A Day in the Life at a PR Agency

Earlier this month, Cookerly welcomed Georgia College & State University senior Julia Richardson as she spent the day shadowing our team. Julia is studying mass communication at Georgia College, and we asked her to write a guest post about her experience at the agency. We hope you’ll enjoy this inside look at a day in the life at a public relations agency. To learn more about Cookerly Public Relations and our opportunities for students, please visit our careers page.

As I begin my final semester in college, I am taking advantage of every opportunity I can to be prepared for the working world. One great opportunity I found through Georgia College is the Georgia Education Mentorship Program (GEM). Through this program, I was paired with Jane Stout, senior vice president at Cookerly Public Relations. I have really enjoyed getting to know her and learning about the field of public relations. Over Christmas break, I was fortunate enough to shadow at Cookerly and observe life in a top PR firm in Atlanta.

Going into the shadowing experience, I was prepared to meet employees at Cookerly and learn about the company, but I was not expecting to roll up my sleeves and have the opportunity to jump into an actual client project. I loved it! Carly Knowles, assistant account executive, provided background on an exciting launch campaign for Great Start Georgia, a program – sponsored by the Governor’s Office for Children and Families – that connects families to local parenting resources and health and developmental services for young children to ensure they will get a “great start” in life. Helping to pitch reporters with the Cookerly team was a lot of fun and a great learning experience for me!

In addition to learning about some of Cookerly’s clients, I was also able to shadow Chris Glazier, senior account executive, to get a feel for social media at an agency. I did not know how agencies maintained social media accounts for clients, and it was great to get a firsthand look at how the relationship works. Through talking with Chris, I learned the best strategies for maintaining social media accounts and the importance of keeping current with creative postings. This was helpful for me to learn in maintaining my personal social media accounts.

For this semester in my PR Campaigns class, I will be on a team with four other students. We will take on a client and create an entire campaign for them. I feel through my shadowing experience, I better understand what it means to work with a client and what they expect. I will have better insight about working with media contacts and working with social media accounts.

I think every college student should take advantage of any opportunity to shadow at a company. Not only do you meet people who can give you valuable advice about your field of interest, but the real-world knowledge you can take from the visit is invaluable.

I learned so much from my time at Cookerly, and I appreciate everyone who worked with me to make my visit such an enjoyable day!