Week in the life of a PR Apprentice

Many people expect the daily responsibilities of an apprentice to be insignificant and dull. However, within my first two months at KC Communications, I have already been involved with several client meetings and strategy sessions, creating social media content and graphics for KC and clients and contacting journalists directly with news and press releases. 
As part of my apprenticeship, I am working towards completing a Level 4 Higher Apprenticeship through the PRCA. I dedicate one day a week to my apprenticeship course work to focus on my task within the agency on the other days. 
To help anyone who may be considering a similar career route, I have shared some insight into my average week as a PR Apprentice within a marketing and PR agency.
Monday
Monday’s are always a busy day at KC and seem to fly by in no time; this was also one of the first days we have all been able to work in the office since I joined the team. We usually start the morning off with a run-through of the tasks we will be working on throughout the week, along with any client updates and the all-important Line of Duty catch up! My day was pretty meeting heavy; starting off with a catch-up meeting with our client Fishtank to run through any business updates that we could use for PR campaigns later, we had an internal catch up to go over our strategy for our longest standing client Sheards, who I will be working on more in the upcoming weeks. 
Between meetings, I worked on drafting up the May social content for MySecure. Before ending the day with the monthly review of the business, going over some of our wins and what our upcoming work involves, new business opportunities and meetings
Tuesday
Tuesday’s for me are dedicated to my apprenticeship coursework. As a team, we have also recently introduced a deep work day on Tuesday’s. We limit any non-essential internal meetings to focus on heavier projects such as extended writing pieces or time-consuming tasks. I have found this change really beneficial, especially when working from home, as sometimes jumping in and out of meetings throughout the day can reduce productivity and workflow, so being able to have the whole day open to your own work is very important. 
The task I was completing this week for my apprenticeship was a personal statement piece about understanding the PR industry. I had started the statement last week, so my only task was to make amendments using my mentor comments. As I had completed all my coursework by midday, I decided to get started on some of my other tasks for the week. 
I currently plan my week out using a spreadsheet that my coworkers have access to, so they can add jobs with links to any documents I may need. By keeping my planner online and having my tasks added in advance, it allows me to manage my time better if I have extra time – such as today where I can complete jobs earlier or if any urgent tasks pop up, I can push the task back a few days. I sent out some follow up emails regarding a press release I had sent out last week and completed some FOI research for my line manager Ellis. 
Last week, I had the idea of writing a blog about the rise of TikTok and the effects and impact it can have on the marketing industry. I was unsure about sharing the concept initially as I wasn’t sure if it was relevant to what we do or what our clients are looking for; however, it was really well received by the team. 
Sharing ideas when you’re an apprentice, especially when you’re still relatively new to the role, can be daunting, and it is easy to keep quiet in fear of them being useless. But one of my top pieces of advice for getting started is to always share your thoughts. 
Many businesses take on an apprentice to get a different perspective from someone younger and fresh into the industry. Even if your ideas are not relevant at the time, they could be used later for another client or even inspire someone else to create a better one. I spent the rest of the afternoon gathering some ideas and statistics to use in my blog and looking through TikTok for local businesses that effectively used the platform to improve sales and performance. 
Wednesday 
On Wednesday, I started my day using Mailchimp to create an email campaign for Specialist Glass Products. They recently created a survey to push out to customers, so I included links to that along with the recent blogs we have created for them and their ‘Project of the Month’. 
I sent out a release we drafted for our travel client UKCaravans4Hire.com to some journalists and began putting together a social media audit for our new client Conscious Youth, a Huddersfield-based charity giving fantastic opportunities to young people. 
I am really excited about getting started on this project as part of their target audience is young people, so I’m looking forward to sharing my insight and thinking about how we can improve their social media platforms. I then had my ‘Wellbeing Wednesday’ session with Frankie, where we check in on how I’m doing with work and anything I am currently struggling with or do more of in the week. 
After lunch, I had another of my PRCA webinars. I have a webinar to attend for each of my units; they usually last around 90 minutes and are given by professionals from various industries and feature loads of great advice alongside real-life examples of work. My webinar today was about How to manage your time and workload more effectively; some of the other webinars include presentation skills, harnessing social media and successful media relations. I finished off the day by creating mockups for some memes we could use for property client Bramley’s social media.
Thursday
My Thursday was a pretty writing focused day. In the morning, I drafted up the March social content for Bramleys and updated the metadata on the P&A website. Around lunch, we had a meeting with the founders of Conscious Youth to find out some more information about the charity and find out their thoughts on some of the ideas we had for them. 
In the afternoon, I got started on the media audit for AYRE, where I researched some of the current topics within the event industry and looked at the kind of content event publications were sharing to help bring some inspiration for our future press releases or blogs. Before the end of my workday, I got started on a series of blogs I am creating for Bramleys for National  Gardening Week, such as creating a pet-friendly environment, growing your own vegetables, and protecting your garden during a heatwave. Keep an eye out for them soon!
Friday
I started off my day by sending out some follow up emails to the UKC4H piece I sent out earlier this week and creating some content to push out the SGP survey on social media. Before lunch, I had a progress review with my PRCA mentor Andrew. We went over my progress in the project so far, and I received positive feedback about the work I have submitted to date, which is always a great way to end the week! 
Later I had my bi-weekly internal mentor catch-up with our Senior Digital PR Manager Frankie to go over the work I’ve produced and share any ideas we could do next week. My final task for the week involved working on the media audit for Sheards before our end of the week meeting to cover everything completed during the week and anything that is being carried over to next week before signing off for the weekend.
My first few months at KC have already been so much more involving, challenging and supportive than I ever could have imagined. The training provided by the PRCA is full of new insights I have been able to share with the team and use within our campaigns and I am looking forward to seeing what the weeks ahead bring!
 
Follow my journey as a PR apprentice at @allsoppbrianna and find out more about me in our ‘Meet the Team’ blog. 
We are currently looking for a new PR apprentice role. Find out more here: http://ow.ly/9QKe50EyGJ9