When United Distillers and Vintners sought counsel on how to serve up its Jose Cuervo brand to the twenty-something crowd, account managers at its agency knew they had the perfect expertise in-house:
11 college interns.
The student team at Golin/Harris Chicago thus embarked on several weeks of frenzied research (a quintessential agency experience) and, at the end of August, made an official business pitch to the
agency CEO and Cuervo executives, replete with market research, video and a client Q&A. "They were trying to [nail] a concept called 'Cuervo Nation' that captures an 'untamed spirit' mentality," says
intern Kelly McNab, who last week returned to the University of Ohio, where she's a senior journalism major. "We fit right in...they were getting great inside information from people who were in their
target audience."
Interns pitching new business? Yup, believe it. Today's college lackeys are doing a whole lot more than stuffing envelopes and stapling press kit inserts. The Minneapolis-based firm Bozell
Kamstra even tapped its latest crop of summer interns to create a full-blown marcom campaign for its pro bono client, Starry Night Kitty Hotel, a premium feline boarding service. "[Our interns] formed an
'agency within an agency,' providing account service, creative, research, media planning and PR," says assistant AE Liz Bjorklund. "They weren't just doing little bits and pieces, but were getting the big
picture."
In the tightest job market in decades, PR hiring managers are upgrading their internship programs, not just out of the goodness of their nostalgic little hearts, but also as a means of farming talent.
"We look at summer interns as someone we might hire the next year," says Jenny Duffey, COO of Duffey Communications in Atlanta. "Our internship program is an investment. Like having clerks in a law
firm."
PR Duties a la Carte
Granted, handing over business development and account management responsibilities to the college crowd is not exactly common practice in PR circles. Duffey interns, being temporary employees, seldom
interface with clients (although they are invited to sit in on rehearsals for new business pitches). Job descriptions more commonly encompass duties such as news release writing, research,
assisting with special projects, event planning, developing media lists, assisting with press kit production and participating in brainstorming sessions. "It helps to expose them to as much as possible,"
says Duffey, whose firm offers ongoing internships and a summer fellowship in its internal marketing department.
Media relations is another area that most experts agree is off limits for PR newbies. Because dealing with external stakeholders is often more reactionary than planned, internship tasks are better
relegated to controlled disciplines, such as employee communications. "Let's face it, I don't even let every member of my department talk to the media, including some full-time employees," says Scott
Mall, VP of corporate communications for Ryder System, Inc. in Miami. "Talking to the media takes not only experience, but also knowledge of a specific subject matter." Interns can't be expected to
cultivate that knowledge in a few short weeks.
Mall prefers to tap student talent for more plannable tasks such as newsletter articles, print production cycles and research projects. One student is surveying Ryder investors to determine how they
prefer to receive information (e.g., via fax, mail or not at all). She's also compiling the results of an employee survey designed to gauge job satisfaction among drivers.
A Good Deal
Indeed, today's interns are treated not so much as benign observers, but rather as entry level employees. "A top PR student really should be capable of entry level work," says Duffey. "They should
have good writing skills, be able to turn a press release around on a dime, and have a strong knowledge of software such as Word and Powerpoint."
By the same token, she says, interns shouldering such responsibilities ought to be treated like staff - meaning they should be equipped with their own workstations, phone lines, Internet access and
email accounts. And they should be compensated. "Unless you're a nonprofit, I have a hard time with people not paying interns," says Duffey. "After all, we scrutinize them as if they were new employees,
with reference checks and writing tests."
And yet, not all PR internships offer wages, observes Bill Adams, associate professor of advertising and PR at Florida International University. He says sports teams, such as the Miami Fusion,
routinely snag his best students by dangling little more than a soccer ball under their noses. But in most cases, money does matter when you're trying to court the brightest kids as prospective future
employees.
McNab, who doubles as the national VP of internships and job services for PRSSA, says cash (or lack thereof) can be a serious deal breaker - particularly when students are giving up alternate summer
jobs to spend 40 hours a week doing PR. McNab made $10 per hour (plus overtime) at her Golin Harris gig, and pulled in $9 per hour at Porter Novelli the previous year. Mall pays his interns $7 per hour.
While grunt work is still an expected part of the deal, veterans caution against viewing interns as little more than a quick fix for clerical shorthandedness. (Word about slave drivers travels fast
among students, McNab says, and blacklisting happens serendipitously.) The best internship programs integrate menial tasks with more substantial intellectual challenges, and give interns ownership in
projects they can carry through from start to finish. "College students are very idealistic and they want to make a difference," McNab says. Savvy employers will capitalize on that enthusiasm.
For corporations, competition for top intern talent can be particularly tough, given that many PR students find agency work (and the diversity of agency clients and projects) sexier than corporate
work.
"You can't just have a program where you take your students to lunch and tell them war stories," says Mall. Today's up-and-coming professionals want real-world responsibilities they can sink their
teeth into.
Perhaps it's time to recast the old line : "Stick with me, kid...please? Maybe we can hire you after graduation?"
(Adams, 305/919-5795; Bjorklund, 612/371-7583; Duffey, 404/266-2600; Mall, 305/500-3888; McNab, 740/589-7877)
Shopping for Interns
Most universities post internship opportunities (both formal and informal) on their Web sites and on student bulletin boards. Help is just a phone call away. Just keep in
mind that if you want to enter into a formal partnership with a university (in which interns receive course credit for their work), you'll need to contact the school in spring to
get on board for fall classes. Jenny Duffey, whose eponymous Atlanta agency received more than 1,000 resumes for its latest summer fellowship, recommends that employers limit
their recruiting efforts to two or three carefully selected schools (or risk being inundated with applications).
PRSSA also offers Job Web, a site that reaches more than 6,000 PRSSA members with year-round dish on available opportunities. For more information about posting your internship on Job Web, call Kelly
McNab, PRSSA national VP of internships and job services, at 740/589-7877.
Care and Feeding of Interns
While conventional wisdom suggests that interns should be treated more like employees and less like wallpaper (a novel concept), there's still a need for mentoring. At Golin/Harris, McNab and her
fellow interns benefited from weekly informal lunches with members of the agency's senior management team. "Each person gave a presentation about what they did on a daily basis." And it was an eye-
opener, she says. "I originally thought I wanted to go into consumer PR, but then I learned more about employee communication and change management and healthcare. There's so much more out there than I
first realized."