latest news from the orchard

October 28, 2011

Where are they now? (part one…)

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:20 pm

Last week we heard from our current crop of account executives about working in PR, and of course, working at Orchard. We promised to bring you news of some Orchard apples that have moved on in their PR careers, having been lured away to other parts of the UK and indeed the world. Today we have guest blogs from Martyn and Emily, now forging PR careers in Nottingham and London respectively.

Orchard is still recruiting for an account executive, so if a career in PR sounds like the thing for you, please get in touch.

Martyn Gettings

In 2009 I left Guernsey for Nottingham in the Midlands. Thanks to my experience at Orchard I landed a job working for one of the largest agencies in the area with household names on its books. Gaining employment amid the worst recession in living memory was in no small part thanks to the skills I learned from my OPR mentors and the compulsory CIPR training I undertook whilst there.  As an AE in Nottingham I worked on campaigns for Pirelli, the National Apprenticeship Service and Kidney Research UK. I was involved with the new F1 sponsorship announcement and supported the Pirelli Calendar on its annual release.

In March 2011 I moved to Proactive PR – an international multimedia PR agency with clients all over the world. I am now an account manager with a portfolio of clients spanning the telecoms and satellite sectors. I also act as an interviewer for international trade-show television channels. In the last two months I have interviewed chiefs from Google, Microsoft, IBM, the UK government and even News International. On a day to day basis I connect with and advise top-level execs around the world from Canada to Japan and in September I am off to Amsterdam and Paris for two of the biggest telecoms and broadcasting exhibitions in the world.

The attention and guidance I received thanks to the ethos and the encouragement of the personnel at Orchard gave me the best possible grounding and a foundation for success. It is very appropriate to say that Orchard PR launched my career.

Emily Falla

Having embarked on a degree in Public Relations it wasn’t until I had stepped into Orchard Towers on my placement year that my learning truly began. Working with some of the most skilled practitioners in the Channel Islands, it was their dedication, hard work and encouragement, towards both clients and staff, that truly engendered a passion for what it is that we ‘PR people’ do. Orchard created opportunities for me to gain great experience, enabling me to work on communications programmes across all industry sectors, from accountancy to recruitment to health.

Three years on and I am now working in London for Lansons Communications, one of the top 25 PR Consultancies. As Lansons is integrated agency, I now support clients both offline and online, developing and implementing consumer campaigns for big brands as well as staying true to my financial services roots. Not dissimilar from Orchard, at the heart of Lansons is its people and while I hope my career continues to blossom in the Big Smoke, a little piece of me will always remain in the Orchard.

Stay tuned to the Orchard blog to hear from more of our ‘alumni’.

Posted by Chris.

October 21, 2011

Want to work in PR?

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:25 pm


You might have already heard – Orchard is hiring…

We have a vacancy for an account executive, often the first step onto the PR ladder for many people. It’s a position that comes with fantastic opportunities for learning and experiencing new things and developing skills and meeting very useful people. So, rather than writing out another job ad, we thought who better to tell you why you want to be a PR account executive at Orchard than our awesomely talented team themselves. So we asked them a few questions to see what they think.

What is the best thing about working in PR?

Chloe: Seeing coverage you have achieved for your clients. It sounds nerdy but you get a real buzz from opening a newspaper and seeing your story.

Cat:  No two days are ever the same because quite often you are reacting to stories reported by the media and participating in issues management. It is also a great chance to develop relationships with clients, journalists and photographers and sometimes you even get the chance to meet a celebrity!

What is your typical day like at Orchard?

Harry: I don’t know if there is a ‘typical’ day at Orchard PR. From media calls, where the local media all want to do interviews with our clients, to photo shoots where I need to get the perfect photo to go with the news release I just drafted, my working day varies so much. One day I’ll be in the office, liaising with journalists on the phone, drafting news releases and monitoring the media and the next I’ll be out at a client meeting, attending an event and networking with local business people.

Cat: It is important to stay on top of what is happening in the news so typically the first duty of the day is to search the morning’s stories online. Picking up the phone to our clients to find out what is happening at their end usually guides us to what we will be doing for the rest of the day.

What sort of clients do you work for and which ones do you enjoy the most?

