Impact Internship at Evolve Education
BA English Literature, 2021
MA International Relations, 2022
Tell us a bit about yourself and your internship.
Hi I’m Lauren and I’m studying a Master’s in International Relations at the University of Birmingham. I did English Literature here for my undergrad and I graduated from that in July (2021). So the internship scheme that I applied to was the Impact Internship Scheme and through that I got an internship with Evolve Education. Mine was slightly unusual in that there were some changes in the business over the month between when I applied and when I started working there. The role that I actually applied to wasn't really what I ended up doing, but I still did some really cool tasks. I made some video content for their online programs, I made a list of potential sponsors and ambassadors who I then created a media pack for and contacted. I got to have a meeting with Maya Jama's agent which is really cool. It was a really enjoyable experience, I had a lot of responsibility and I was quite independent but I still felt really supported and I even got to visit the office which was really fun after loads of remote working for months last year.
What were your reasons/motivations for applying to this internship or internship programme?
So I heard about this internship through an email from Careers Connect which I would really recommend being signed up to. There's loads of great opportunities on there and I actually applied for a few. I applied for the ones in marketing, sales, digital content, social media, things like that because I’ve done a little bit of that before and it's the industry that I think I’d like to go into. But that's not to say you shouldn't apply to things that you haven't tried before and give it a go. That's kind of partly the point of internships is to just get some experience and figure out what you like and what you don't like and for me this internship really cemented that I like market research and marketing. I really liked putting my ideas together in a PowerPoint and presenting kind of creative things like that and I really enjoyed reaching out to potential ambassadors and things as well and making that first step in communication. So for me I was really lucky because this internship did kind of cement in my head what I think I want to do in the future.
What did you gain from doing this internship?
So my top tips for this process would be to use the CV checker on Careers Connect and also look up how to write a cover letter. If you're applying for a few roles like I did, which I would recommend just because you get a bit more practice and it gives you a few more opportunities for success, make sure you change your cover letter a little bit for every role so it's specific to that role. When you're actually doing the work when you're in the internship I recommend reaching out to as many people as you can within the company and kind of just speaking to everyone, even if they're not directly related to what you're doing. It's just really good to kind of see what different people are doing you might discover an interest that you didn't know you had before. Also before you start the internship, I would do lots of research about the company so you know exactly what they're doing. Have a look on LinkedIn, have a look at kind of things they've done recently just so that when you've got there you have like a bit of background knowledge and you're not kind of spending your first few days thinking what on earth they actually doing, you kind of land on your feet a little bit.
Can you share some top tips to students/graduates who many want to apply to the Impact Internship Scheme or any work/internship?
So I would definitely say that I gained a lot from this internship and it's something I would definitely do again given the chance. For me specifically, it really helped me welcome my skills of independence because even though I had kind of like port of call and someone who I could check in with a lot of my work was really independent, especially since it was mainly remote. This also helped me improve my confidence, especially when it came to reaching out to potential brands and ambassadors and some of them were like quite big names and I didn't realise it really was kind of a question of if you don't ask you can't get, and that really built my confidence within the industry. I also learned how to do a project plan which I think is a really important skill and something that I’ll definitely use not even just in my working life, it's something I’m doing this year for my master's. I didn't do further work with Evolve but I know I could reach out to them in future and it's definitely given me examples of things to say in interviews, given me concrete examples of my skills to put on my CV and things like that so it was really valuable.