Trainee Tales is a series of blog posts in which Silvia, PR & Content Marketing Trainee at ABCD Agency, talks about her journey, explaining what are the opportunities and challenges of a career in public relations and content marketing.
Towards the end of university, most students start asking themselves questions about their future, before officially entering the world of work. What career do I want to pursue? What kind of responsibilities do I want to have in my job? Would I prefer to work in a small or large company? Seasoned corporate or startup newcomer?
For me, my career at ABCD started while I was still at university, in a working student role. This helped guide me in my decision making later on. I knew that ABCD’s boutique size suited me, so I switched to a traineeship contract in PR and content marketing as my studies concluded. The increase in responsibility and tasks felt right to me. Right from the start, I began to create content, write texts, and develop my own ideas — with the support of the rest of the team.
What’s great about working in a boutique agency like ABCD is that even in a trainee or junior role, you get a wide range of responsibilities relatively quickly. This might not suit everyone, but for me, I appreciate having a chance to learn through doing. In my role as content marketing & PR trainee, I develop quick-win campaigns independently, write PRs for a range of clients, and pitch in three different languages. I also get to work on some of our biggest accounts — and our flexible working arrangement allows me to choose if I want to work at home or in the office.
At the core of this way of working is one of our company values — being unconventional, and truly believing in the importance of flat hierarchies. ABCD offers a great environment for team members to grow and develop professionally. The organisation of the agency has always been based on the principle of flat hierarchies. Whether you’re a working student, trainee, PR manager, or member of the management, your ideas are valid and are always taken into account. Less experienced members of the team are encouraged to grow and learn by trying out something new.
Knowing that you have competent people behind you, monitoring your work and giving you constructive feedback, makes the experience of learning through doing less daunting. At ABCD, we take special steps to ensure that we share our knowledge and expertise — for example, at internal workshops and discussions about best practices. We like helping each other and explaining the best ways to complete certain tasks. The agency has plenty of opportunities for learning and improvement through active engagement.
Indeed, at ABCD, there is a "culture of learning through doing": never see a mistake as just a mistake, but as a basis for improvement. For me, this is very important to remember — especially if you’re early on in your career and want to learn as much as possible at work.
I would like to finish with a quote from Albert Einstein: Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Indeed, that’s what I love about working at ABCD — trying new things, learning from successes and failures, and developing professionally.