If you’re reading this, you should start your career planning if you haven’t already. Maybe you’re a university student and your timetable is filled with various group projects and job hunting workshops from your university career hub. Maybe you’ve just graduated or are about to graduate. Either way, you will be grateful for planning your career at this early stage.
If you haven’t considered an internship before or if your last internship was not perfect, I’d encourage you to consider one with Outcome.Life. Internships are made for you to learn from your experience. This is your chance to explore another avenue, go on an adventure, and learn more. No matter what stage you are at, I hope you will have a meaningful and valuable internship and learn from the experience like I have from mine.
Welcome To The Post-University And Post-Covid World
Welcome to this new world with no more case studies! You will no longer need to write a report for Virgin’s top management to analyse their last year’s financial report. Everything here is real. The social copy you write will be posted on social media and the brochure you design will be used for real. Isn’t that cool?
Welcome to this new world with no more printing paper copies and setting up your desk each morning. You won’t need to fetch coffees for everyone or clean up meeting rooms like interns in the movies do.
Covid has changed how we work. Everything is done online. I’m not surprised when my supervisor tells me that she has never met with a colleague in our team, even though they have worked together for months. As an intern, this remote environment means that you need to learn how to use and be familiar with workplace communication and document sharing software like Zoom, Slack, and Google Drive.
You will have to learn to adapt to a new way of working. You won’t have a colleague sitting next to you. No coworkers in the same office to share lunch with. But you can work at your own pace and share your office with your pets, as long as you get the job done!
Yes! Coffee Break!
If you are in the CBD or at a university, you will often see a group of people chatting together with cups of coffee in their hands. Yes, coffee breaks are part of Australian culture. People drink coffee together, chat and share interesting information. If you’re a new intern, your team may invite you to join so you can get to know each other.
Such social activities can enhance the understanding between colleagues, which is a very important part of networking.
Don’t worry: You will not miss out on such social activities just because it’s a remote internship!
Every week, my supervisor schedules me to have a one-on-one coffee catch up with one of our team members. It usually takes about 20 minutes and helps us get to know each other better. This is on top of attending our team meeting every morning. Everyone is friendly and willing to help. Thanks to meeting all these people everyday, I don’t feel like I’m working on my own and really I am not.
I’ve had one-on-one coffee meetings with team members who look like geniuses when presenting in meetings. Through conversations I have with them, I learn that they started as interns – just like me! Thanks to this insight, I feel more part of the team.
The experiences and advice colleagues share with you in these meetings are invaluable.
Take It As An Adventure
My internship is an adventure for me. It gives me the opportunity to figure out what kind of career I want to strive for. Being an intern is a great way to get exposure to a potential career without having to commit to it in the long run.
As an intern at Outcome.Life, I am responsible for marketing our MentorMatch program. My job includes planning the social media marketing calendar, writing social copy, conducting research, editing images, and even getting involved in team brainstorming and strategic meetings. Because of these tasks during my internship, I’ve realised that I see a career for myself in social media marketing. What I didn’t know before: I like the design side of marketing – and I’m actually not bad at it! I love the kind of job that allows me to be creative.
Take this as an adventure to explore yourself and what you want for your career. Maybe you’ll realise that it’s not quite what you’d like to do and that’s fine, too. You’ve been given the chance to explore another avenue, go on another adventure, and learn more.
Shan Jiang is a Social Media Marketing Intern at Outcome.Life where she helps create content to empower better employability outcomes for international students and provide host companies with diverse and passionate interns. An international student herself, Shan is a bilingual content creator.
If you have any questions...
The Outcome.Life team are always here to answer any questions or help with any problems you might encounter during your internship.
You can contact us between 9am – 5pm, Monday – Friday at:
Phone: 03 8899 7424
Email: hello@outcome.life
