“Be passionate, be opinionated and always be a problem-solver“. So said our panel at last night’s filmed careers event and launch of WEXO TV, ‘How I Made it in Advertising‘. We were lucky enough to get an intimate and entertaining careers chat from five pros in the advertising world, jam-packed with practical advice and anecdotal lessons. The Tabernacle in Notting Hill hosted our evening in its beautiful and embellished theatre.

On the panel sat Julian Diment (Carphone Warehouse), Rebecca Robins (Interbrand), Nick Foster (T-Mobile), Tanya Hamilton-Smith (JWT) and Robin Garton (MBA). Collectively they’ve worked for and with the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Tesco, Orange, Andrex and Reuters. A pretty impressive but instantly likeable bunch, if we ever met one.

Our audience consisted of everyone from LSE undergraduates, Masters students and careers advisers for schoolchildren to keen WEXO members who’d travelled from as far as Cardiff! Needless to say the atmosphere in the Tabernacle was rather electric, with guests in the running to win a work’s week experience in advertising particularly excited. To begin, each of our speakers zipped us through their background, and how they found themselves on their current career paths. A few central themes arose, which anyone looking to delve into the advertising should consider noting. Pens at the ready:

1. Follow your instincts. When it comes to joining a team, go with people you instantly feel you can gel with. If you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, it’ll show in no time.
2. Relationships are key. Care about the people and brands you work for. Not in a sentimental sense, but in terms of genuinely wanting to push forward their agenda. Those relationships will form the core of your contact base in time.
3. Do your research. Know the brands or companies you aspire to work with, before you find yourself in that interview you worked so hard to nab. With LinkedIn, Facebook and Google at your disposal, any failure to read up will tend to reflect badly on your preparation.
4. Don’t be a slave to the numbers. When you’ve got an idea in a creative position, it’s vital to balance both your own gut feeling and the anticipated demand from market research. You’ll sell yourself short by only responding to one or the other.

After learning how each speaker ‘made it’ in advertising on their own paths we then enjoyed the Q&A session. While I tweeted furiously throughout, our audience came through with questions on the prevalence of social media, importance of corporate social responsibility and recommended academic paths to advertising jobs.

Some particular crackers included a question on whether the panel members would have handled the John Lewis ‘freezing dog’ Christmas ad differently and a personal question about why so few of the panel seemed to be on Twitter themselves! These two are in fact our winning questions for the event: in our promo we had advertised a week’s work experience and subscription (worth £800) to The Reel. We’re happy to announce that Debra Sherman and Lucy Hine are our two winners, and more details will be coming their way today. Well done!

As the Q&A went on, similar themes started to crop up while the panel used stories of their own experiences to illustrate their points. It was particularly interesting to hear about Garton’s adventurous approach to adverts when contrasted with Hamilton-Smith’s self-described ’safe’ angle. Knowing we were sat with one of the brains behind Orange Wednesdays (Diment) was also impressive and inspirational.

All in all, the gist seemed to be: use your skills, resources and creativity to push yourself towards the department you’d work best in. Although the advertising industry is so varied, finding oneself in the wrong area could be disastrous and personally unfulfilling.

WEXO Members can watch the entire event on WEXO TV here or break it down into clips of the Q&As.

Tshepo Mokoena

For a long time now, there has been a debate raging about unpaid internships and I wanted to take some time to clarify our position. This follows both our original blog on this subject (in the words of the original protagonist) ‘It’s my work, he’d say, and I do it for pay…’over a year ago on 1st December 2009 (in response to a BBC debate on Intern Abuse) and the proceeding comments in August last year (following our failure to bring together an Internship Alliance to try and lobby the new government to incentivise companies to operate paid internship schemes).

The song effectively remains the same:

“Today, more and more actual graduates are resorting to internships and in the brave new world, it is only right that if you are adding value to a company you should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW – approx £210 a week). Social mobility is key and unpaid internships discriminate against people who simply can’t afford to work for free. But in these dire economic times, with companies struggling to make ends meet, we must be careful not to scare companies away from opening their doors to young people all together. They need to be incentivised to understand their obligation to help the youth of today; not named and shamed because they can’t.”

Many will argue that not paying interns NMW is illegal. I suspect this is probably true but so is smoking cannabis and approximately 1 in 4 16-25 year olds have broken the law and tried it. What I am more interested in is the morality of not paying interns.

