Creative Marketing is a KY-education which contains 1/3 doing internship. The students seek internships within their own area of interest, background and experience. It can be at an ad agency or a marketing department. It is most important that the internship gives as much to the student as to the company so it is not only the students that have to be clear, prepared and concrete! For the students at AcadeMedia Masters it is also a possibility to create their own network and connect with a possible employer.

Jenny Chiem in class Creative Marketing 09 applied for internship at Good Old, a web agency in Malmö with tutor Ulrika Rudqvist. The interview went very well and Jenny will be spending 8 weeks with a fantastic schedule and plan for the whole period.  Ulrika also gave a lecture to the class of what Good Old do and how they work, completed with some tips and tricks for the students for the challenges ahead.  [ http://goodold.se/blog/attention/forelasning-pa-academedia ]

I had the opportunity to ask Ulrika some questions regarding internship and here is her response;

·         Have your company taken in interns before? If no why?

Yes, since I started in September 2008, we have had sex or seven interns, some of them for only a couple of weeks, and some of them for months. We are very positive to having interns that can help us, but we want people who are really into what we are doing, we don’t want interns that become secretaries, they should be able to do some real work.  

·         What are the decision making factors for saying yes to a student?

I think the most important things are that they have a genuine interest in digital medias, that they understand Good Old and what we are working for and that they are passionate and creative. 

·         You have a very concrete and well made plan and schedule for Jennys internship at Good Old, can you explain how that came about?

Jenny is very ambitious and we sat down and talked about what she wanted to learn and what I think is important to know when you work with digital marketing, and then we met half way. I work as a market strategist, and my goal is that after her eight weeks at Good Old, she’ll be able to do an easy digital market strategy for a company with her new knowledge. Every week we will have a theme, like ‘social medias’ or ‘public relations in digital marketing’. Jenny will both get lessons in the subjects and do some research, and of course try what she learnt with our customers so she’ll get some practical experience. I think that our plan is a bit harder than many other agencies, but as I said before, we don’t want secretaries. There’s no point with taking in a talented, smart student if you’re going to make them fetch coffee all day. 

·         Do you have any tips & tricks for students seeking internship today at an advertising agency?

I have 4 tips!

1. Be super concrete – tell the agency what you are interested of and why. You don’t have to love everything they do, pick something you really like. 

2. Show your interest in the agency. Tell them why you want to work at that agency. 

3. Sell yourself! Don’t be afraid to brag about yourself, as long as you can show yourself humble and tells them how much you can learn from them, it’s only good to tell them all about what you done and what you can. 

4. Personal interests tell you more about yourself than you think. If you come to me and tell me that you love social medias and want to work with it, I get a bit surprised if you don’t have a blog or tweet. 

Great advice from a fantastic tutor! This is why KY is so amazing, during the education be able to work besides people with experience and learn first hand.

Donna