University News Last updated 02 April 2009
Talented Public Relations students at Birmingham City University are being given the opportunity to work on real life projects after scooping awards in regional creative talent competition, B-Hive.
19 year old Jennifer Isles and 20 year old Scott Frankham have been awarded work placements at two top Birmingham PR agencies after being ‘highly commended' in the final of the competition.
The B-Hive initiative is the brainchild of specialist marketing recruitment consultancy Pitch Consultants with support from Marketing Birmingham and agencies from across the region.
The brief asked entrants to devise a six month PR plan, including a promotional stunt to publicise Marketing Birmingham's ‘Live and Learn' campaign that focuses on graduate retention and raises the profile of the city through its lifestyle offer.
Both Jennifer and Scott presented their ideas to a panel of seven representatives from regional PR agencies. Their presentations wowed the judging panel and as a result secured them both a day long bespoke training course with Graduate Advantage as well as a month-long work gaining valuable experience in real-life agencies. Jennifer will spend time at Golley Slater PR and Scott will work at Seal Communications.
Jennifer, a second year Media & Communications student, commented: "I'm delighted to win and have my work recognised in this way. I'm really looking forward to my work placement and getting a feel for the real world of public relations."
Scott, who is a second year student on the Public Relations and Management degree added: "The B-Hive project was a fantastic idea to get students to use their practical PR abilities to succeed in the acquiring a placement. I hope that from this win I will be able to promote myself as a more eligible candidate for a sandwich year placement."
Pete Wilby, Public Relations Degree Leader, was delighted with students' success. He said: "This was a fabulous opportunity for the students to respond quickly to a real-life PR task and design a campaign to encourage graduates to stay and work in Birmingham. I am pleased and proud of the efforts put in by all the students who rose to the challenge at very short notice. Projects and competitions of this nature are very much in keeping with our approach to work closely with industry and provide as many opportunities as possible for students to build up their skills and experience in a genuine professional environment."