A day of intern work and job hunt initiative for recent graduate, Crystal Cansdale

My day

7.00am: My alarm goes off between 6.30am and 7.00am depending on how late I stayed up. I leave the house within 30 minutes, I like to get in the office early, sort the papers and usually eat a bowl of fruit at my desk. On the way to the station I check my emails, always paying close attention to the PR press and Guardian jobs. I load my personal Twitter feed for the latest news and check my PR agencies list to see if any news roles have been announced.

9.00am: On this particular day I’m meeting a colleague from my current internship at Waterloo. We are going to a Gorkana breakfast briefing with EasyLiving magazine. I attend as many industry related events as possible as I’m always trying to get my name out there and meet with people. I take lots of notes at the briefing, for my own knowledge, but also to report back to the office.

11.30am: We arrive back the office and I sort out the papers, make coffee and check my emails. I live by a “to-do” list and prioritise all my work effectively. Working as the office’s intern I could be given up to ten tasks a day from different people so it is important to keep on top of them. Today I have some scanning to do, some changes to make to a briefing note and letters to send out to press on behalf of a client.

12.50pm: We are going to a potential clients restaurant for lunch, so before we go I scan through the job pages and send myself links for later, never missing a beat. I also make note of some ideas for a post on my blog.

1.00pm to 3.00pm: We go to Covent Garden for lunch and then pop by the Chocolate Festival on Southbank for research. I’m lucky to be able to afford lunch out; this is the first internship paying more than £50 a week. While out I’m constantly picking people’s brains on what they think I could be doing to help get a job.

3.00pm: Back at the office, I start writing up the notes from the breakfast briefing early. Inbetween I issue a press release, set up the board room for a meeting and make sure everyone has a glass of wine at 5.00pm (it’s Friday!).

5.30pm: I leave the office and head to Kings Cross; I’m going to visit a friend in Nottingham for the weekend. On the train I end up talking to a past Emmerdale writer and previous PRO for ITV. He gives me some hints for getting into the industry and tells me about great PR agencies.

8.30pm: I arrive in Nottingham and spend the night talking with my aspiring journalist friend about things we should be doing to get into our desired industries and what we can do to get noticed. We talk blogs, personal websites and tips on staying motivated.

Midnight: Before I go to bed I do another scan for jobs, check my blog statistics and load Twitter, hopefully going to bed knowing I’ve done everything I can that day to help me get a job in PR.

Since writing this feature, Crystal Cansdale’s hard work has paid off and she is account executive at PR agency Octopus Communications as of 14 May 2012