An article on Business Link’s website makes it very clear as to who is and who isn’t entitled to NMW. As it infers, my mother who volunteers for the local hospice (a charity although by law voluntary workers can work for any of charities, voluntary organisations, associated fund raising bodies or statutory bodies) is not entitled to minimum wage (and nor would she want it) because she is a volunteer – and so does not have any contract (written or verbal) to perform work or provide services. Anyone who falls outside of this is entitled to minimum wage. This probably includes most interns.

What about undergraduates? Along these lines, for anyone who is shadowing a company or learning from them as in work experience, then there is not the obligation to pay them because they are not providing a service or working under contract. On occasion, undergraduates are exempt from NMW (usually if their tutors agree that the internship is related to their course and they are not performing a service to the host company). During my time at university I did 3 internships over 3 summers and each of these paid me in excess of minimum wage (one even gave me a bonus at the end). I’d like to think this was because in each case I provided a service that added value in excess of the value I derived from the internship experience.

Legally, isn’t this a grey area? Yes, but what matters for me, as I have suggested above, is that if someone adds (monetary) net value to the entity they work for (or be it future value) then morally they should be rewarded for it irrespective – and this we see as the acid test. Along these lines we are very happy to see companies offer ‘work experience’ for up to 2 weeks – and we would encourage them to pay expenses during this time. Any longer than this though and the chances are that an individual will be adding value and so should be paid accordingly.

What about the BBC and Parliament? I am not exempting these institutions that are renowned for not paying their interns but arguably the interns are deriving more value from the experience and so do not pass the acid test. If though (as is often the case with smaller companies) there is a ‘job description’ or a list of responsibilities then the logical conclusion is that the intern is going to be adding value and should be paid accordingly!

I am no socialist – I view myself as a liberal conservative, a proponent on free market economics and people ‘getting on their bike’ (albeit with the safety net of a welfare state) – but I am tiring of companies (particularly in some distinct parts of the creative industries) telling me that they used to work for free and so their interns can too. I do not see why anyone should pay their interns (especially in this day and age with student debts as they are) anything less than I pay my cleaner.

What about start-ups? WEXO is a start-up and we pay our interns. I don’t feel comfortable asking people to help me build a company for free. I am encouraged to see a number of start-ups round London doing the same thing. I’m all in favour of getting young people in to experience start-up life and entrepreneurship but not if they’re a substitute for employees. If you can’t afford to pay your interns or grads, you should probably wait until you can, question your business model, or look at some other form of commensurate remuneration via say equity or (bizarrely in an equivalent move to what Barclays Capital is suggesting for bonuses) even bonds (in simple terms, IOUs). This might not stand up legally but it probably does ethically. If as a ‘Founder’ you choose not to pay yourself (as I myself have done on occasion) then to my mind, that is your prerogative but I suspect that in your own interest, you would be advised to make an IOU arrangement via directors loans instead of just foregoing payment. Not paying yourself does not justify not paying your workforce.

Should there be a limit to how long internships can last? Timing is one issue that we haven’t visited in past writings. In economic times like these though, internships have become a temporary employment vehicle for graduates and in line with other players in this field (including STEP whose BIS and LDA programmes we helped deliver last year. Programmes that include schemes to help incentivise companies to pay interns) we strongly suggest that internships should last no longer than 3 months. After this time, companies should either ‘step’ up to the plate and commit to a giving them a job or let them get on with finding one elsewhere. Otherwise young people will get stuck in an ‘internship trap’.

What about the new £2.50 an hour proposals from the CIPD? The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development have suggested interns should be paid £2.50 an hour which works out as roughly £400 a month (see BBC article earlier this month) As far as we are concerned, all this does is reduce the inequality. In all honesty, could you live on this?

So what? I voted Conservative, was impressed by Michael Gove when he spoke at an event I attended; and on the face of it, I can’t stand Ed Balls. I believe in cutting the deficit, to an extent; (we still have less debt as a country than Japan and Italy have had for much of the last decade as per interesting Fresh Minds article) I will hold my hand up and say that I back the hike in graduate fees. What I can’t condone is slashing investment in jobs (be in the Future Jobs Fund or private sector stimuli) and basic education (literacy in particular in this country is poor). We called, some time ago, for companies to be able to recoup the cost of hiring interns at National Minimum Wage from the recent VAT hike. This could help solve the conundrum addressed herein. Last week youth unemployment reached new record highs. And young people don’t fully understand the roles that ARE on offer hence our event on 8th February. We issued a press release for this last week but as I said in another release in June:

“Existing public sector initiatives have made no dent in this crisis; it is our opinion that if the situation is to improve, the government needs to start properly backing the private sector [not just relying on it]. The VAT hike will help UK Plc raise a much needed £13Bn but figures suggest the average return on hiring a graduate is 500% over 3 years so that’s one of the main places I’d be investing it.”

