In this blog post, Ankit, our first ever intern, shares his experience of working with us over the summer. Keep reading to find out his top tips on making a strong internship application.
Where are you based and what did you do before starting your summer internship?
I’m based in Surrey, a leafy county about 45 minutes south-east from London. Before starting my internship, I spent a few months in the United States, which I visited after graduating from university in 2021.
Why did you apply to Listen + Learn Research’s Marketing Internship? What did it involve?
I primarily applied because the internship seemed like a fantastic way to practice new skills. In the short time that I worked at L+LR, I took part in a range of projects, including:
- Industry monitoring
- Content creation
- Social media marketing
- Client research
- Setting up new outreach strategies
- Search engine optimization.
Learning to do these tasks necessarily involved becoming familiar with new digital platforms – something so important for budding marketers.
An internship highlight would have to be speaking with L’Oréal and M&C Saatchi’s Chief Marketing Officers at mentoring events recommended to me by my manager.
It was fantastic having a supervisor who was genuinely invested in my learning and development. Not all interns are so lucky!
What interested you about Listen + Learn Research’s work?
Listen + Learn Research have a cutting edge approach to understanding people, one that I’d never come across before applying.
Not only does L+LR focus on social media to understand what drives customers, the company does so with a deeply qualitative and human-centric methodology. This combines the best of tech with rich insights that you can only get from using people to understand people.
It’s been fascinating to see how many practical business insights can come from this approach.
And, as an ex-humanities student, I’ve also come to enjoy exploring the vast, changing and sometimes wonderfully weird social media landscape. I’m excited to see how digital culture will continue to change society.
Describe Listen + Learn Research in 3 words
Inventive, international, welcoming.
What was the most challenging thing about being an intern?
Everything was new.
Well, not everything. Before coming to L+LR, I’d done one short marketing internship and created content for a university prospectus.
But I’d never worked for a B2B marketing agency before, and even though I absolutely wasn’t expected to have prior industry experience, it took some time to understand how to create collateral that would interest L+LR’s audience.
Yet this was also a massive learning opportunity. I had to think hard about what material would matter to the marketers that form a large part of L+LR’s readership, and learnt much about the marketing industry through doing so.
I also had to get used to a new style of work. At university, I’d often spend a week on 1 long project, but my internship required me to hop between 3 or 4 short projects on a daily basis. You learn to organise and prioritise.
What advice do you have for future internship candidates?
I know that applying for internships can be a bit scary. I got anxious at times, and certainly worried about being so new to the industry.
But remember, a lot of making a good application lies in simple preparation.
Read the company’s advice on making an application here. My advice is pretty similar:
- CVs. Use words from the job description and don’t narrate, but instead link past experiences to the role you’re applying for. Consider using the CAR format to structure your bullet points.
- Writing exercises. Read through some past blogs and try to emulate L+LR’s writing style. This is one of my favourites. Here’s another great example.
- Interviews. These were informal and definitely friendly, so try to relax and be yourself. As well as maybe preparing a few answers using the STAR format, I’d recommend reading about a few of the company’s past projects. What interests you about them? How are they good examples of the company’s method? This will help you prove that you’re really enthusiastic about the internship.
If you do some of the above then you’ll have tried your best to secure a spot.
CVs, interviews and meetings don’t have to be in your comfort zone. But – as I’m starting to realise – learning can be.
So give it a go!
I think it’s absolutely worth it.
By Ankit Kapoor