24Pages of detailed information about
personal achievements in four
years
poskutedesign
portfolio
skills
experience
This portfolio will outline skills and personal
attributes gained during four years at the
University of Central Lancashire.
In this document you will find a detailed
work experience in the PR industry as well
as examples of the tasks carried out during
before and after placement year.
Greta
poskutedesignGreta
A little bit about me...
I’m an ambitious, bubbly and all things PR passionate recent graduate from University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) who is looking for work experience in the areas of media relations, marketing, internal communication and social media.
With an extensive background in all of these areas, I managed to gain a number of new skills relevant to the PR industry as well as enhance the existing ones via studying BA (Hons) Public Relations course.
It is also worthwhile mentioning that the set of skills was boosted after a year in the industry and completing a number of different internships. I was pleased that the right mixture of theory and relevant work experience led me to unearth that PR is definitely my cup of tea.
When I am off from work (and the University at the time), I find myself enjoying grasping PR industry insights, strengthening my online presence and attending professional events. I have to be honest with you here – I’m not all about PR. I also regularly attend gym classes and go for a run, have catch-ups with my friends, set off exploring news places and taking lots of photos.
Tip!
Tip!
p. 9
writingp. 6
presentations
p. 20
researchp. 22
management
p. 13
design
Contents
p. 17
events
releases, blog posts and web copy written for different employers.
Presentations section will touch upon my skills gained through delivering various talks.
Events and management chapter will guide you through the range of events I had to tap in showcasing my managerial abilities.
Design and research bit will give you a full picture of how I come up with creative PR ideas.
These symbols in the portfolio will represent different skills I have gained through carrying out various public relations tasks as part of my course and for different employers.
Writing chapter of this portfolio will highlight a number of press
Communications OfficerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: I undertook my year in the industry at Lancashire Business School, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Whilst on my placement I was responsible for communicating with external and internal stakeholders on behalf of the School. I took the initiative and introduced a regular staff newsletter which received a lot of positive feedback from different departments of the School. I was also in charge of branding up and managing social media platforms for the School as well as supporting various events. Apart from that, I was involved in writing news stories and web copy.
October 2012 - June 2014
PR InternMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: During the three months internship with I was responsible for a wide range of tasks related to media relations, social media and desk-based research. I wrote press releases for organisations and groups including Let’s Do Business! and Attwater. I also was responsible for promoting events of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). The content was used to promote the events on Eventbrite, the CIPR web-site and was sent out as an e-newsletter to all CIPR members.
March 2014 - June 2014
May 2012 - July 2012 PR VolunteerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: At Freshfield I gained an invaluable experience about how the PR agency operates. My main responsibilities at Freshfield were related to assisting PR and Social Media Consultant with secondary research, evaluating social media activities, contacting journalists and supporting Lancashire School Games event. I was regularly putting together forward features lists for a range of clients and researching influential bloggers. I was also monitoring and evaluating social media activities for local clients.
September 2013 - May 2014 Project design managerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: The project undertaken during the final year at UCLan has given the significant weight to both personal development and shaped the understanding of campaign planning and implementation. As a Design Manager I was responsible for visualising the campaign and developing campaign promotional materials including designing the look for campaign’s communication plan, putting together fliers and designing a pull-up banner. I was also responsible for liaising with the print shop about getting the materials ready in time.
1Client campaign presentation. During the final year of my
course four girls and I had been working with Machester-based People’s History Museum to come up with a student focused cam-paign. At the end of semester one, we had to formally present our campaign plan to a large group of students and most importantly - to a client. I was covering a section entitled ‘implementation’ that presented me with an opportunity to improve my oral communication skills. With this in focus, I practised my speech to deliver a clear and to-the-point message to the audi-ence about why we chose spe-cific campaign tactics to achieve communication objectives which were set in Sept 2013. Presentation receive a lot of positive feedback.
2Coursework presentations. During four years at the Uni-
versity I had many opportunities to deliver various group and individu-al presentations. In year one, with English being my second language and having basic knowledge of how to deliver presentations, I often used to read from my notes when delivering talks. However, that has significantly changed since the completion of my place-ment year. In the final year, I was not using any notes during pre-sentations and was able to explain different topics in a conversational manner, allowing listeners to jump in at any time and ask questions. Not having notes have helped me to receive higher grades and deliver better presentations.
