A VIEW FROM OUR INTERN: EUGENE VLAS

A VIEW FROM OUR INTERN: EUGENE VLAS

What attracted you to Harpswood?

The culture - and not in the cringe, ‘we’re like a family’ sort of way. I mean Harpswood is an agency of genuine people who are warm company and super helpful professionals. They want the best for your development and I can vouch for that to anybody looking this way. 

Harpswood holds a high standard of work but the team is patient and constructive as I was learning the ropes. On my first day, I was on the rooftop terrace for lunch with the team which was a regular fixture throughout the summer. I felt included from the beginning to the end and that meant a lot.

What do you feel you learned about PR?

I joined with only a basic knowledge of PR theory from my degree. I got to work on a task for clients right away. It was great to see how new clients to the agency, who had no media coverage previously, saw the power of PR. Senior leaders became go-to industry spokespeople in the media and they saw sales increase. PR is as important to a company’s growth as spinach is to a teenager. If you want to grow big and strong you need spinach. To adopt a good PR strategy is to induce a growth spurt for your company - you’ll see the difference when you look down at your competitors.

What was your average day like?

The mornings began with scanning news headlines for our clients - which was evenly divided across the team. If there was a story worth newsjacking, we declared it immediately and sent out a pitch. Newsjacking is an effective way of landing coverage for a client in the absence of big company news and can get smaller businesses noticed. 

Then I drew up a plan for the day ahead, sent out pitches, executed my tasks one by one, and reprioritised my task based on how the day went. Days varied from sending pitches and making phone sell-ins, nudging journalists for feedback on pitches to assembling briefing notes and figuring out different pitching angles for the next morning. 

What would you say to someone thinking of doing an internship in PR?

A PR internship is great because the skills are sought after in many industries. Agency PR offers the necessary experience to develop communication, strategy and softer people skills but it also ensures you can do it at a high standard and rapidly. I’d argue that, in my experience, it improved how I communicated with friends and personal commitments like my hobbies.

What would you say to someone thinking of doing an internship with Harpswood?

As the internship came to a close, I appreciated how much freedom the team gave me to experiment with my style of work and I had a better understanding of PR than I would anywhere else. 

If you want a crash course in class, hands-on PR, Harpswood will break it down for you and build you up to ten times the professional you were just two months ago. 

Shoutout to my manager Pete who believed in me more than I did and for pushing me to be my best version this summer. 

If you see an opening here, you owe it to yourself to apply - thank me later.