Internship

Being part of a community means taking pride in your contributions. That’s why we involve our interns and graduates in important projects from the start — so they can build connections with their teams through real work.

Internship expectations

1. Assist and contribute to the team!

Here are some day-to-day intern roles and their responsibilities:

Performing clerical duties: Creating PowerPoint presentations, drafting reports, designing creatives, researching trends and the like.
Managing social media and emails: You may be asked to handle the company’s social media accounts, write emails to customers, talk to clients on the phone, and similar duties. Your day may include designing social media posts, scheduling them and creating a general strategy for your posts.
Event handling: Interns are often asked to oversee the scheduling of important events. You may asked to help get everything prepared for an important. From securing the location to assisting the creation of a theme to sourcing your key speakers.
Research: Interns fresh from a university education have a great deal of up-to-date knowledge. Your organisation may put this knowledge to good use by placing you in a research role. You may be asked to look into a new project and give your recommendations on how best to execute it.

2. Learn and gain experience

You’ll be expected to learn as much as you possibly can while you work, regardless of the kind of internship you’ve signed up for. What kind of learning will you be doing? It can be broken down into two main areas:

Picking up hard skills: Hard skills are the technical skills you need to carry out your intern responsibilities, and eventually job duties, successfully. Examples include learning some technical skills to management skills to understanding data analytics.
Brushing up on your soft skills: Soft skills are as important as hard skills. Soft skills are all about your ability to relate to people and building mutually-beneficial relationships. Examples are emotional intelligence, motivation, people-skills, listening, and excellent communication. You need soft skills to manage clients, not to mention get along with your bosses and colleagues. Soft skills are key to navigating your work environment and can even contribute to job progression. Word of the wise, don’t underestimate them.

3. Job shadow

Job shadowing has become the norm recently. As the name suggests, the practice involves “shadowing” someone as they perform their daily duties, observing their activities, and learning what the role entails via indirect experience. This is an especially popular practice in hands-on fields like engineering and healthcare.

How does this work exactly? When you join the organisation, you may be assigned a mentor. The first few weeks, you may be tasked with following them around. They’ll show you the ropes while they work. You may be asked to assist with light tasks here and there. You’ll be encouraged to ask questions. Job shadowing is an excellent way to get a deeper understanding of what it will be like to work in your industry on a day-to-day basis.

Once you’ve shadowed for a while, you may be asked to help your mentor on projects or eventually take over some of their tasks.

4. Take on an increasing amount of responsibility

As time goes by, expect to shoulder an increasing amount of responsibility. Initially, they’ll gauge your current skill set and reliability with your initial workload. As you prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, you’ll be entrusted with more crucial tasks. The better you perform, the more the responsibilities you’ll be given.

This is an excellent opportunity to showcase your abilities to your employer. It can also help contribute to you receiving a full-time role afterwards. However, don’t feel like you need to shoulder more than you can handle. Employers prefer quality over quantity – don’t afraid to ask for help if you need it. Interns who can display that they can handle additional work and keep with tight deadlines will be more likely to impress the boss.