Robin Kennedy

“Read. See. Expand“: that’s how you’ll get somewhere in fashion. And no, these aren’t my own words (I’m no fashion career expert, and certainly not the kind of girl to quote herself. Yet). They come from Emily Zak, Vogue’s Retail Editor, during her address at the WEXO-sponsored LSE Fashion Society career event last night.

So in case you’re confused, this week’s blog is a bit of a departure from the norm. Last night our offices at WEXO Towers were inundated with well-dressed hordes of LSE fashionistas eager to learn from five guest speakers. Our stylish and incredibly experienced panel included: Chloe Lonsdale, founder of MiH Jeans; Kinvara Balfour, fashion writer and London Editor of Daily Candy.com; Austique’s co-founder Katie Canvin; and Ruby Dhillon, manager of Gucci fragrances at Procter & Gamble.

Needless to say, we found ourselves in the company of some pretty driven and well-connected women.

When I wasn’t furiously flooding the WEXO twitter account with event tweets, I drew on five different routes to success that our guests highlighted:

1. Experience is everything. Put in the work at internships and placements, and you will be rewarded.
2. An artistic and culturally-aware approach will get you far. If references to ‘A Love Story’, the history of French couture houses and the difference between raglan and dolman sleeves are lost on you, you need to read more. All the fine details are magnified when it comes to a feel for and knowledge of fashion.
3. Starting a fashion company needs a business-savvy approach. Now that sounds almost redundant and obvious, but meticulous planning can hardly be stressed enough.
4. An opportunity to get your foot in the door may spring up at any point. Always be prepared, and don’t forget about the importance of nearby, untapped contacts.
5. A strong work ethic and passion to succeed in any enterprise will be invaluable in fashion. If you’re resilient, this is the industry for you.

Wow. Fashion and the military seem to have more in common than autumn’s trends of olive-green parkas and utilitarian detailing, huh? Persistence is key to making it in fashion, so we thought we’d help point you in the right direction towards building up your style knowledge. Our panel suggest checking out blogs from the Coolhunter, Jak & Jil, Garance Doré, Nowness, Fifi Lapin and of course Vogue.com. In their view, blogs are a new and exciting platform for fashion, but still can’t quite match the reach and presence of good old-fashioned print magazines.

Got more questions of your own for our panel? We’ll be collating them here in the comments section, or on the wall our Facebook fan page. Here’s your chance to unleash any burning questions of the fashion sort. We’ll also be posting video footage from the night soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Overall if I learned anything last night it’s that hard work and a refusal to fail will be the perfect ingredients for anyone looking to break into the industry. On that note, forward march!

Tshepo Mokoena

Photos courtesy of Chu Ting Ng at TheQualified blog.

The place was the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, where I trained as a vocalist on a one-year diploma, having completed my BA in Development Studies at the University of Sussex in June 2009. The time came when I muscled my way onto a work experience mailing list within the school, normally reserved for students on the degree programme. An unpaid radio broadcast assistant position was posted at Tony Marks’ New Music Show on local station Brighton Juice FM and looked like an exciting combination of music editorial and hands-on experience with bands in the studio. I applied immediately, and had my interview booked by the end of the day. Time to brush up and start listening to the show, huh?

My first task was to research and write up a nine-question interview for new LA band, Girls, before I’d even met Tony. That night I heard my own words crackle over the radio and felt the kind of excitement that’s recently pushed me towards finding work opportunities in the music industry, and world of media in general. Fast forward a few days: I’d managed to get through the interview and was in the studio for my evening shift. Each week I was responsible for setting up the main sound-bites for the show’s highlighted tracks, as well as for preparing interviews with bands on nights when I wouldn’t come in. Alongside great research and editorial experience I was given free gig tickets where I could blag them with friendly Brighton bands, and learned how to think fast and find solutions under the time pressure of the ever-ticking clock in-studio.

