Lucy Bingham has secured a prestigious role as Assistant Account Executive at Red Consultancy after graduating in 2014. She joins fellow 2010 alumni Jenny Scott (nee Elliott) but let Lucy tell  her own story….It wasn’t easy to get to where I am today, The Red Consultancy have a very thorough process to recruit graduates, but it was definitely worth it! It began with an application form starting with simple questions about why I wanted to work in PR and why I thought I would be good at the job, followed by the task of writing a press release; something that I found straight forward as I previously completed a year long placement at another PR agency in London.

Following this I was then invited to a graduate assessment day where I was given the task of preparing a presentation on how I would go about creating a new brand of crisps; something that I had never done before. The day also included group brainstorming sessions, a grammar test and a press release writing exercise. I wanted to work in the Life department and already knew this was the hardest department to get into, fighting off 600 people to even get to the assessment day so I was surprised when I was invited back for an individual interview. This was the easiest part of the process by far, it involved a chat  with two senior members of staff and was a relaxed interview with them looking through my portfolio and asking me about my experiences so far in the industry.

I’ve now been in the job 5 weeks and love every second of it, every minute of the day is manic and it takes serious time management skills to juggle every account. I work on 5 accounts to date; Neutrogena, Clean & Clear, Boots Health (where I’m currently working on two campaigns), Johnson & Johnson Beauty Awards and Acuvue. I love working on such high profile accounts and in a simple summary my week involves speaking to the media via phone and email, researching and organising media send outs, finding photographers/bakers/santas/you name it for events, writing weekly reports for clients, chatting to bloggers, organising breakfast briefings with journalists and running in and of meetings each day! This job is brilliant and I absolutely love how busy I am and you can’t beat the praise that everyone gives you when you secure those top pieces of coverage.

There are also lots of lovely perks to the job including a free office bar on Thursday and Fridays!! a personal hour per week and champagne and a lie-in on your birthday. I’m also on a great training scheme with all of the other Graduates at Red which will prepare us for our careers that we’re starting to carve, and of course it’s brilliant to have ready-made friends in the grads as we take full advantage of the free bar as we compare notes on each other’s weeks!