Hello everyone,
I hope you still are enjoying your internships and that the last few weeks are not taking your breathe away. I must say these few last weeks have been the most stressful in my entire university period, and it does not seem to stop here! But the good thing is that after the 15th of November, - I am done! Yay for me, and for the rest of you that are graduating!
Today my blog won’t be too much about that tasks that I do daily during my internship, but rather about transferring what I have learnt to real life, and making the best out of it! It will be more about how to use the internship as much as it can possibly be worth, and I believe I have just done exactly that!
Recently, (in early September) I applied for a job (the one and only job I have applied for!) I saw announced on Twitter (!). The job was for a large and renowned travel company based where I am from (Norway) and the position was to be their marketing and PR person – a dream job for someone like me who LOVES travelling and wants to work within marketing/PR. - But the ad asked for marketing/pr education, marketing experience, social media experience, event experience, experience in developing campaigns etc etc…and by the first look of it, it was daunting! My first thought was that it would be an amazing job but I would never ever be good enough for it!
Then, after reading through it again I saw that most of the experience they wanted was things I was doing, or was going to be doing more of in my internship at the Foundation. I ended up thinking about it, and on the due date I submitted my resume and a cover letter clearly outlining the similarities of my work experience here and what they were looking for. And oh well, you probably already guessed it, but a month later they called and said they wanted me for an interview. They said that to be honest – they had started on their stack of resumes for the second time after being through a lot of unsuccessful interviews. My resume was not their first pick, but they liked the thought of having a younger candidate, and my internship sounded very relevant!
Being here and them being there resulted in interviews through Skype, and after being grilled through two one-hour sessions and an extensive reference check – I suddenly had the job! I am so happy and this is a dream job I never thought I would have any chance of getting. They even fly me back for training in Norway in December and back here so I can have my Christmas Holidays here!
I guess what I wanted to say with this (except from a bit of need for announcement haha) is that I am almost 100 % sure I would not have gotten this job without my internship. Even though it is only one day a week and does not go into the deepest issues and challenges; it gives such an amazing opportunity to learn something about “everything”. Best of all – it gives you an honest chance to refer back to work experiences you have actually had in real life and not only at university when applying for a job.
My supervisor here also provided me with a great reference that I am sure helped a lot as well. Not only did it mean a lot to me that she wrote it when requested from the organisation, but all her warm words and descriptions certainly works as a motivator for me to nail these last weeks both at my internship, but also at university!
Because next out is real life!!
Nina
5 comments:
Awesome news Nina!!
Travel, Marketing and PR! I think it's every PR393 students dream job!! And a plus for you, it's in Norway!!
Doesn't get much better than this, and it seems like you're stoked about it and why wouldn't you be.
I'm glad to see that what we've learnt at uni and what you've done in your placement is compatible to what we will be doing after graduating and also good to see that your placement helped you get the job!
I'd also like to comment on what you said about you thinking you were not good enough for the job. I think many of us may look at a job ad and think "no way I'll get this, it's useless if I apply" but this is not the way to go about it.
If you see a job that interests you, apply for it, you never know. The worst that can happen is you won't get a phone call back. And what happened with you is the perfect example.
One last thing, THEY fly you to Norway and back to Perth!! That’s awesome!!
Well done Nina! Good luck with the new job!!
Issa :)
Congratulations Nina!
You have set a great example to the rest of us hopeful interns that anything is possible.
Job hunting is a daunting experience for us graduates especially when we lack the many years of specialised experience most companies look for.
It's true what Issa said, many of us do think that we're not good enough for a job especially the "job of our dreams" and we will never know if we are or not good enough if we don't go ahead and apply for it! You have been an example of beating the odds. Good work and thanks for sharing this!
I have the same thoughts about wanting to be great for a job. To be more than competent and to be given a chance and where else to start but by applying, applying, applying...
Good luck with your new career, Nina! Enjoy your hometown and have a safe journey.
Regards,
Cheryl
Congratulations Nina! I hope it is an amazing experience for you! :)
For those of us who are still yet to go through the job application and interview process- do you have any words of wisdom? Where there any particularly difficult or unexpected questions you got asked?
Congratulations again!
Vanessa :)
Thank you all of you for your very kind comments! I must admit I am very excited, and even though I have mixed feelings about leaving Perth after three years – I think it will be a great experience! I am glad to hear I am not the only one feeling “not good enough” for a job, I think it is very easy to feel that way without any work experience to actually relate to. I am pretty nervous about starting this job as in an interview you try to do everything to sell yourself – what if I don't live up to what I sold?? Oh well, time will only show :-)
Vanessa, I don't know if I have any words of wisdom, but I can try to tell you about my experience with the interview..:-) I must actually admit the questions were harder than I had expected. The first interview was alright, and they asked me those typical questions about me, my experiences, strengths, weaknesses etc. But she actually also got into asking me a bit about ideas in terms of campaigns and future strategies, and she gave me a few scenarios and asked me about trends in travelling and facts about countries I've travelled to! She asked what motivates me, what makes me angry, sad, happy... what annoys me... If I am a team worker, a perfectionist etc etc. I could go on forever because the interviews lasted one hour each!
The second interview they asked me to prepare a presentation about trends in the travelling industry and major changes in terms of what a backpacker is and means in five years from now on. I never actually got to show my presentation as our internet connection wouldn't allow the screen sharing thing on skype, so I ended up sending it to her instead and she had a read through later. During this interview they asked challenging questions. They asked me to critique their webpage, their facebook, their twitter and their newsletters. They asked me to mention the best campaigns I know about and then tell them what were the strengths and weaknesses. All these questions are kind of hard when you don't have any time to think about them! She even asked me to do a SWOT on the spot on their organisaiton... But I guess it was mostly about seeing how I thought about it and how I found my answers, not really about answering them correctly!
Oh this comment could almost pass as a entry in itself, that is how long it is haha. Good luck anyway with job hunting and everything :-)
Hi Nina,
Congratulations! That is awesome news and sounds just perfect for you! I can understand exactly what you must have been thinking when you felt that you were underqualified for the job! I've started to look at lots of job ads on seek as graduating is fast approaching and I find it daunting when I see the requirements - but you are 100% correct about the amazing opportunities our pr 393 placements have provided us! I feel so much more equipped for the real pr and marketing world after completing my internship at the Department of Education.
Thanks for the inspirational story and goodluck with the job!
Bec :)
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