When I first emailed HAVAS Just:: about internship opportunities, I wanted to use my love of communicating scientific research to do something creative with a real-world impact. Fast forward three months, and it’s time to tick off my final internship objective – a blog post reflecting on my placement.
What was it like?
HAVAS Just:: is a stimulating, fast-paced environment – housed at the vibrant HKX Village. There are no silos here; the matrix team structure supports a collaborative culture where knowledge and ideas are shared easily and rapidly across the agency. From the get go, my line manager told me to “be a sponge and absorb as much as you can”; she was amazing at pushing me to have a varied experience. Plus it was really fun, with no shortage of socials like darts, picnics and ‘Podcasts & Prosecco’ evenings.
What did I do?
My workload was varied and gave me a good grounding in the multi-faceted nature of healthcare communications, spanning therapy areas like neurology, rare diseases and HIV. A big part of my role was desk research for client work, which was brilliant and varied. I have never learned so much, from uncovering unmet patient needs and drug pricing strategies, to learning about the scientific details in R&D. I was also involved in a range of media monitoring and evaluation reports, as well as new business research using pharma intelligence tools like Datamonitor and Biomedtracker.
I joined the agency during a busy period of congress preparation, which meant that I hit the ground running, liaising with suppliers to ship packages abroad, source relevant materials and make lots of bookings, building relationships with people within and outside of HKX.
I got involved with a lot of internal and external comms, such as ‘newsflash’ emails and Havas Just:: social media posts. I spotted an opportunity to help promote the company’s A Just:: Cause pro bono project on combatting loneliness with a blog post about my own experiences talking to strangers, which I followed up with a broader internal article for everyone based at HKX during Loneliness Awareness Week. I also played a key role in the exciting revival of Havas Just::’s social media initiative #JustHealthNews, managing the daily health news tweets for six weeks, and helping to shape the process in collaboration with our Office Manager.
What did I learn?
As well as more formal HKX training sessions on topics like organisation and building better boundaries, my day-to-day work taught me:
- Process a lot, pick out relevant info, and adapt my writing style for the audience
- How to play the ‘game of Tetris’ that was my daily to-do list
- The devil is in the detail
- Don’t be shy to share ideas
- How to adapt to working remotely
- Building rapport and being collaborative
- Healthcare comms industry regulation can be complex
- There are lots of stages to new business planning
So, if what you’re after from your healthcare comms internship is to be a sponge, don’t hesitate to apply for a placement at Havas Just::