3Placement with Lancashire Business School, UCLan.
Throughout my placement, I often attended various marketing meet-ings where I had the responsibility to present updates of different marketing and PR activities. These meetings presented me with an opportunity to enhance my data in-terpretation skills as well as pres-ent the findings in a brief manner highlighting the most important facts and trends. During that year, I learned the importance of giving background information to each activity that is being discussed as not everyone will be aware that these activities are/were taking place.
Presentations
CommunicationIn a nutshell, a number of presentations delivered allowed me to enhance my verbal communication as well as improve my English language.
Body languageThe module entitled ‘Media Relations’ has provided me with an invaluable information of non-verbal communication and its importance while communicating with journalists.
Designing slidesWhile at the university, I found out about alternative slide designing website called Prezi, which allows to showcase the information in an interactive and engaging way. I have become very proficient in putting together presentations using this website.
4During my placement year I was heavily involved with
promoting and attending various events organised by the School or the University. Once I was offered to deliver a talk to potential PR students about my experience as a student at UCLan and how it helped me to develop both per-sonally and professionally. At the Applicant Day 2013, I was talking to couple of potential students. This opportunity not only allowed me to step out of my comfort zone but also gave me the chance to improve my communication skills. With a thorough preparation I was able to highlight the main unique course selling points that hope-fully have influenced students’ decisions to join PR industry, and UCLan in particular.
5Media Relations module. In my second year I have attended
the module which equipped me with an in-depth knowledge about the journalism industry and gave me media training that was very useful in the two following years of the University. It provided me with much necessary background how a PR professional should behave during press conference, TV and radio interviews. It have covered all ‘Dos and Don’ts’ which I carry around with me to this day. It also allowed me to learn the components of press conference and how to get it organised. From the module I have also learned the importance of right posture dur-ing public speaking or delivering presentations.
The presentation skills
I have today have been
honed through both my
course and my placement
year. I currently feel
confident about delivering
a presentation to large or
small groups, it does not
matter, take your pick. I also
learned that there are very
few people who can actually
deliver speeches from the
top of their heads without
any preparation, therefore, it
is important to practice. So
before each presentation I
dedicate enough time to sit
down and get my thoughts
together around what I want
to say.
I enjoy going out of my
comfort zone and deliver
presentations on different
topics. It gives me a good
opportunity to research the
subject and learn something
new that I might be able to
apply at some point in my
future career.
skillsreview
There are many types of representation
skills, however, I will talk in this
section about my skills to
represent data in multiple
ways.
During the year in the
industry some of my tasks
involved dealing with
marketing intelligence
about Lancashire
Business School courses.
My responsibilities were to
crunch the numbers, pick out
key facts and emerging themes and
present them both on paper and during
marketing meetings.
While working as Communications Officer
at Lancashire Business School,
UCLan I was daily speaking on the
phone with my line manager,
UCLan marketing team,
students and companies
interested in working with
the School.
During the year I have
developed a good phone
communication manner
through helping out not only
to various services across the
University but as well as to different
business managers who used to contact
me with regard to publishing their student
focused vacancies.
PR
1Effective phone communication has also been improved via distance working with Tigerfish PR.
Provided that Tigerfish PR is based in a different town, Director and I agreed to communicate via phone and e-mail to be more cost efficient and save time on travelling. Phone communication has been very effective based on the work I managed to produced.
2Apart from that, I also enhanced my business representative skills. I honed it through talking to
various business people during the professional events at UCLan as well as tried to help people with their queries over the phone and social media channels. I realised that a reputation of the organisation depends on individual employees, so I did my best to be helpful.
Phone skillsPhone handling is crucial to all businesses
RepresentationBecause there’s only one first impression
WritingEXPERIENCE
1After helping to organise the event and taking a lot of photos
during it was my responsibility to get a quote from one of the event’s attendees and write a follow-up blog post. These types of tasks taught me the importance of the promotion before the event and the necessity to recap how everything went. Read full post:
http://bit.ly/1nBT2i7
2LBS accounting students’ hard work has been recognised by
OTS and they all had been awarded by the Treasury Minister - David Gauke. I put the story together for the Business School website following a conversation with the accounting lecturer, who gave me all the necessary information. Read full story here:
http://bit.ly/1foNRQh
3LBS student was part of world championship winning team.