Cat: A large proportion of Orchard’s clients are from Guernsey’s finance industry however we also work with a variety of companies from different sectors including retail, energy, regulation and even a notable night club. Each client has its own individual needs and as a consequence the work can be very different but extremely interesting and enjoyable.

Harry: A utilities company, a nightclub, a law firm and trust company are just some of the clients I work for and I enjoy dealing with all of them, because they are all so different. Some of the more enjoyable events have included meeting a famous DJ and the less enjoyable…having to wear a fluorescent jacket and helmet…but that’s PR!

Adie: I enjoy our community-based clients and the times when you can get involved with helping out on events and managing projects. I have particularly enjoyed working with designers and printers on the creative elements of campaigns but I am also gaining experience and learning a lot from working with our financial clients.

What skills have you developed working at Orchard?

Chloe: I have always loved writing, and that’s really important in this business, but I didn’t really know how to write news. Reading lots of news has really helped with that but I have also had a lot of practice in a short time.

Cat: Working for a number of different clients requires you to develop excellent organisational and time management skills. It is also essential that you have the confidence to talk to people because on a daily basis you will be communicating not only with clients but journalists from  Guernsey, Jersey and the UK trade titles.

What skills are you working hardest on at the moment?

Chloe:  I am trying to be more assertive and confident; I was very shy before I worked at Orchard but I can now talk to people on the phone without fear – massive step!

Adie: Honing my communication skills and focusing on my own time management.

Why should people want to be an account executive at Orchard?

Adie: If you are a keen writer, communicator and proactive problem solver, you will enjoy this job. There are so many aspects to your everyday work that you are constantly developing and building upon your existing skills and learning new ones.  Some would say you need to be a ‘people person’, but I think ‘an all-rounder’ would be a better description. You need to juggle a lot of clients, be on top of your workload, enjoy writing and always be happy to help. If you thrive when working with people and words, then you will go far in this industry.

Cat: The team at Orchard are really friendly and supportive and because each member of the team is so talented it is a fantastic opportunity to learn new things from them. Another factor which should appeal is the chance to undertake professional qualifications such as the Advanced Certificate and Diploma in PR which are supported by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

If you think you’d like to join the team at Orchard, head to our PR careers page to find out how to apply.

But if you’re still not convinced that you that you should be working in PR, we’ll be back next week with some another blog to hear from a few ‘Orchard Alumni’ and how Orchard helped launch their PR careers.

September 23, 2011

PR is full of surprises

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:16 pm

Today we have a guest blogger: Jacob Cherry, a student from Durham University, who has spent the last week at Orchard HQ on a work experience placement – we asked him to blog about his first experiences of life in PR…

My week at Orchard PR surprised me. I was expecting five days in an office, sat at a desk, staring at a computer screen. In fact, I spent comparatively little time at my desk because of the very hands-on approach to PR adopted by Orchard’s staff; they are constantly liaising with the media and orchestrating effective public relations opportunities for their clients. I have gotten through a record amount of petrol this week!

Even when conducting research for campaigns they go well beyond what I had expected. I was asked to research significant events for a campaign to promote a business that was founded in the seventies. This involved trawling through newspapers at the Priaulx Library, which actually proved to be very interesting – there were an incredible amount of natural disasters on the island and shocking gun-crime involving the farmers from the western parishes and their unlicensed shotguns.

I was kept busy at Orchard with tasks ranging from folding towels to meeting the Lieutenant Governor and my experiences have given me a much greater appreciation of what the PR industry is all about.

With such a varied portfolio of clients much is expected of the staff at Orchard. This allowed me to observe the application of PR to a number of  industries and not just the finance sector and really see the way different approaches are taken to each bit of PR activity. A one-size fits all approach is definitely not the way things are done at Orchard.

About halfway through my week I was pointed in the direction of Harry’s blog, written following her own internship with Orchard, as an example of the sort of thing that was expected of me. In it Harry (now a permanent employee) claimed to have learned a valuable lesson about the importance of flat shoes for Orchard media calls held on the beach. I began to understand what she meant as we both toured Guernsey Electricity during a media call. We scaled generators and machinery in various precarious locations, and needed to suit up in the hi-vis gear needed in a dangerous environment. Needless to say Harry had not heeded her own advice and was still wearing high heels, but it was good to see early on that PR would not just be about being in an office.

