Clever Recruitment's Blog

“Public relations is all about reputation. It’s the result of what you do, what you say, and what others say about you. It is used to gain trust and understanding between an organisation and its various publics – whether that’s employees, customers, investors, the local community – or all of those stakeholder groups.”

From PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association) website http://www.prca.org.uk/Whatispr

A PR agency works on behalf of several clients to enhance their perception and profile.

The job titles in a PR agency are below although not all of them will have all of these positions.

• Junior PR Account Executive
• Account Executive
• Senior Account Executive
• Junior Account Manager
• Account Manager
• Senior Account Manager
• Junior Account Director
• Account Director
• Senior Account Director
• Associate Director
• Managing Director

The role of the Junior Account Executive or Account Executive is -

Purpose of role

• Generating business and press coverage for the agency’s clients.
• Writing news stories and press releases
• Liaising with Clients
• Liaising with Jounalists to place stories and case studies for your clients
• Monitoring press coverage for your clients

Responsibilities will include

• Monitoring relevant press and publications to get an idea of trends/ hot topics and identifying articles / subjects that your clients can comment on.

• Ringing journalists to place stories / comments and topics on behalf of your clients

• Building a contact list of journalists and creating excellent working relationships with them

You will work up in this role to more of a client-facing position where you will be responsible for presenting to clients.  This will include reporting on press coverage achieved, publications contacted etc.

For any further information about starting a career in PR – please call one of our consultants on 01483 826660 or see our website at www.cleverrecruitment.co.uk.

Guildford Twestival – The Aftermath

After much anticipation, the wait was finally over and on Thursday the 24th of March, the first Guildford Twestival took place and was a huge success! Ninety Twestivalites attended enjoying the Champagne, cakes and canapés at the stylish Wild Garlic Restaurant and Bar, raising over an astonishing £3,700 for CHASE hospice.

The evening was organised by Craig & Sarah Cooper, owners of Guildford-based recruitment consultancy, Clever Recruitment. Delighted with the total, Sarah commented;

“When we first signed up to organise Guildford Twestival we hoped to raise £2,000. To exceed that initial target, to almost double it, feels incredible and is a testament to the generosity and support of all those involved the event – from friends and family to clients and candidates to local people and businesses who just wanted to contribute however they could. We’d like to make a special mention to our friend, Jennifer Masters, who helped with the organisation we couldn’t have coped without her!”

The Twestivities!

After a chance to mingle and enjoy a glass of champagne, courtesy of Chris Connor, the owner of Wild Garlic, the evening started with Lissa Martin, an ambassador for CHASE, giving an insightful and personal account of all the brilliant work that CHASE’s local Hospice, Christopher’s, does for life limited children and their families in the Guildford area. The very talented Penny Nicholls and Rob Webster provided fantastic live music throughout the evening and Ian Gray amazed the crowd with his close magic tricks, – how he managed to get a £10 note from inside a kiwi is still beyond us!

The long-awaited luxury raffle was a roaring success with 38 luck winners choosing fabulous prizes from the cornucopia of donations kindly given from local Guildford businesses, raising a whopping £1,100!

However the highlight of the evening has to be last minute auction for the surprise donation of dinner for 6 at home, kindly donated by the Wild Garlic team. Bidding was tense between Stephen Frost and Phil Gee with Phil eventually winning with an incredibly generous bid of £260! Thank you, Phil!

Finally the silent auction closed the show with five fabulous lots donated by Kate Griffin Photography, Richer Sounds, Howdens Joinery Co, Sophocles Alexiou Photography and Custard Communications raising over £850! Co-organiser Craig added;

“The evening was a great success! CHASE is such a fantastic charity and we are delighted to be able to contribute to their cause. We had such amazing support not only on the night but in the build up to the event. The generosity of the people and businesses of Guildford never ceased to amaze us – so many wonderful raffle and auction prizes were donated and so many people were keen to help in the organisation or the smooth running of the evening. Both Sarah and I would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of them”

Special Thanks

There are so many people to thank for their help towards the night, notably Chris Connor and the team at Wild Garlic for the stylish venue and for providing champagne, canapés and goodie bags which contained, amongst other treats, the most delicious sausages I have tasted in a long time. A particular mention goes to Cath at Little Cake Factory for her contribution of delicious cup cakes, complete with the Guildford Twestival logo, and for her sweet tweet treats: cake pops - beautiful bird shaped treats on the outside with soft, rich chocolate cake on the inside!