I worked directly with the student to put the story about his and the team’s impressive achievement. The story presented me with the opportunity to develop my e-mail communication efficiency and that’s the channel I used to obtain the information. Read full story here: http://bit.ly/1ka20fU
LBS event offers first-
hand information
about PG courses
blog post
My written press release for Tigerfish PR client Let’s
Do Business! received an online coverage on the
following three websites: Tigerfish PR, Lancashire
Business View and Let’s Do Business!
In this press release I combined two different aspects
of PR - event promotion and brand awareness. Through
the press release Let’s Do Business! networking group
has raised the awareness of its brand as well as has
managed to tell the readers what events they organise
and share the purpose of the group’s establishment.
This story was one of a few ones published in the local
newspaper - Lancashire Evening Post.
I rustled up a press release after obtaining all necessary
information from the girls (pictured right) who have won
the national Chartered Institute of Marketing competition
entitled ‘The Pitch.’
Competing the story allowed me to find out that PR is my
cup of tea. I enjoyed chatting with the girls about their
achievement, obtaining the quote from their lecturer and
contacting the CIM and asking for photos from the event.
I also worked with Diane Earles, Network Manager at the
CIM, on getting the story published on the CIM website.
1Below is the link to the published story of
Carl Hopkins at the Let’s Do Business! event in Chorley.
http://bit.ly/1iDeBgo
2Let’s Do Business! story also appeared
on Lancashire Business View website. To view the story follow the link http://bit.ly/R3zWDU
3A post event blog post was added to
the Let’s Do Business! website. Click below to see the post.
http://bit.ly/1oYodSM
4Press release about marketing students
winning national competition has been published on Lancashire Evening Post
http://bit.ly/1mhoXVH
Top storiesSecret Millionaire attends Chorley’s eventLet’s Do Business! event with Carl Hopkins
Pitch perfectMarketing students win national CIM competition
The two above stories are related to promoting
graduate experiences. The first one was also
related to promoting the Business School’s Skills
Week where PR and Marketing graduates came
back to inspire first year students to look for work
experience.
For the second story I worked alongside the FDM
group, to produce a press release about two LBS
graduates who work there as well as promote the
developing partnership between FDM and LBS.
The above two stories were picked to reflect my
writing experience about various events. The third
story was about a well-known entrepreneur and
chef Paul Heathcote coming to see LaunchPad
students and giving them success building blocks.
The final story was about the School’s accounting
networking event which brought together
accounting professionals and students on campus.
The story was also published on UCLan’s Career
website and widely promoted on social media.
During my placement, I have set up a blog for Lancashire Business School as an
alternative online domain sourcing its stories while the main website was undergoing
major changes.
In just a little bit over a year, I have managed to write more than 35 posts about the
Business School student successes, staff achievements and LaunchPad programme
updates.
The popularity of the blog is still growing not only SEO wise, but also in the number of
visitors. More than 2700 people visited the blog from around the world and 25 people
chose to follow it. Looking after this website has equipped me invaluable blogging skills.
http://bit.ly/1fSVWaG http://bit.ly/1iH3VY9 http://bit.ly/1mhu9bX http://bit.ly/1rSlImB
LBSblogGreta PoskutePublic Relationsstudent
1IoD opens its doors to
UCLan studentshttp://bit.ly/1hapaCd
3LBS partnership with
CILThttp://bit.ly/1mWyqP3
2Career wheels turn for
Zoehttp://bit.ly/1lugiMF
Designingfor public relations
As part of the final year project and PR in practice module, four girls and I have teamed up with People’s History Museum based in Manchester to deliver a student focused campaign which aimed to boost the museums awareness.
As Design Manager it was my responsibility to develop print materials for the campaign. I put together a flyer and a pull-up banner which were both tested with a focus group before they went to print.
PHM campaignDesigning the look of leaflets and pull-up banner
BriefingLancashire Business School internal newsletterDuring my final year at the University I kept on working part-time for the Business School and carried on putting together the internal staff newsletter.
