Ryan Seow
During my internship at Edelman Malaysia, one of the projects that I’ve undertaken outside my daily routine was to assist and participate in the facilitation of a video shoot on behalf of Shell with their contestant winners at the winning Shell station. While my colleague was in charge of communication with the Shell employees and retailers, I was tasked to contact and convince the contestant winner through a phone call to participate in a video shoot. As the winner prefers to communicate in Cantonese, I was assigned to be the liaison between the contestant winner and my colleagues as I am the only one in the team that was proficient in Cantonese.
At the day of the video shoot, I continued to be the Cantonese interpreter for my colleagues and the filming crew contracted on behalf of Shell. During the video shoot I am responsible in relaying the plans of the film director to the contestant winners and also guide them with questions for them to answer in the video.
As cliché as it sounds, I would describe this particular experience as fun in general, as it takes out the monotony of being in the office and also allows me to further hone my communication and interpersonal skills, which is one of the initial goals that I’ve set for myself before I commenced my internship.
Well, teamwork is certainly on the top of the list of the important qualities that I’ve learnt from my internship. Working as a team would mean having each other’s backs whenever they need help, whether to take over their duties while they are on leave, or they are overwhelmed with whatever’s on their plate. That sense of camaraderie goes a long way as it gives you the reassurance that someone would always have your back whenever you hit a wall – it just takes away a considerable chunk of workplace anxiety and allows you to take risks in a controlled, and coordinated manner.
The second quality that I’ve learnt during my internship would be sincerity, which was present in the team that I worked with. There wasn’t a sense of pretentiousness, nor disguise during my time with the team back in Edelman. Almost like a close group of friends, we would mingle and interact with each other with minimal barriers stemming from seniority and position. Occasionally we would even joke around or ask each other for some serious life advice. The lack of animosity among the team members had cultivated, from my observation, minimal incidents of office politics that might’ve impeded with daily work flow.
Adaptability would be the third quality that I’ve learnt from my internship. The dynamic nature of the public relations industry had made adaptability a core value to deal with ever- changing situations. There are times where I need to react to certain situations such as meeting sudden deadlines or accidental mistakes requiring immediate rectification. Being able to adapt quickly would mean being able to solve the sudden tasks as quickly as possible.
The lessons I learnt in my course certainly helped me better understand the nature of my work during my internship in Edelman. For instance, I am able to relate communications theories such as the use of framing methods in the drafting of press releases and social media posts to deliver carefully crafted announcements to the public that generates engagement with the client company. Apart from that, I am also able to relate the lessons I’ve learnt about how companies attempt to relate and generate positive public perception through employing rhetorical concepts such as familial values, and the imagined community – usually manifested in the form of nationalism. I am able to witness this firsthand during my internship as client companies consult with PR agencies on the production and delivery of said rhetoric, most often found in the form of heartwarming and feel-good advertisements. Apart from the lessons I was able to apply, the research and writing oriented nature of my course also gave me an edge at the workplace as I was able to complete the occasional tasks of online research and the preparation various reports for my team with little difficulty.
Although my internship at Edelman was memorable but a career in a public relations agency is unfortunately not the ideal career path that I would want. With my interests leaning more towards international relations after affirming my career preference over the course of my internship, I find myself leaning towards a politically-driven career, such as diplomatic work and policy research. It was thanks to the versatile nature of both Communications and Global Studies majors and the broad range of topics these covered that provided me with the flexibility to explore and adapt to different career paths easily. Right now, I will continue my search for the ideal career path, with the confidence that my degree had prepared me to work my way towards that goal.