And of course not forgetting our talented team of volunteers: Fiona Fitzpatrick, Martyn Stead, Thom Gibbons, Paul Bridgland, Ingrid Weel (for these fantastic photos), Jack Newman, Drew Harding, Adele Mitchell, Lynzi Ashworth, Claire Price, Sophie Grant and Luci Lyne.

You are all stars!

Until next time…

With Guildford Twestival now just over a week ago it’s back to what we do best so, until it’s Twestival time again, you can find us at Clever Recruitment. Don’t be a stranger…!

Sarah, Craig and Jennifer

Afternoon all

Only two days to go until the first Guildford Twestival and it’s all getting a bit hectic here at Clever HQ! We sold out of tickets yesterday but, due to further demand, we have added another 40 so please get them while you can.

We have some amazing raffle prizes – some so good we are taking them out of the raffle and putting them in a silent auction! We have drinks and canapes organised, a magician and now a live band!

It’s all in aid of CHASE children’s hospice so please buy a ticket if you can. If not, please click on the ‘Donate’ button on the homepage and give whatever you can afford. It will all make a difference!

Thank you to everyone who has bought a ticket so far and to all those who have donated prizes. It’s going to be a great night and we hope to raise plenty of cash for a great local cause.

See you on the night.

Craig & Sarah

You might have noticed us banging on about ‘Twestival’ recently, so we thought we’d better explain what it is!

What is Twestival?

Twestival, or Twitter Festival, uses social media for good by connecting communities offline on a single day  to highlight a great cause and have a fun event. Since 2009 volunteers have raised close to $1.2 million for 137 non-profit organisations. All local events are organised by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects over 200 international cities from Buenos Aires to Bangalore, Seattle to Seoul, Hong Kong to Honolulu and (thanks to Clever Recruitment) Guildford is now part of Twestival!!!

By putting our heads and resources together with local Guildford businesses, we have organised Guildford Twestival – this will be an evening of drinks, nibbles, networking and fun!

It will take place on Thursday the 24th March 2011 at Wild Garlic Restaurant & Bar, Guildford, between 7pm-10.30pm.

We will be raising money for a very worthy local charity CHASE Children’s Hospice.

CHASE hospice care for children provides nursing, practical and emotional support to families and children who are not expected to reach their 19th birthday across South West London, Surrey and Sussex. It costs around £4million to run CHASE for a year. With little statutory funding available CHASE relies on donations for 93% of income so every penny counts.

When asked about Guildford  Twestival, Sarah at Clever Recruitment said, “It seems crazy not to take the opportunity  of  Twestival  to create an evening where the local community and businesses can get together to present their organisation to the community in a really positive way and raise money for CHASE, whilst having fun!“

As part of the night there will be drinks, canapés,  entertainment and a  luxury raffle and auction with fabulous prizes donated from Guildford businesses.  They have  already been promised a signed Chelsea  football shirt and £200 of holiday vouchers but are still looking for more…

If you would like to help contribute to Guildford Twestival in any way whether by sponsorship, providing a service, donations for the raffle or general moral support, Craig and Sarah have arranged meeting for volunteers to be held at Rogues Wine Bar on Tuesday the 1st  March between 7-9pm.

Alternatively tickets for Guildford Twestival will be available to buy at www.guildford.twestival.com from Monday the 28th February.

Further updates  can be found on Facebook and, of course, Twitter @GfordTwestival

We hope to see you there!

Do you work in marketing, PR, advertising, sales or even run your own business – maybe you’re just setting foot into the marketing arena and looking to make new contacts?

The Surrey branch ‘meet with drinks’ is a networking event is for anyone living or working in Surrey who works directly or indirectly in marketing to meet others in the industry in an informal environment to share knowledge and meet new people.

The Clever recruitment team will be on hand to offer recruitment advice and CV workshops.

This free event begins at 19:00 and finishes at 23:00.

Address –

The Bar at Brewer’s Fayre, Parkway, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 1UP

http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/GUIPAR/guildford-central