I have enjoyed my week at Orchard and have learned a great deal. I have seen behind the scenes at television interviews and attended meetings with BBC Radio. I have done some media monitoring, drafted a couple of news releases and helped out in brainstorming sessions for pitches and planning.

I will take away with me a sense of the importance of PR to all organisations and I feel that it is definitely something that I would like to gain more experience in. I will be looking out for more opportunities to work in this field as I work to complete my degree.

Posted by Jacob.

November 30, 2010

Back to School

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 9:09 am

After four long years away I went back to school last week but this time not as a student. I had been asked to speak to year 13 students at the Guernsey Grammar School & Sixth Form Centre so I could share pearls of wisdom about working in the local media industry.

In the days before giving the talk I had re-traced my journey over the last couple of years which included completing a degree in media studies at the University of Portsmouth, work experience placements at BBC Guernsey, Channel Television and student radio station Pure FM, and a stint working as a broadcast journalist at Island FM before landing a job at Orchard PR as an account executive earlier this year.

But, it was as I stood before the students in the lecture theatre that I suddenly remembered just how lost I had felt four years earlier sitting in exactly the same spot. At the time it seemed that getting a job in the media industry would be impossible, but I know now, from my own personal experience that it is not and that Guernsey has a thriving media industry, particularly PR, with plenty of opportunities for willing and enthusiastic candidates.

When I first tried to describe what PR is to the students a sea of confused faces stared straight back at me. That was hardly surprising considering that there are more than 400 different definitions out there and academics can’t even come to a firm conclusion. We began to get somewhere when I explained that PR for me is all about managing a clients’ reputation and this can only be done my developing great relationships with your clients and with both local and UK-based journalists.

Getting those relationships right makes PR the challenging and rewarding industry it is. Making that first telephone call or writing that first e-mail to a client or journalist can certainly be intimidating but with the guidance of a talented and supportive team behind you it certainly makes things easier.

Orchard is a good representation of the Channel Islands’ bustling PR sector. We are the largest agency, with nine client-facing members of the team servicing a wide variety of clients from all different sectors. It may sound like a cliché but every day is different and from the get go you are encouraged to get involved in helping with the day to day running of an account. A typical day may include attending photo shoots (so far I’ve had the pleasure to assist in shoots with Katherine Jenkins and Alastair Stewart), brainstorming campaign ideas, attending client meetings and writing news releases and articles.

As well as the well worn image of the PRO with phone permanently glued to ear, there is a more strategic side to our industry and I’m currently studying for the CIPR’s Advanced Certificate, something all of Orchard’s account executives do. Professional development is very important in any career, and my advice to the students was to always look for opportunities to keep learning. The course is giving me an insightful grounding in the academic theory behind the subject and I’m certain that this, added to the experience of a busy agency, will give me the right skills for a long and fulfilling career in PR.

Here’s my advice on how to land a job in the PR industry:

  • Work experience is KEY. Gaining work experience in any industry is vital as it not only gives you an insight into a particular sector but can help you rule in or rule out future jobs.
  • Keep an eye on what is going on in the industry at a local, national or international level. Being able to comment on a particular issue shows your future employer that you are engaged with the threats and opportunities the industry faces.
  • DON’T ever throw away a piece of good written work. In an industry where candidates are expected to be able to string a sentence together a good piece of written work shows any future employer what you can do.
  • Be confident and be yourself!

Giving the students an insight into the world of PR has hopefully helped them realise that with plenty of hard work and enthusiasm they can pursue a career packed with many opportunities.

I hope I managed to dispel a few myths along the way as well.

Posted by Catherine.

September 23, 2010

January 11, 2010

Want a career in PR or event management?

Filed under: Events, PR — Tags: , , , , , — orchardnews @ 1:45 pm

Then look no further.

Very exciting times at Orchard HQ – we have vacancies and are looking for bright minds to add to our PR and events team. So if you are a budding media guru, or if perhaps you want to get into the world of event management, then we want to hear from you.

We’re recruiting a PR Account Executive and an Event Manager. If that sounds like it should be you, have a look at our careers page, and get to work on your CV!

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