PR Start by Nick Lucido

This morning as I was going through my e-mail inbox at work, I happened to see this article on an intern who resigned from her company. Basically, Jenavi Kasper worked at an advertising agency in Phoenix for three weeks and quit because she had higher expectations for working there. I’m not kidding. I recommend checking out the comments on the post — some defend and some attack. I side with the latter.

First, I’ll add that as a fellow intern, I can’t say I can relate to Jenavi. In my four work experiences since I’ve been in college, I’ve had four incredible experiences that have taught me a lot of public relations. Then again, if I were in her shoes, I would do things a little bit differently.

So, here are my points as to what Jenavi did wrong. I hope you can find some value in learning from these.

• Give it time. Somewhere in the comments, it was mentioned that she only worked three weeks (two days per week, at that) at the agency. That’s one business week and one day. It’s important to remember how agencies operate: they hire when they win business, fire when they lose it and are always in a state of adapting to a new balance of clients. Interns should spend some time learning and asking questions before they join in on this cycle be the most beneficial to the agency. That takes time and patience. It seems as though neither were present in this situation.
• Her expectations were way off. I’ve now worked at three public relations agencies and I’ve been able to do some pretty cool things. However, I’ve also answered phones, moved boxes, delivered fliers to 100+ people in person… you get the picture. Sure, she had to do some not-so-sexy things, but that’s the business. To put it quite frankly, if you’re basing your expectations on what you see on TV, you’re crazy. In PR and advertising, especially entry level, you’ll be doing research, compiling lists and putting together reports — not pitching clients and designing a new campaign. I could go on about expections, but I could talk about it for a year.
• Why did she not ask for more work? From the post, it sounded like she came to work, got her assignments, completed them and waited for someone to give her more. In fact, she should have asked for more assignments. Even better — think one step ahead and anticipate the needs of your team. This will help your get respect and ultimately, your team will trust you with bigger assignments.
• Trying to get bad press for your ex-employer is presumptuous and could backfire. When she wrote this blog about her old company, she added at the end: “So be careful. You don’t want to end up being called out on a blog, do you?” I think this really speaks miles for itself, so I’ll hold out on saying what I really feel about this. She hurt herself so much more than she could ever hurt the company, and while social media is a great tool for learning, it’s a great tool for ruining your career, too.
• The field is crowded. Big agencies get hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants for summer internship programs. If you don’t want to do some administrative work, I can guarantee that the next person will.

So, what do you think? Do you think this is an isolated case? What else could she have done differently?

Photo by w00kie on Flickr.