I’ve Actually Made An Impact

As this week comes to a close, I am now halfway through my internship. Thinking back, the time has gone so fast and I feel as though I just began my time here this week. However, the more I think about it, I know so much more that I even realized I did earlier today. Informationally, I understand the companies mission and brand and use this everyday in my work. I know how to track different KPIs and which ones are more meaningful to certain departments. I know how to use the different softwares that we use such as Rezora and Design Vault. I can identify possible vendors for different services we are in search of, and further how to contact them to see if they would be an effective and beneficial company to work with. Emotionally, I don’t stress (as much) before presentations and phone conferences, and can speak better to the work that I have done. 

Earlier this week I presented what I have so far for my overarching project for the summer to the CMO of Sotheby’s. I began shaky, but as I went through it it became easier as I realized how much I actually knew and could speak about. I relayed the data I had been collecting for the past month regarding the new campaign we had launched the month before, including the consumer and affiliate engagement surrounding it. There was a distinct  moment I realized I had actually contributed something meaningful to the company as a whole during the presentation. In school, usually your professor knows everything on the topic you are presenting on, and wants to know how well you now understand it. This presentation it was completely different, where those that I was presenting to knew nothing about it, and genuinely wanted to know he facts on how their campaign was doing. They had never seen these numbers before, as most of the office hadn’t either, and asked questions that only I had the answer to. 

Because there are 9 of us interns in the office, we learn from the work each other is doing and has done both in our current positions and in past internships/coursework. We have weekly debriefs where we talk about different topics such as utilizing technology, learning departments, leveraging social media, etc. and help each other with problems we may be having on specific assignments. My favorite part of these meetings is hearing other peoples experiences and getting to share my own. So often we get stuck in our own ways and don’t think about doing it differently that hearing other peoples methods and strategies can make a big difference. One such strategy I use all the time when applying for jobs is looking for peoples backgrounds on LinkedIn before an interview to see what they had done in the past. One of the other interns was tasked with reaching out to clients and getting the opinions on different things. He mentioned how every conversation was very robotic and impersonal. I suggested see looked them up on LinkedIn previous to their phone call, and casually bring in something they could relate to. This will allow them to open up easier, and often will speak with you longer. Little tips like this go a long way, and being able to collaborate with other people in the office who are my age and are more or less going through the same things helps everyone out. 

One thought on “I’ve Actually Made An Impact

  • Sounds like it has been a really wonderful learning experience thus far and that indeed, you are making significant contributions. That is always rewarding. Also sounds like the interns with which you work have a really healthy relationship that they’ve developed, intentionally gathering to learn from one another, benefit from each others trials and tribulations, strategizing through problems together. Sometimes the intern environment can be really competitive and can inhibit the kind of collective learning that you are describing. Glad that is not the case.

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