Month: May 2017

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You Landed an Internship Across the Country – Now What?

By Kate Miller

Congrats! You landed a summer internship. I don’t know about you, but my eyes were so firmly set on landing an internship that I felt like I hadn’t slept in months. When I finally landed the perfect internship, I was excited but nervous. What do I do now? What do I do when I get there? How do I plan?

With five weeks to go before I leave for Washington D.C., I need to figure out my clothing situation, housing, food and transportation while I am simultaneously studying for finals, scheduling fall classes and balancing extracurricular activities. I want to be the best intern, but how do I do that?

I decided to look into what other interns have done to navigate a cross-country internship experience. Here are five tips to plan for a summer internship adventure:

1. Budget 

Make sure you calculate the amount of money you are going to be making and how much housing costs. In D.C. housing takes a large chunk out of my paycheck. Make sure to account for taxes and budget for food, coffee and transportation as well. Wally is an excellent app to help plan and track your expenses and set savings goals. Budgeting is crucial so you can have some leftover money to explore a new city.

2. Work Hard

Now that you have landed the internship, show them why they chose you. You have learned various skills in school that will help you, but a lot of what you will be doing you will be learn on the job. Make sure to come in early and stay late, show them how much you want this internship and how great of an employee you would be. You never know who they know and how it will help you find a job when you graduate.

3. Soak it up

Your supervisors will have a wealth of knowledge to learn from, so take the opportunity to soak it up. You are in the “real world” and have the chance to test out your chosen field, see what you like and see what you don’t like. I am taking a journal with me to write down some of the fun things that happen so that when I am looking for a job next year I have something to reference to help me decide what type of place I want to work.

4. Be positive

Employers notice. Make sure you always take the tasks you are given with a smile on your face. Do every task with a positive attitude and always go the extra mile. This will make your experience a lot more fun, and it will make your relationship with your supervisors better.

5. Network

You have a full staff of people doing the job you want to do one day. Take the opportunity to network. Spend time getting to know the other interns because one day they could be working somewhere where you want to work or vice versa. Make a goal to take one person out to coffee per week and get to know them. Learn about their track and how they got to the company. Ask for feedback and learn from the advice they give you.

Remember, you are an intern and you are not expected to know everything. Be excited! This is going to be an amazing summer of learning and experiencing new things. They chose you for a reason. Congratulations, and good luck at your internship.

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How to Ace Informational Interviews

By Kate Miller

The purpose of an informational interview is to talk with a professional who is working for a company or in an industry that you are interested in working in. This interview takes place either in-person or virtually. It may seem daunting or weird, but I can tell you from my experience that informational interviews have been the most important thing I have done throughout my internship and job search.

Informational interviews have been valuable because they have required me to get all of my ducks in a row, find some courage, be as professional as possible and ask a stranger for career advice. While the wording of an introductory informational interview email request may differ from person to person, most professionals and students know the parameters. You are simply trying to learn about what the professional does for a living. I promise, informational interviews become easier once you get the first one over with.  

Reach Out

The first step to landing an informational interview is to reach out. As a student at the University of Oregon you have so many connections at your fingertips and alumni want to talk to you. So have courage, be professional and reach out. Be aware that professionals are busy so be considerate and grateful for their time and expertise. In my experience, professionals love sharing about their job and you being interested in what they do is exciting for them.

The first professional I reached out to was a woman at Edelman in New York. Edelman is a place I hope to work for one day and speaking with an alumnus about her experience helped me understand what it took to get there and provided me with a connection at Edelman when I was applying for their internship program. Networking has been most helpful while pursuing an internship and a strategy I will continue to use to one day find a job. In my opinion, PR is about three things: connecting, storytelling and strategy. The more connections you have the better.

Do Your Research

As a young professional, you need to show the person you are speaking with that you have done your research. You want to know what they have done in their career, how they got there and have some quality questions to ask. They are taking time that could be spent working to speak with you, so be prepared. The questions you ask should show that you are intentional and curious.

Send a Thank You Card

This is key. After the vast amount of knowledge, you have obtained from this professional, send a thank you card. It makes all the difference. It makes people happy to receive a handwritten thank you card and shows the professional that you appreciate the specific things you discussed with them and how much it has helped you.

Networking is essential and after your first informational interview, it will be way less scary. I personally love the insight and connections informational interviews provide me with professionals and I encourage you to take every opportunity that you can. It has led me to internship opportunities and has given me insight on where I would like to potentially work in the future.

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Why Brands Must Get Emotional

By Erica Freeze

“Branded content” is the term for when companies create their own content to attract interest and engage an audience and generate familiarity, in the effort to pull consumers towards the brand to convert them to customers. But promoting your brand to the masses in this way won’t satisfy them. When the same sorts of messages arise from similar brands and competitors, consumers catch on. This is where emotional appeal needs to come in to push your brand ahead of the competitors.

One campaign that took emotional appeal to the next level is Always’ “Like a Girl” campaign. This campaign was groundbreaking because it reached its predominantly female consumers through a completely different method. Feminine care products normally focus on selling women on more idealized versions of themselves. This campaign however, compares stereotypes about the athleticism of young girls. The advertisement shows the frustration and misconceptions behind the statement, “run like a girl” and channels it into a powerful message: women are capable and strong regardless of the stereotypes placed on them. This unique advertisement resonated with women across the globe and was a huge success. Adobe ranked “Like a Girl” the top digital campaign of the Super Bowl in 2015, based on an analysis of mentions on a variety of social networks and internet platforms.

Creating an emotional connection means targeting an underlying emotion that may not be immediately obvious. Generating an emotional response is as important as having the right message. A brand can evaluate the emotional response through social media monitoring. Social media monitoring can help a brand understand how audiences perceive their message. The way that people respond to social media posts can tell your brand what attitudes and ideals your audience holds.

According to Harvard Business Review, those who are ‘fully connected’ emotionally are 52% more valuable to brands than customers who are ‘highly satisfied.’ Connecting consumers through emotional appeal can increase their action towards the brand. Think about it, if you see a brand promoting something that you align with, something that you are passionate about, then that brand activates an emotional response from you and increases your loyalty towards that brand. Therefore, you will want to be connected to this brand, and purchase their products and take action to consume this brand. The customers who are impacted by a brand’s stories and messages ultimately become advocates, sharing the brand on social media or telling their friends about the great products the brand has to offer. This is exactly what the Always campaign did, and as stated before, it was hugely successful.

The best approach to this is to focus on the connection that you want. You want to be consistent and target a smaller demographic; a more specific niche than a wide range of customers. Conduct some research on this target audience, take some surveys, view their social media engagement, analyze the data you collect and then come up with the underlying motivators for their consuming habits. From this you can see which emotional triggers work best and which do not. You can utilize this data to make a campaign to perfectly target a specific audience and utilize this audience to promote your brand and increase brand loyalty.