How are you going to get in?
It’s intern time of year! I’ve recently been approached by a few students who are interested in gaining an internship in a marketing/pr agency.
Their enthusiasm is to be commended – it’s great to be approached by young people who realise that they have to knock on a few doors and not just sit around waiting for things to happen.
But, there are a lot of would be interns out there and only a handful of internships available each year – maybe a couple of hundred places accross the UK – so what should you do to stand a better chance of getting an internship? Here are a few tips (you will see the benefit of starting early in planning to get an internship) to get into a marketing agency – other agencies may be looking for slightly different things but most will be impressed if you can do some or all of the things on this list.
1. Make a list of target agencies.
- Do some research on these agencies.
- Read about their work and their clients. Google them and their clients.
- Subscribe to their blog(s).
- Follow agency people on twitter/facebook/linkedin.
2. Market yourself.
- Buy a domain (yourname.co.uk) and start a blog (hint do at least a couple of posts about why you are interested in marketing, campaigns that interest you maybe review a couple of marketing books).
- Think about your facebook profile – will it sell you to potential employers (hint this doesn’t mean you need to make it sterile).
- Buy or borrow a video camera and make an about me film – post it on YouTube and embed it on your blog.
- Open an account with mailchimp.com (a basic account is free), create a form and embed it in your blog. Configure the auto responder so when people sign up they get something – how about a digest of projects you are doing a college?
- Create a LinkedIn profile and add any holiday jobs, charity work and student organisations you’ve been involved in. Ask everyone you’ve worked with to recommend you on LinkedIn.
3. Educate yourself.
- Whatever degree you’re doing whether it is traditional i.e. English or History or more career focused such as marketing, pr or media you need to read around the subject.
- Subscribe to blogs – checkout the blogrolls of agency blogs – this will help keep you up to date with the industry.
- Subscribe to podcasts – go to itunes and search for marketing, pr and advertising podcasts.
- Read books that may not have made it onto your sylabus yet click here for a suggested reading list.
- Read magazines, you should be able to get Marketing, Marketing Week, Campaign and PR Week in your university library. I also recommend reading Wired and Fast Company.
4. Apply early.
- If you’re graduating in July and want to start an internship in September you need to start applying in March/April at the latest – it won’t hurt to make an initial approach as soon as you go back in October.
- Now that you’ve done all the above and hopefully been doing it for sometime you will be an attractive prospect as an intern or trainee. Apply to all the agencies you’ve been following – demonstrate that you’ve been following them, show interest in a client or project. If you’ve followed agency people on twitter at least some of them will have followed you back, why not start with a DM. Send an e-mail (make sure it is personalised- take time to write a specific e-mail to everyone you apply to). Don’t be shy – follow up with a call. Having trouble getting through? Put your portfolio on a USB stick, write a really good letter (think about what the agency wants from you) and send it by Fed Ex.
This sounds like a lot of work – and it is – but remember a good internship or that first job as a trainee in a good agency will have more impact on your early career than anything else so put the effort in now.
Photo credit: Irargerich
