We want a Sophie!

Last week we said cheerio to a young healthcare communications professional who spent three weeks at energi on an exchange from our GLOBALHealthPR UK affiliate Aurora Communications.

And as the expression goes, you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

This was our first time participating in an exchange and didn’t quite know what to expect. What would we actually do with someone we never interviewed. How could they be seamlessly integrated into the team and contribute to the work and culture of the agency?

While I had met Sophie twice at AGMs of the Global Health Care Public Relations Network, and spoke to her on regular partner calls, its quite something else to bring someone into the client work and new business that occupies our time.

With Sophie it was a cakewalk. After an on boarding she was off to the races, eager to learn about Canada’s healthcare system, the regulatory environment and generally how we do things on this side of the pond. The truth is, there is more that we have in common than what differentiates us. Which is another reason why we value our partnership in GHPR, the worlds largest network of independently owned agencies specializing in consumer and medical science communications. When healthcare communications people get together, we all just “get It”. Same issues, concerns, tactics, pressures and solutions. So back to Sophie.

Sophie has 4 1/2 years of healthcare comms experience and is a wiz at everything she took on: strategic thinking and plan development; research; presenting recommendations. Sophie asks the right questions, works quickly and efficiently with minimum direction and finds answers. When there was a need to burn the midnight oil, Sophie plowed through with the rest of us wearing a smile and with the skill and desire to help with ideas and make the deck memorable. Sophie is a team player; she’s confident and able to make thoughtful decisions without being asked. She chose energi in Canada for her exchange with a goal to build her knowledge and have a hand at more strategic work. We hope we met her expectations.

In our three weeks together, we discovered the perfect candidate for the job. But short of confiscating her passport and incurring the wrath of Aurora’s owners, not to mention breaching GHPR ethics, we knew the day would come when Sophie would return home. While all of us at energi are sad to say good-bye, she leaves us with a vivid picture of our next hire.

You are a rising star with at least 4 years of healthcare marketing communications; you are a social media native who figures things out quickly; you are creative by nature but you think logically and can back up your ideas with data and present them clearly. You are client driven and understand that customer service is part of delivering best in class work. You want to work in healthcare comms for a reason – you care deeply about improving patient lives. We gained so much through this experience along with a living description of the person, personality and position we want to fill at energi.

Are you a Sophie? If so, email me at carol.levine@energiPR.com