Right place, right time and a great insight into the world of small-scale radio broadcasting: so sums up my time at Juice.

Tshepo Mokoena

A career is a lifetime investment. You wouldn’t go into a car dealership and buy the first car you were offered, nor would you accept a marriage proposal from a mediocre stranger, just because they’ve asked you. Choosing a career is no different – it’s a decision that’ll be with you for years to come, so take your time and choose carefully.

When I graduated with an MA from Edinburgh during the depths of the global recession, I had to forgo dreams of landing a grad-scheme job in a multinational corporation with years of stability ahead of me. At the same time, I couldn’t bear the thought of being a dogsbody in a dead-end job, working just to make ends meet. Instead I decided to ride out the recession, committing myself to a year of gaining experience and invariably working for free. I moved in with Grannie, ditched the gym membership, and signed up for jobseekers allowance knowing (hoping, praying) that in a years time I would have found the job of my dreams and it would all be worth it.

3 months into my graduate year, and one internship down, I came across the WEXO site, and more importantly came across an internship posting at LeapAnywhere.com. It was one of the only sites that listed jobs for skilled, savvy and interesting grads, with not a ‘sales clerk’ or ‘admin assistant’ role in site. Phew!

(This is now the section where i have to sum up my job and company; an incredibly hard task at the best of times, not least when I’m sitting at my desk, smiling at my boss, and already 100 words over the word limit.)

I rocked up to interview for the role of Charities Associate and felt immediately at home in an office-come-playroom, scattered with Macs, beanbags, park benches and laughter. In a somewhat overly friendly mood, I sat discussing philanthropy, politics and above all giggling with my interviewer for well over 2 hours. When asked if I had any questions I responded with “Do you like marmite?’ “Can you juggle” and “Would you rather have 6ft long arms or knees the size of footballs?”. I had a call the next morning offering me an intern role to start ASAP.

9 months later, I am the full time Head of Charities and Partnerships in an exciting, dynamic and familial internet start-up. I’m the happiest I could imagine, working in a company that begins the week with an ‘Inspiration Session’ and ends with week with ‘Beer-o-Clock’; combines my passions of charitable engagement with creative technological innovation, and offers me responsibilities well beyond my experience (but not beyond my aptitude). I have 400+ Charity partners on my books, and already feel like I’m making waves in an industry I’m professionally and emotionally committed to.

The moral of the story is this:

1. Be honest with yourself and your employer. (Offering my personality in interview paid dividends and meant that I was employed as a person not just a skill set).
2. Find something that makes you happy – don’t ‘settle’ for the first job you come across because you feel you have to.
3. Instead, get the experience you need.
4. Don’t rush your decision, you will find something that ticks all the boxes!

Click here for our YOUTUBE channel, and you can check out our WEXO Profile to view any current opportunities at LEAP ANYWHERE.

Felicity McLean

It strikes me the problem is it’s easy to be good value for money to a company when only being paid expenses – almost whatever positive contribution you make will be a help. But to become essential to everyday working life and worth good money, not to lose takes a different skill set than just being a good intern. I’ve done numerous internships whilst attempting to find a way into fashion journalism, and at times I’ve wondered whether I haven’t fallen into an ‘intern trap’ – forever a great intern, without ever being employed.

Sure I’d had great feedback, people were always sorry to see me go – but with the lack of budget allocated to editorial staff, no one was putting their money where their mouth was. Editorial positions are not advertised with ‘competitive salary’… just ‘salary’.

BUT, finally, I was offered my first paid editorial job – editorial assistant and fashion news writer for a well known website. It was temporary, but a huge validation, confirming months of hard work hadn’t been in vain. In taking my first step (which I was convinced I was overly ready for), despite all my work experience, I realised what a big one it actually was. With jobs so difficult to come by, everyone on the payroll has to pull more than their weight – especially newbies. Value for money will now mean more than an inquisitive nature and an exceptional cuppa. All the great ideas you had as an intern will now have to come more frequently, on demand and into fruition if you’re to meet steep expectations.