Since the year out in the industry, I have significantly enhanced both my internal communication practical skills and theoretical knowledge. In semester one of the final year, I undertook internal communication module which equipped me with insights into different channels available to boost employee engagement and how to get the majority of employees on board with undergoing
organisational change. The module also provided invaluable information about best techniques for internal communication campaigns.
A large proportion of the gained knowledge I put into designing the fifth edition of the staff newsletter. It included more relevant information about what’s going on at the School in terms of past and upcoming events.
I also highlighted both staff and student successes across different areas of the School including links for further information and images to accompany the stories to make the newsletter more engaging.
It received a positive feedback from a lecturer in internal communication which is a great personal achievement.
These tasks presented me with the opportunity to learn more about a supplier-PR agency-client communication in order to get everything approved and ready in time for the campaign. Now I am more aware how long it takes to get print materials designed, ordered, approved and printed. In the future this will allow me to plan similar tasks more efficiently.
Designing these promotional matterials also made me realise the need to know relevant software programmes and encouraged me to start learning how to use Adobe Photoshop, picture editing software, and Adobe InDesign which is used by the majority of the designers to develop magazines and company brochures. This portfolio is also designed using Adobe InDesign.
Rebranding Facebook pagesTigerfish PR and LBS Facebook pages get clean, simple facelifts
During my internship with Tigerfish PR I took the initiative to rebrand its Facebook page.
From the conversations with my manager who flagged up the issue that some of the clients are not fully aware of all Tigerfish PR services, I got an idea for the cover photo. The bubbles included all services of the company and the text on the bottom of the photo
reinforced the message that Tigerfish PR is a full package PR consultancy.
The logo was also redesigned to provide a synchronised look between the profile picture and the cover photo. App images were also redesigned in orange. See the page live: www.facebook.com/TigerfishPR
For Lancashire Business School I had to liaise with graphic designers to get the cover photo designed. However, it was responsibility to draw an example of how I want the page cover photo to look like and find the photo that designer should use.
Since I did not know how to use Adobe Photoshop back then, I used an online photo
editing website called Photoflexi to rustle up design for Lancashire Business School Facebook page.
Following the final look of the cover image I designed App pictures by myself.
See the page live: www.facebook.com/uclan.lbs
posterdesign to support promotion of events
websitedesign to make it dynamic and engaging
newsletterdesign to enhance the look of publications
Skills
Adobe InDesign
Joomla CMS
Adobe Photoshop
Wordpress
http://on.fb.me/1kxvyHo
http://bit.ly/1u9p2f2
http://bit.ly/1jlxOln
http://bit.ly/1o6SmPf
Apart from developing newsletters and
Facebook cover photos for businesses,
I have designing experience in putting
together promotional posters and
building up websites using Joomla, a
content management system (CMS)
software.
These additional skills have helped me
a lot in the past and because of them I
managed not only to get the job done
faster, but also saved some money on
hiring a graphic designer.
I have designed a website for one of
Lancashire Business School research
projects using Joomla, which is also
used by well-know company such as
Ebay. This additional skill will definitely
come in handy in the future, as nearly
every company has a website but not all
of them afford to get an IT professional
to maintain it. Therefore, I can offer to
create a dynamic and model website for
an organisation and save their budget.
Also designing LBS blog with Wordpress
allowed me to fully understand how the
blogging website works.
EVENTS
professionalevents
including CIPR, CIM, CMI,company visits,overseas visit to
Hong Kong
30+various events
attended during four years at the
University.
1Professional events. Throughout
the course I regularly attended campus events organised by professional bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and the Chartered Management Institute (CIM) which helped me to get a first-hand PR knowledge from practicing professionals. In addition, I also helped to organise and manage a few of these events.
2Guest lectures. As part of Public
Relations course I often attended guest lectures delivered by experts in a wide range of industries (Liberty, Soap Media, University of Ljubljana, Co-operative, IGT and more).
Guest lecturers provided me with many employability tips and enhanced my knowledge about different aspects of PR.
3Company visits. During my placement
year I had an opportunity to visit Lancashire County Cricket Club (LCCC) and Manchester United. The talk with Media Manager at LCCC broadened my awareness of sports PR and what the industry entails. The audience with Communications Director at Manchester United Phil Townsend was a real eye-opener to what challenges big sport organisations are faced with.
