Emily Smith

COMM386
Spring 2014
Student Evaluation

My internship at Qorvis/MSLGROUP was a great, yet challenging, introduction to the
realm of agency public relations. At the beginning of my internship, I set forth specific goals and
objectives that I hoped to attain during my time at Qorvis. Those goals and objectives were as
follows:
Goal: Develop ability to pitch reporters and media.
o Objective: Observe my supervisor and an additional colleague making pitch
calls. Create a page of guidelines for my own calls.
o Objective: Make at least 15 calls of my own and have at least one person
accept my pitch.
Goal: Improve my professional writing, research and editing skills with guidance
from my supervisor and colleagues.
o Objective: Draft and publish at least 20 Qorvis/MSLGROUP tweets over the
course of the semester.
o Objective: Author at least three internal and external text deliverables over the
course of the semester.
Throughout my internship I basically measured my success through my supervisors and
other co-workers verbal feedback on my work, as well as the level of responsibility that was
delegated to me, as there was no formal evaluation process. I was, to an extent, able to meet my
goals for this internship. As far as the pitching goes, I was able to observe several pitch calls and
read my supervisors pitch emails. However, I was never given the opportunity to pitch reporters
myself because the timing of required pitches never matched up with my work schedule.
As far as improving my professional writing, research and editing skills, I feel that I
definitely met this goal. Although I was not able to tweet for Qorvis because its Twitter handle
was handed over to MSLGROUP corporate in New York, I did author several deliverables over
the course of the semester. I also learned a significant amount about researching for public
relations, including how to properly compile media lists and research journalists. This was one of
my key objectives for the semester and Im glad I was able to significantly improve my media
research experience and have several of my own media lists to show for it.
Qorvis/MSLGROUP in Washington, D.C., in an office building between the Farragut
North and Dupont Circle metro stations. The office is divided into two suites on two separate
floors, one of which is designated for the creative and digital teams and the other that is
dedicated to the traditional side of Qorvis public relations practice. I sat at a cubicle in an area
designated for interns, but there was only one other intern during my tenure at Qorvis. My
supervisor sat nearby in a cluster of cubicles that housed her and the other senior account
executives. I found myself going back and forth between my desk and hers quite often.
This internship was structured relatively loosely. Qorvis employees would send an intern
request to my supervisor, Carly, who would then delegate the responsibilities to either myself or
the other intern, depending on our availability that day. The level of work I was assigned tended
to vary. We were asked to do whatever the company needed, whether that was running errands,
binding documents, transcribing phone calls and hearings, assembling clip books, or compiling
media lists. During each shift I was also required to sit at the receptionists desk while she took
her lunch hour, and then from 5 5:30 when she left for the day. I often found myself staying
later than 5:30 to complete my work anyway Sometimes until 7 or 8.
My favorite part of each week was the Monday morning staff meetings. The entire
Qorvis/MSLGROUP staff would gather for a presentation and a review of what the company
was doing and what was coming up. This was a great way to stay up to date and to learn more
about Qorvis as well as public relations in general. The president/CEO, Michael Petruzzello,
would give a brief overview of what was going on within the company and then ask various
leadership and employees to fill in the blanks and explain it to everyone else. There were also
routinely presentations on networking, which was a great thing to sit in on as an aspiring public
relations professional.
I believe that I mostly performed well at this internship. I completed my work on
deadline, maintained a consistent amount of communication with my supervisor and with those
Qorvis employees for whom I was completing tasks, and asked a lot of questions. I would
definitely consider this internship very demanding. However, there was one significant
roadblock during this internship. I suffered a head injury a few years ago that still plagues me
with consistent confusional migraines. When I get these headaches (usually about three times per
month) I cant go into work or really do anything other than stay in bed and ride them out; my
ability to speak is compromised and I also get visual symptoms that are highly disorienting. My
supervisor was understanding of this at first, but I found that as the internship and my semester
got more stressful and I was experiencing more headaches, she got progressively less
understanding and more frustrated, even when I would offer to work from home and work extra
hours the same (or following) weeks, which was really all I could do at the time. This created a
lot of tension between my supervisor and myself, which compromised my internship experience.
There really wasnt a way to prevent these absences and latenesses, as I do take medication.
However, the medication can only address the migraine pain and not the confusional aspect of
them, which is where the problem lies when it comes to performance. The lesson to be learned
from this is that I should have been more clear with my supervisor about the severity of my
condition from the beginning instead of addressing the absences on a case-by-case basis.
Although there was no way to force my supervisor to be more understanding, it was my own
responsibility to communicate with her.
As far as other lessons I learned through this experience, there are numerous. For one, I
learned how important it is to maintain an open line of communication with those who I am
doing with for or with. The work I was assigned really did matter in the scheme of the public
relations practices at Qorvis, so it was key for my superiors to understand where I was on a
project and when it would be completed, or if I had any questions. Going off of that, I learned
not to be afraid to ask questions, and that its better to admit youre unsure about something than
to do it incorrectly or not as well as it could be done.
Finally, I learned how important it is to form relationships with co-workers and to
network. I met a lot of great people at Qorvis who I know will be a great help to me in the future,
but who also had tons of advice and experience to offer as I progressed through my internship. I
think that my internship at Qorvis has solidified my decision to work in a public relations
environment. I like working with tons of clients at once, and that no single day is the same. I was
definitely never bored at Qorvis, and I was consistently met with new challenges and
opportunities that I know I would not have had in a non-agency public relations setting.