Mital Joshi
Employer: Rocket PR
Degree: Public relations and communications
University: Southampton Solent University
Starting out
I chose a PR degree accredited by the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) as I wanted to learn about the sector first-hand through industry professionals. I was particularly interested in business-to-business PR (rather than business-to-consumer) so I chose a course with business-related modules. I also did an internship with a technology PR company, which helped me decide that I wanted to work in this area.
Keeping up with the news
What I do each day largely depends on the news. I need to monitor it constantly, using newsfeeds and papers, looking out for stories that could affect our clients. If there’s a story in the news that relates to one of them I’ll alert them and put together comments to send to journalists. I’ll then need to make sure the comments are picked up by the media, so I’ll follow up e-mails with phone calls to journalists and highlight how the information is relevant to their readers. There’s a lot of writing, phoning and e-mailing involved in my job: I write press releases and reports, and tend to keep in touch with journalists and clients by e-mail and over the phone.
I’m also involved in business development. Soon after I started my job I was involved in pitching our services to a potential client: I helped our managing director compile a presentation to show the company what we could do and came up with ideas for articles that could feature the client. It was a real team effort and I’m pleased to say they decided to work with us!
Client contact
I go to events with clients regularly and this is an important part of my role. It’s essential to know not just about the client and what they do, but who their customers are and what they’re thinking. I’d recommend that if you’re going for an interview for a job in PR, you should find out about the company’s clients and look for stories relevant to them. Showing this kind of enthusiasm will really help.