I say this not just to prepare you for the fact that dream jobs will be hard work even after you get them – I’m sure by the time you get there you’ll be willing to work hard enough to face those challenges. The experience has shone a bit of light for me on how I could have come across a more employable intern because as I now see it, giving an employer what they may want from an intern and what they need in an employee is often very different. Here are my tips on convincing employers you’re up to the job, not just the internship:

1. Take on responsibility wherever you can – think long term projects, e.g. redesigning any inefficient systems they use. Make their lives easier, but do it all yourself – don’t just have the idea, be prepared to see it through and manage the project from start to finish. Let them know when it’s done and how it makes life easier. If possible be the only one to know how the new system works!
2. When work loads are heavy, ask to do the low priority work of the paid staff – depending on your placement you might be doing this already, but use their state of panic as the opportunity to take on new tasks you haven’t yet been asked to do. This will have the effect of narrowing the psychological gap between them and you.
3. Write a list of everything great you’ve done since being in the placement (if you can, include one unfinished project) and have a list of ideas for the future. Request a meeting with whoever is responsible for your placement, present them with the list, your ideas for the future and say you would like to stay with the company and why. Explain why this would be cost effective for them (all the time you would save them, how much more work could be done overall, what impact this would have on the company etc). Most company budgets are strained at the moment – could they afford to take you on part time?

There are so many more ideas that could help with making the jump. If you think of one, post them below and help fellow impoverished graduates get employed. Or just tell other people your experiences – they really do help.

Ruth Gibbs

I became interested in this internship after hearing Paul Harrison, managing partner at Carve, talk at a WEXO ambassadors meeting earlier in the year. His impressive presentation described the effect social media is having in changing the way companies think and operate and made me keen to learn more about what Carve do.

After doing my own research on their website and reading some articles about social media on the Internet, I applied to become a summer ‘twintern’ at Carve. Following an interview with Paul Harrison and Adelaide Harrison, I was offered to join the team for a month.

My experience at Carve has completely surpassed my expectations. Not only were the Carve team extremely welcoming, they have also taught me a great deal. What I loved about the internship was that I was immediately given useful work to do, with real clients to engage with. For instance, even after the first week at Carve I was accompanying the team to meet clients, taking part in devising strategies and helping to write proposals and presentations. I found being able to have this level of input and responsibility was invaluable as work experience.

Looking back on the following few weeks of the internship, I am amazed at how many different projects I was able to work on. In one month I worked on projects for music companies, wine companies, charities, banks and online video companies. What was exciting was that each company required a different strategy and approach, which brought a great deal of variety to the experience and kept it very fast-paced.

My internship at Carve has been a hugely rewarding experience and one that will undoubtedly help me in the future.

This experience has emphasised to me the value of real work experience, which may have a direct benefit for gaining employment in a similar area or provide an invaluable insight into employment opportunities you may have been unaware of to help your career choice.

Sound familiar….. then carry on reading.

After much consideration I still wanted to gain more experience related to my course International Hospitality & Tourism Management. I decided a bold decision, that if I couldn’t secure a placement, I would try to undertake as many smaller work experience placements as possible.

I found WEXO on my Universities Intranet site and browsed a couple of blogs and reviews then eventually decided to sign up. I thought “£10” that doesn’t sound that much in comparison to what I had already spent on train fares and previous interviews all I had to do was save £10 on a night out and it wouldn’t affect the bank balance.

From the word submit, I gained a couple of responses from companies that actually wanted me and eventually I landed my first job with Ecommo, a website development company for holiday accommodation providers. I was allowed to work from home as their offices were in Dundee and I lived in Southampton (bit of a long commute!). I worked on a marketing strategy project to gain as many new sales for business as possible. I combined this with my current job working three days a week at the golf club.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I did have the odd problem to overcome for example, when I made telephone calls through my Mobile. This is something to look out for.

From there I applied to STA Travel and with a bit of luck I eventually landed a role as a Marketing Assistant. Although this was an expenses only placement, I became part of a strong marketing team and my role included coordinating metro adverts and communicating with the 44 branch managers nationwide. Whilst working for STA I gained a number of important skills as well as meeting many new contacts. Luckily for me as a consequence of my networking skills I secured an internship with one of their Social Media agencies 1000 Heads.

I didn’t stop there. I had a few months before my internship was due to start so I managed to secure a job at the golf club where I worked as a Promotions Executive. I combined my duties behind the bar with gaining as many new golf days and function bookings for the club as possible. This again was a unpaid placement. I eventually went and worked for 1000 Heads where I have to say I gained a variety of skills in the Social Media field. I found it very useful. Although my superiors didn’t take much interest in what I was doing due to there very busy schedules. I decided to use my initiative and talk to other people in the business which eventually led me to do a number of roles for the company including writing a blog.

