Success story:- from intern to full time employee

Hello, I’m Ellie and I’m a new PR & Social Media Account Executive at Flourish PR . New title, new job – but really this is my third time being part of the team.

Back in 2020 I wrote my first blog on my two very different internships ( read more about that here) but, now, here I am as a full-time member of the Flourish family and, honestly, it feels like I have never been away.

Before I tell you what I am doing now – in our busy new office in Marlow High Street – here’s a quick catch up on what I’ve been doing over the past two years. It’s a bit of a travelogue that takes in Durham, Paris and Barcelona.

Durham was where I was based at university completing my undergraduate degree in French and Spanish.

Part of the course required a year out from college perfecting my linguistic skills abroad with the locals. I could have chosen another cosy campus, but I wanted to gain a more real-world experience in the workplace.

First stop by Eurostar was to Paris and the chic and glossy offices of a top international law firm Simmons & Simmons LLP in the historic 1st arrondissement. By day I was preparing legal documents, receiving clients as front of house and directing them to their meetings, all dressed in the finest faux-Chanel suit Zara had to offer. Oh, and I also did the post.

What was great was how the associates involved me in their work, taking the time to explain the significance of the files I was preparing and how they pertained to the case.

By night, I embraced life as a Parisian enjoying the art, music and food of the city. To escape the oppressive summer heat, I even managed a trip down to the Riviera to discover it was, in fact, even hotter.

It was all going so well until Covid struck the French capital – I was laid low for 10 days - and the entire office was forced to shut down. With everyone working from home I had to return to the UK.

Plans for my second stint abroad become more complicated with further Covid lockdowns, travel bans, flight restrictions to Spain and, oh yes, new Brexit passport rules! Undaunted good old Eurostar got me back to Paris and before long I was in Barcelona.

Armed with all my excellent experience gained during my first two stints at Flourish, I was ready for my next job working for a Spanish public relations firm called IT Comunicación y Relaciones Públicas.

I learned so much there during my six month contract, but it was still quite a culture shock. The cultural shift between law firm and creative agency certainly took me a minute to digest as I was thrust into agency life and learned to find my voice- which if you know anything about the Catalans is essential if you want to be taken seriously. Deportment aside, following several months of speaking French, linguistic difficulties were also a challenge.

An example - while I speak Castellano (the language most people would refer to as ‘Spanish’), I spoke and understood very little of the regional Catalan that was used conversationally in the office. On more than one occasion meetings were begun in Catalan before a colleague would notice the panicked look of bewilderment on my face and switch languages.

However, once I got the hang of Spanish agency life and my level of Catalan upped from beginner to beginner +, I really started to enjoy life as a PR. Conversing with clients, drafting press releases and running an account of my own, taught me a huge amount and gave me the opportunity to immerse myself the European world of communications.

At the same time I fell in love with Barcelona, exploring Gaudi architecture, crème Catalans and the ups and down of Lionel Messi’s footballing exploits at Camp Nou. Truly a diverse place to live, with city, mountains and beach, what more could you want?

While I was having a fantastic time abroad, it was not until I got back to Durham for my final year that I realised exactly how much I had gained from my determination to have a fully immersive experience abroad.

Discovering how many of my university friends had suffered from enforced remote lectures on zoom and the shut-down of so much of university life made my European travels feel that much more valuable- not only in terms of what I had loved, but what I had learnt and overcome.

So, after a final year writing my dissertation and taking exams in Durham, I have graduated and am back where I began, brimming with new ideas and excited to start my next adventure at Flourish!