LIM College

This semester, I have been interning in the Public Relations department at Ann Taylor for my Senior Co-Op. Working full time, I hope to have a lot of hands-on projects and responsibilities as well as to develop greater insight into the public relations field more generally.

For the first couple of weeks, I was handed basic “normal intern” tasks, such as organizing the showroom, filing papers into folders and binders, and sample trafficking. Knowing my position in the workplace, such duties were expected, but I was eager to handle bigger projects.

Gradually, I was given such tasks. I learned how to track press (print/online/broadcast) credits through a program called Cision in addition to Ann Taylor’s particular way of creating a Press Report. At first, I was working on archiving past months’ press credits and reports. But I impressed my supervisors with how efficiently and quickly I could complete them, and was given the opportunity to handle the responsibility for creating them for the current months.

Recently, Ann Taylor announced Kate Hudson as the new face of the company. It was exciting getting to see such a big announcement ripple through the media and hear such strong feedback.

Another exciting event that occurred this month was our Summer 2012 Press Preview Presentation. Working alongside only one other PR intern, we assisted the department in the whole set up – shopping for candles/frames, dressing mannequins, steaming clothes, etc. The day of the event, I handled checking in editors/bloggers as well as escorting top editors from the lobby to the showroom. I enjoyed being so involved with the event and watching it happen from set up to break down. My supervisors also allowed me to take some photos for a post for my personal blog, Audrey Allure, and they were all quite happy to see such positive feedback from my followers.

-- Audrey Ong