Vertical: Marketing
Subvertical: General
Article Style: Smart Biz
Teaser head: Your Next Intern – Fireball or Dud?
Teaser Blurb: Agencies Share Ideas on Getting the Best From Interns
Title: How to Make Interns Work as Hard as Your Employees
Summary: Agencies across the county routinely accept requests from students to intern
with the firm. Here’s how several is getting the best work from these eager students.
Pullquote: “An intern can be picked up immediately by a firm if they show interest, take
initiative and bring in white chocolate.” -- Doug MacKenzie, senior VP of public relations, The Oxford Group, San Diego.
If it hasn’t already, your phone’s gonna ring sometime soon and a student will be on the other end. They’ll be inquiring about the potential for being an intern at your shop. Most agencies welcome this chance to help the student, themselves and the profession.
Agency execs say the bottom line for a rewarding intern experience for everybody begins with expectations. Good things seem to happen if you set goals clearly, and high.
Geoff Gorvin, public relations manager, Russell & Herder Advertising and Public Relations, St. Paul, “Our highest expectations for our interns is to give them a project and direction and that they'll use the resources available to them to complete it on time and do it well. There are a few public relations programs that they have full management responsibility for, and I expect them to execute those programs successfully.”
Adds Steve Burger, executive vice president - account service (and former intern), Fletcher, Martin, Ewing, Atlanta, says, “A positive, "can-do" attitude is first and foremost.” Other expectations important to Burger are a “willingness to learn the nuts and bolts of the business and assist wherever needed.” Relevant coursework is good as well he notes.
Deadlines, one of the things that fires up agencies everyday, are also a critical learning experience for the intern.
“The best experience I have had with an intern is when they realize at the beginning there are real deadlines, projects and strategies that constantly demand attention,” says Doug MacKenzie, senior vice president of public relations, The Oxford Group, San Diego.
He adds, “The most responsibility I once gave an intern was to schedule a media
tour and they worked wonders - the client had five interviews in two days.”
Steve Burger notes, “While an internship is part of the education process it's also a "real-life" experience. We assign our interns projects with deadlines and expect them to follow through. We treat them as an important part of our company, because they are.”
When you accept someone into your agency as an intern, there is another interested party to this agreement; the learning institution where the student is enrolled. One such entity is the advertising program at the University of Texas.
Jef Richards, J.D., Ph.D., advertising department chairman at UT, notes that high expectations can yield high results. He says, “I have had students make new business pitches to clients. I've had them handle actual media buys. I've had them design and build websites for clients. Frequently they prepare reports for clients, help in planning meetings, and work as researchers in collecting consumer information. Basically, there are times when our interns are given the same responsibility that a full-time employee with a year or two of experience might receive.”
As an additional expectation from the school’s perspective he adds, “I try to reinforce that this is a job, and that they need to act professionally because the intern represents our program.”
Finally, if you happen to be an intern yourself, two agency execs share ideas that could get you hired for a full time position. Patti Neumann, director of business development, Cornerstone Marketing Communications, Baltimore, says, “Be responsive, ask questions, go the extra mile, be articulate, energetic and be in the right place at the right time.”
Good fortune might play a part in getting hired there, but at least at one other firm, so might ingenuity. Doug MacKenzie notes, “An intern can be picked up immediately by a firm if they show interest, take initiative….and bring in white chocolate.”
URLs for companies mentioned:
The Oxford Group, San Diego, www.theoxfordgroup.com
Fletcher, Martin, Ewing, Atlanta www.fmeonline.com
Russell Herder Advertising/Public Relations, St. Paul, http://www.russellherder.com
Cornerstone Marketing Communications, Baltimore, http://www.cstoneadv.com/
University of Texas at Austin, http://advertising.utexas.edu