I am now currently working for Larch Computer Services as a Telemarketing Executive and broadening their social media presences, a skill I developed at 1000 Heads, which without STA Travel, which I applied through WEXO, I probably wouldn’t have achieved! Again this is an unpaid scheme but if my sales technique works then I will receive commission on my sales.

During this summer and I am going to be working for Macmillan Cancer Support another job highlighted on WEXO as a volunteer for the Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning.

You can probably see an underlying theme running through all of my placements – I didn’t get a buck for working for them, but it was the experience I was after and you can’t put a price on experience. It wasn’t all that bad though as I decided to fund my work experience through other means such as eBay (have built up a feedback rank of 50) and car boot sales. In total I have made about £1000.

I have gained a number of new skills too from my work including website design and have recently developed a website of my own and also websites for other clients too, putting into practice what I have learnt. I also enjoy trying out new things, and this summer I have launched a drinks catering service near where I live. I delivered 50 leaflets, offering to serve drinks etc at garden parties. So far I have 5 confirmed bookings. All of these skills have been built from my experiences and entrepreneurial spirit.

To this day I still think, Work Experience is somewhat of a grey area and in some instances it is over exploited by some companies as an opportunity to get in free labour.

I am due to go back to University this October. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this last year. I have gained more experience than a typical 9 – 5 job would ever have done as I have been allowed to test out my strengths and weaknesses. In comparison to my peers on placement schemes I have done a lot more than just work for one company. I have worked for several different companies in a mixture of industries across a range of marketing roles.

Right that’s enough about me!

What advice would I give to any prospective student who is in my position this year, well yes I have been lucky, but not without instinct. The general perception of students in this day and age, is that we are lazy, this is certainly not true. If you actually can be bothered to motivate yourself then what I did can be achieved.

WEXO has been great for finding a stepping stone into the Industry. Would I say it is worth £10? Yes and No. Yes, as it is great stepping stone to showcase yourself, easy to use and find prospective jobs. No because I think it is unfair for students to have to pay to use it. In most case’s recruitment companies charge the company the fee, I guess it reduces competition amongst students as they will find alternative sources, but in total I think it is unfair that students have to bare the brunt of fee in most cases it is the other way round.

So WEXO is the first stage, once inside the company you have to show that you’re actually worth employing, have a positive attitude and never say no to anything. In addition don’t be afraid to network with as many people as you can, you never know what it might lead to, even if it is a just a beer, a chat or maybe even another job prospect it is well worth it. Without these skills and experience you probably won’t get very far amongst other competitive graduates.

For those of you who only read the first line of an article, I’d just like to say that joining WEXO was how I found a placement that suited my aspirations. And that’s it!

Now for the rest of you (I’d say ‘us’ but I’m placed and happy now) I’ll give you the whole (short) story.

Before the end of the recession in 2008 I was on placement with a Dutch insurance company which; when the recession hit, had to cancel their whole placement scheme. This is how I landed in April 2009 in the middle of a recession year without having anything arranged for my University compulsory placement year. Tough.

I had the choice of giving up that placement year, skipping it and going straight into my final year at uni in September. But I didn’t do that. Why? Because I had some GOALS. I did not choose the 4-year programme for fun, but because I wanted to finish it. And giving up that easily just wasn’t me.

Summer came and I remained in the UK (I’m from Romania) to search for an alternative. So no holiday, no going home, no relaxing this time, but instead I tried to ‘fix my little piece of recession’.

What followed? Well, hundreds of emails & applications, about 20 interviews throughout the summer. I was progressing, getting better at it as I was tracking my self-development, but that just wasn’t enough. Due to the economic climate and the shortage of time (deadline for finding a placement was September 2009) it was clear that I needed some support.

So I went through several ‘agencies’. What happened (as you might very well know) is that usually I registered, I got added to their database, and started getting their newsletter. That’s about all. No contact, not a lot of results, you feel about the same except for feeling more ‘registered’.

The thing with WEXO is that I started getting responses the next 2-4 days after registration. I was contacted directly by companies asking for availability for an interview, phone numbers and all that. Robin Kennedy (founder & CEO of WEXO) met me personally and advised me how I should proceed, and their team always answered all of my emails in a timely manner.

