitches not only for the client specifically, but just in general. It was extremely helpful to have her perspective and see what she changed and edited in with mine. I’ve found at my past internships that I don’t really tend to get a lot of feedback on projects, so I really appreciated such detailed feedback on this one!

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Pitching

Last week one of the clients that we work with had a grand opening of a new restaurant and the launch of a new promotional deal. I was given the project of writing a pitch, sending it out, and expanding on a media list of reporters and bloggers that I would then send the pitches out too. A lot of the work I do at my internship is sending out pre-written pitches, so this was my first chance at writing one of my own and sending it out. Over the three days I intern I sent out hundred of emails and got back an overwhelming amount of responses! This was even more exciting because I usually don’t get a lot of responses from reporters or bloggers when I sent out pitches, so knowing that one I had written myself was successful was super rewarding! A lot of the times pitching and expanding on media lists can get really boring and seem pointless especially when I don’t get any responses, but last week it was the opposite! We were able to get coverage on both the grand opening of the new location and the promotional deal which both me and my colleague were really excited about. It was a really great experience to see and work on a project from start to finish because as an intern I usually just work on one aspect of a project and do not get to see the end results.

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Midterm Szn

This semester is really flying by! I had no idea that it was midterms already until I realized that this week I had three papers due. Luckily I was able to take work off on Thursday to finish an 8 page topic proposal and literature review for my capstone class, but then my laptop broke and I wasn't able to work on it :(. My professor gave me an extension and I was able to finish it this weekend. At work on Tuesday I helped create a media list of influencers in the inland empire area to invite to a restaurant opening, helped package kombucha for press kits, and pitched a media audit to some reporters and bloggers. On Wednesday, which is my half day, I helped package more kombucha for press kits and caught up on The Bachelor from earlier in the week. I was glad I had such a chill week at work to balance out all the homework I had from classes.  For one of my classes last week I read and wrote a reflection on a book about mindfulness called True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart. It is written by a Buddhist monk from Vietnam and really helped me to put into perspective the stress I felt this week from all homework. This book was definitely a highlight of my crazy week! 

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Press Calls

This week one of my projects was making press calls. Press calls are when we call reporters to follow up about a pitch we had previously emailed them about. In this case I was calling reporters in the Orange County area that cover food and local business about the opening of a new Ono Hawaiian BBQ location in Anaheim. Ono is one of Blaze’s clients and I had worked on a media alert and press release before. I had a big list of reporters to call, so I got started on it early in the day. It was really nerve-wracking making the first few calls, so I wrote out a basic script. Most of the reporters didn’t pick up, so I left a lot of voicemails letting them know the details about the event and inviting them to the opening. Out of the few that picked up most were pretty nice, but ended up declining because they didn’t cover restaurants or were busy that day. One woman I called that was a blogger was really sweet and she was excited about the opening. She ended up attending the event, which made all the calls I did that day more worth it! Also - discovered that my favorite matcha cafe is on my way to work in the morning !! 

[dariasb-1998-blog]

Last First Week of School

A few weeks ago was my last first week of school at LMU. My freshman orientation leaders weren’t wrong when they said four years will fly by! I was excited to start my new classes, meet my professors, and see my friends again after winter break. I was also excited (and a little nervous) to start my new internship at Blaze. My first day of work went really well! I met my supervisor co-workers, one of the other interns, and our office dog Penny. After I finished some onboarding paperwork, I started to work on a press release for the launch of a new product for one their clients. Everyone was super sweet and welcoming and I got to work on some really cool projects even on my first day. The rest of the week went well, I met a few other interns I’m working with, worked on media lists, a media alert, a biography, and pitched some stories to reporters. I felt like I learned so much in my first week and was excited to continue the semester at Blaze. 

[dariasb-1998-blog]

First post !!

Hello and welcome to my internship blog! :) I’ve created this page to document the trails and tribulations, and lessons I’ll learn from being a full time college senior and part time intern. This semester I am interning at a public relations agency in Santa Monica called Blaze PR. My official title is Public Relations Intern (I even have an official company email signature !) and I work 9-5 Tuesdays and Thursday and 9-12 on Wednesdays. I found the internship on Handshake, which is a career portal through LMU (where I go to school), and was able to secure this internship during finals week last semester. I’m very excited to learn as much as I can about public relations and be able to apply what I’ve learned as a PR minor outside of the classroom!