My first intern at Final Piece Consulting just scored a full time job at a great firm in the Triangle. I’m not going to lie, when she told me about landing the job I think I had my first ever “proud father” type moment. The purpose of hiring an intern to work with me was not to simply lighten the workload or to have someone around just to do busy work. I wanted someone hungry to learn and absorb information about social media that I could teach while refining my skills as a leader.
Based on what she sent me after the internship – not only was I smiling and proud – I felt like I had bettered the lives of two people, teacher and student.
As someone with a full-time job and out of college for two years, I’m sure I wasn’t the typical candidate who would apply for a part –time internship. However, after two years in a job where I felt creatively stifled and after months of receiving rejections from jobs I applied for, I found the posting for the Final Piece internship.
Although I had experience in journalism and public relations, I realized that I didn’t have extensive experience in social media. Through the interview process, I discovered that this particular understanding was something that many potential employers were looking for. Final Piece offered me this and more!
Right of the bat, one unique attribute I noticed with working with Matt was the flexibility with not only my schedule but also my workspace. Despite my full-time job, Matt was able to work with me on both meeting and assignment schedules. Furthermore, our meetings and discussions did not take place in stuffy conference rooms but rather in the comfort of the neighborhood bookstore.
From our first meeting, Matt was very open about wanting to educate me on what I was interested in; whether that be the ins and outs of Google Analytics or the vitality of search engine optimization. I was also given the opportunity to participate in projects relating to each of Final Piece’s diverse and exciting clients which enabled me to understand, not only WHO the target audience was but HOW to reach them. These projects included media outreach, handling and maintenance of social media accounts, social media reporting, and various writing projects. In fact, I now have a wide variety of writing samples (blogs, web copy, etc.) to provide to future employers.
One of the key things I took away from this internship, especially in regards to social media, was the importance of generating interesting content that is relevant to the intended audience. So many times, there is a tendency to post or tweet just for the sake of consistency without giving much thought to the quality of the posted content. This can, in turn, disengage those that you are trying to reach.
Wrapping up, everything I set out to accomplishment with this internship, I did. But it was only through the hands-on experience and guidance provided to me by Matt. Now, after adding my newfound social media and marketing experience to my resume, I’ve actually scored the job that I was looking for – talk about paying off! 🙂