4Overseas visit. I was presented with an
opportunity to go to Hong Kong with Lancashire Business School LaunchPad programme. My responsibility was to take photos during workshops with local recruitment experts and during the visit to Bloomberg’s Hong Kong office. After coming back to the UK I was writing a series of blog posts that were later turned into a newsletter.
Skill 1
Continuous personal development. The regular attendance of professional
events justifies that I am committed to lifelong
learning.
From my attended guest lecturers I have gained
many good and practical tips on how to practice PR and how to communicate
with journalists.
Organisational visits provided me the
opportunities to see different organisational
cultures to find out where I’d like to work.
Visit to HK was a life-changing experience
that allowed to unearth working culture in HK and find out how world’s fastest growing news organisation
is operating.
Skill 2 Skill 3 Skill 4
Public relationsresearch
My undergraduate dissertation was looking through
the lenses of Dialogic Theory of Public Relations to find
out how universities in the North West are facilitating
dialogue on their Twitter and Facebook pages.
Its findings have revealed the majority of universities
are not utilising social media channels to their
fullest in order to establish conversations with their
stakeholders.
Findings also reveal that universities are mainly using
Facebook and Twitter to generate return visits via
sharing images, links and videos.
I had a few opportunities to conduct different types
of research for my course, Lancashire Business
School, Freshfield and Tigerfish PR.
During my voluntary experience with Freshfield I had
to evaluate their social media activities for different
clients including updating measurement sheets and
evaluating data from Google Analytics.
For Tigerfish PR I had to research relevant media
outlets for a number of clients. I also had the respon-
sibility to put together features lists using PR Max.
Once I was helping Tigerfish PR Director to help
prepare the pitch for a potential client. My respon-
sibility was to get more insight into the potential
client’s competitors, so I had to call a number of ar-
chitects and ask questions about installing wooden
staircases and to see if they would recommend me
the potential client or one its competitors. This task
present me with opportunity to learn about a differ-
ent approach of obtaining the information whether
companies related to your products are aware of
your brand or not.
For my course I also often had to conduct research
related to various assignments that some of them
included radio interviews about RBS, PHM’s student
campaign and Concordia crisis management.
1Research based tasks equipped me with
eye-for detail skill and enhanced my creativity
2Broadened my aware-ness of research
methods for PR practice.3Taught me how to
conduct surveys for organisations and how to interpret gathered data.
4Allowed me to learn how to put together a
press release from gath-ered survey data.
Dialogue facilitation on social media channelsUndergraduate dissertation
Desk researchpreparing a pitch for potential client
Managementexperience
During four years at the University I had a number
of opportunities to put my management skills into
practice.
One of those examples were working in a group of
five to create a press conference about Powerade’s
new product for Olympic Games 2012.
Because the overall assignment consisted of many
little pieces of work, I took the responsibility as a
team leader to manage the group to and to
make sure that everything is written
and ready in time. I had to manage
group members to get the
presentation, press pack and
the essay ready on time. It
was also my responsibility
to distribute the work fairly
and equally to all group
members.
My management style
proved to be working and all
written and non-written pieces
of the assignment had been
submitted on time.
Futhermore, the presenation received a grade of
68% which was an achievement to each and one of
us.
While working for Lancashire Business School
I had the opportunity to organise and manage
the School’s event aimed for third year students
interested in finding more about postgraduate
courses at UCLan.
For the event entitled ‘Postgraduate Advice
Afternoon’ it was my responsibility to order
refreshments, pick the best venue and prepare
relevant promotional materials.
Before the event I had to get together
all current postgraduate students,
who came so share their
experience with the third
years, and brief them what
key areas they should
mention when talking to
undergraduates.
On the day I had to direct
catering people to relevant
room and inform them where
I would like the refreshments to
be placed.
It was also my responsibility on the day
to set up the room, place all marketing materials
and take plenty of pictures what were later used
for social media sites and follow-up stories.
Follow-upWould like to have a further chat with me about my experience?
Please get in touch.
Tel: 0792 7912 499
E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @gretaposkute
LinkedIn: Greta Poskute
Contact details:
Gretaposkutedesign