Look, I’m not saying WEXO is the best, because I had several interviews and support from other organisations, on the contrary, it can be even better. But, and it is a big ‘but’ here, they were the people through which I got my placement in London; they responded the fastest; their online system for interacting with the companies is efficient and it allows direct messaging. It clearly shows clear, concise company information. It is these little things that might be just what you need in times like this to get to where you want. It was clearly what I needed.

I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank Robin and his team. You’re there with something that works both ways guys, thank you.

Best regards,

Cristian Paizan, Cambridge

Once upon a time (November last year), having come back from a year in Mexico, I decided to go to a Graduate Fair. No, no, don’t shy away just yet – I didn’t get offered a job at an investment bank (nor was I looking to go in that direction). My mate roped me into it, and although a little reluctant at first, I decided it was better than sitting in front of a computer screen, trying to scour through job applications on the internet. The usual GFC (Grad Fair Crew) were there, all suits, branded pens and free Fosters mints, but as we made our way through the multitude of stands and gleaming faces, something caught my eye. Maybe it was the name ‘ThirdYearAbroad.com’ (being a Language graduate myself, I knew that term only too well), maybe it was the huge map with Ben Fogle’s cut-out smiling at me or maybe it was the nostalgia of travelling that drew me in; either way, going up and having a word with its founder, Lizzie Fane, was one of the best things I ever did.

Competitions and signing up for the newsletter aside, we got chatting and after a few questions about Ben, I found out the company was a start-up for students planning a year abroad. Having got hold of Lizzie’s card, I sent her a speculative email, following up on my meeting her and explaining my interest in writing and languages. She replied straight away (now that’s efficient!), asking if I would be free to meet later on in the week. I prepared a few questions and mapped out a few potential ideas I had for the company which I discussed with her when we met.

Starting as an intern in November, I am now currently working full-time as an employee for ThirdYearAbroad, as the Creative Director. Essentially, I work on the site’s content and the marketing side of things, but, as with any start-up and small team, you inevitably get to work on all sorts of tasks, which is great as you try a bit of everything. Some days, I’ll be writing country profiles, others I’ll be interviewing academics and travellers, others still I’ll be meeting potential sponsors for the site. Variety is the spice of life and you’ll get to see just how much it is as you go from one project to the next and test your skills in different areas. You’ll get a better idea of what you’re good at – and essentially, what you’re not, making it easier for you to see what you’d like to work in in the future.

I’ve had my fair share of internships in the past, some more interesting than others, but I found that it’s not necessarily big names that mean better internships in terms of tasks to do. Start-ups and small companies tend to be more open to new ideas, subsequently giving interns a chance to dabble in different fields of work – but the golden rule, for big or small ventures is this: you need to show willingness to learn. Get a feel for the company and speak up if you’ve got an opinion on something; having done internships in the past, I realised that you’ll get more out of them if you show yourself to be pro-active in the office. Not every day is going to be a holiday, as they say. Don’t turn your nose up at making coffee or photocopying, but rather show your employers you could be good at X or Y, by asking questions and getting some of your ideas across to them. A good impression isn’t just made at the interview stage; it’s relevant to your approach throughout your time there. Whether they decide to keep you on or not, your experience will definitely help you in the future. You’ve really got to show a bit of flair with a good amount of common sense to get the best out of it, and get your colleagues on your side. It worked out really well for me at ThirdYearAbroad as I like working in a young and buzzing environment, concentrating on topics that interests me – mainly languages and writing; but I also discovered that I quite liked the business side of things, too. Having been on both sides of the spectrum at ThirdYearAbroad, as an intern and an employee, I really value initiative in the workplace. We’ve had a few interns working for us since I started, but I can guarantee that it’s the ones who show a ‘can-do’ attitude that get the best results out of their internship. Make yourself relevant to the company you want to work for and you’ll be sure to reap in the rewards. As long as you’re passionate about what you’re doing (whether it’s data entry or editing the newsletter), your colleagues will take note and you’ll be more likely to be given responsibility as time goes on.

Work experience is essential on any graduate CV these days, so most will need an internship or two to really show what they’re made of. The best thing about it all is you can practise the ‘tried-and-tested’ approach, getting a feel for what works out best for you. Some people love working with a huge team, others like to get stuck in all sorts of bits and bobs…An internship, whether it’s in the public sector or at a niche company, will be the real decision-maker for future employers; make sure yours stands out for the skills you’ve acquired and put into practice.

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