Perhaps not so glamorous after all. For those of you wanting to know what you actually do all day as a PR exec, let me tell you of one of the many horrors we encounter... COMPANY REPORTS!
Depending on where their shares are listed, companies report on their financial status either 2 or 4 times a year. Unless you're listed in the US (if you've picked up an ft recently you might have heard of SOX, which seems to be the bane of everyone's lives at the moment), you report twice a year. However, America hates PR execs so has decided to do it 4 times.
Anyway, this basically involves several days of extreme busyness. The night before, a late night is usually had by all as the press release is finalised and set up to be sent out the next morning. Then comes the joyous 6.30 start the next day to make sure all goes smoothly.
Thankfully, I had the luxury of a lie-in and made it in at 7. Not being in charge can often be a very good thing. The day then involves getting to the analyst presentation (through London traffic), straining every muscle you own lugging huge boxes of paperwork around, then frantically scribbling down analyst questions (which you don't understand anyway), only to discover later that you seem to have rediscovered linear b.
The management then call the press and go off on an investor roadshow, but we return to the office (in pouring rain, still with the 7 ton boxes) to phone picture desks, try and place stories, and decipher our own scribbles. A few days later, we'll call round the analysts (scary suited people who know way too much about numbers) and ask them for their analysis of the company's results.
So, less swanning around than anticipated, more hard physical labour. And rain. Not entirely glamorous, I'm afraid, but an interesting chance to see the financial side of a company's workings, and begin to understand how it determines its strategy.
-Rowan
Comments