J Barbour & Sons PR Student Placement
Blog 1- July 2021
July 12th 2021 I started my placement with J Barbour & Sons as their PR Student. My first week at Barbour started off with an introductory meeting with HR, learning all about the company, their heritage, values and the placement roles. After a tour of Barbour House with HR and another new placement student, I was shown where I would be working alongside the PR team.
During my first week, I received a handover from Maddie Hunter, the previous PR Student placement. In shadowing Maddie, I learnt how to do the job role as well as getting some advice going into the placement. She talked me through day-to-day life as the PR student and showed me the weekly tasks and jobs she was held accountable for. Having Maddie there to show me the ropes was really helpful however only having a week crossover between our placements, I felt was not long enough, as she didn’t have time to show me everything.
It felt really nerve-wracking going into my second week at the placement. Not only because I no longer had Maddie to help me, but also because Rachael Sundin on my PR team, who I will be mostly working with during my placement was off for that week. Because of this my second week felt very stressful as I spent a lot of the time not knowing what to do for certain tasks and not having anyone to help me, but I tried my best to use the handbook Rachael provided. I think I learnt from that week to have more confidence in myself and throw myself into each task at hand rather than getting stuck because of fear of doing wrong.
I felt relieved when Rachael was back in for the third week and was able to fully teach me the job role and I was able to get to know her properly. I spent a lot of my first couple of weeks also getting to know the others on the PR team which included my placement manager, Sue Newton and Anna Craig-Hutchinson.
Through attending online inductions with each department I also learnt who else I will be working closely with throughout the placement year and what their job roles are within the business. I had inductions with the Sales Department, HR, the Studio, and Trade and digital marketing, amongst others. I particularly enjoyed learning about the digital marketing team and the difference between their role and my PR team. I liked learning how they schedule and create their posts for Barbour on social media. It was interesting to learn that they post on 1 collection/ collab for no longer than 6 days and keep everything in a set of 3/6 on Instagram.
I also had an induction with Exposure, the PR agency that Barbour works closely with. It was interesting to learn how they fit into the business and what they work on as opposed to my team. I was told in the induction Exposure assists the Barbour PR team in proactive and reactive media outreach, trend alerts, product gifting, and helping host events, launches and press trips.
I attended an online induction with HR and the other Placement students within Barbour, so I got to virtually meet the other placement students starting at the same time as me, introduce myself and also understand their roles and responsibilities.
Overall my first month at Barbour felt very overwhelming and challenging yet I have slowly gotten to know different people in the business, especially through inductions. I am getting to know the weekly tasks I am responsible for and learning what to expect in the upcoming months.
