I’ve just finished my internship at Sipsmith Independent Spirits. Here I was working as the Activation Sales Manager.

Working at Sipsmith has been a joyous experience combining off-trade sales with a strategy and enthusiam inspired by the founders. One might say an infectious courtesy and respect that ensures all of those envolved within the Sipsmith family, from the founders to the sales assistants right the way down to the discerning drinker are all seemingly drawn in by the excitement of what has been acheived and what is acheivable.

In no way has my role been static or monotonous, it has been a whirlwind of new challenges and I am always willing to take these on due to the belief that I am part of something. Working within a small team has been extremely beneficial, never a dull moment and a far cry from my previous work in the financial sector. Here I can appreciate a “product”. Something that brings people together within an industry which is hard work yet rewarding, very much along the lines of the mantra “work hard, play hard”.

Unfamiliar with WEXO before I now realise how it has enabled companies such as Sipsmith to get the best out of their interns.

Clark Betz

*** PRESS COMMENT: WEXO invites government to help make “It’s not who you know, it’s who you are” a reality ***

5th April 2011: WEXO (Work Experience Online) welcomes this morning’s news that the government is to focus on reversing the growing culture of unpaid internships as part of its social mobility scheme. The announcement that Nick Clegg will champion this initiative is encouraging. WEXO invites the government to actualise its commitment to private/public sector partnerships and work with it to tackle these issues head on.

Robin Kennedy, Co-founder and CEO of WEXO said: “In a difficult economy, internships have started to replace graduate schemes in small businesses as a ‘first job’ vehicle. For some time now, we’ve been trying to foster a meritocratic culture that democratises access to work experience and internships using the internet. I welcome today’s announcements and look forward to hearing more but this space is fraught with sensitivities. We don’t need rhetoric and policy; what we need is to educate and incentivise companies to take on the best people and pay them fairly. I’d be delighted to work with the government to this end.”

WEXO has teamed up with STEP to make it easier for companies to find the best interns. STEP has already successfully operated the London Innovation Placement Programme and its own Graduate STEP Scheme with The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). Both schemes, which WEXO has worked with STEP on, have proved successful in providing a cost effective solution that helps companies find first class interns who in return receive an appropriate level of remuneration (which is the equivalent of at least the national minimum wage) for their hard work. One of WEXO’s recent proposals was that companies should be able to recoup the costs of paying interns from this year’s VAT increase.

In an earlier release, Sir Stuart Rose, former Chairman of Marks & Spencer and founder of BITC initiative ‘Work Inspiration’, said: “I’m a big believer in what WEXO is doing to help get students and graduates working again. By utilising the power of the internet, they are helping match talent to exciting opportunities.”

~ENDS~

Notes to editors:

WEXO (www.wexo.co.uk) is a matchmaking network exciting work experience, internships and jobs. WEXO’s technology now allows companies to rank and sort applications and it has already developed a strong client list of over 500 companies including Sony Music, Armani and Working Title as well as many start-ups, charities and SMEs. WEXO has been featured on BBC Television News and was a finalist for the 2009 LSE Recruitment Awards in the ‘Most Innovative Use of Technology’ category. More recently the company has launched ‘WEXO tv’ to help inspire and educate people about different industries. The company was founded in 2007 by ex-investment banker Robin Kennedy and London ‘fixer’ Harry Becher. The platform was built with seed funding and the company generates revenue from membership fees, search fees and advertising.

Step (www.step.org.uk) has over 10 years of experience in developing some of the UK’s most innovative and well regarded placement programmes. Quoted as a model of good practice by the Alan Milburn-chaired Panel on Fair Access, Step are working directly with the Department of Business to make these opportunities a reality.

For more information contact Robin Kennedy on info@wexo.co.uk or by calling: +44 (0) 203 287 7644

“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.

If I learned one thing from interning as a marketing assistant at Abercrombie and Kent Travel, it was the pretty big difference between how new and well-established companies work. I realised after my first month that A&K wasn’t the same as the start-ups I’d interned for before, like Third Year Abroad and Extreme. It was not so free and easy. My managers were much older, more experienced and had their way of doing things: they expected nothing less than perfection! I left with some really useful contacts and experiences in terms of understanding what was expected in a solid, long-running multinational company like A&K.

For example there are things I took for granted when looking through role descriptions, such as

1. the importance of time keeping;
2. working to a deadline;
3. prioritising and organisation;
4. using one’s initiative and;
5. communicating efficiently with other people to achieve a result.

The advantage of work experience with reputable companies like A&K comes from understanding the importance of these skills, and also picking up others. On a practical level, I learned about editing images, using Excel beyond only spreadsheets, using new software like Common Spot Web Content Management as well as how to write press releases, and executive reports. This kind of know-how is what turns into loads of confidence when applying for jobs.

The final great thing about work experience is that you can discover what sort of work you enjoy doing, the kind of people you enjoy working with and what kind of things you want to get better at. And if it’s not going well then you know you can change direction when it’s over, no strings attached, having made some great contacts.

Alex Janson

I’m onto my second ‘through-WEXO work experience,’ and it’s just been BRILLIANT!
It’s strange – lots of my friends have been going for those ‘4 months of solid hard-core slave-labour and number-crunching’ internships in the city (and look slightly like death as a result of it), whereas here I am, doing the most awesome work experience over in quirky Camden Town, with Frank PR (clients have included Innocent Drinks, Virgin Media, Haagen-Dazs and the NUS).

It’s like being let through a locked door.  From day one, I was treated like ‘one of the gang,’ listening to brain-storming sessions and getting insider information explained to me by all the cool, young people who work there (I really had no idea about anything PR-related before this…all I knew was that it sounded creative and right up my street!).  So I’ve been kept busy with lots of interesting and varied work with different projects and clients, and by the time ‘home-time’ comes about each day, I’m just really excited about cracking into the next day.

I’ve been getting calls from my ‘city-squashed’ friends, asking how the work experience malarkey is treating me, and immediately I begin to waffle away about all the amazing things I’ve been able do.  They’re always slightly taken aback; ‘are you sure this is work experience you’re talking about?! What about the coffee-making and photocopying?!’  But that’s just it, I think – work experience, when it’s done properly, is supposed to be a fun way of finding out what you really want to do… It’s all a game of ‘trial and improvement,’ and wow I’ve just been shown this whole new world that I want to be part of – perfect timing, too!  Now I’m all inspired to work seriously seriously to make it through the final year of uni, and get myself up onto one of those career ladders.

Thanks again WEXO and Frank!

Nell Fane

‘Work experience, have you got any work experience? No no but WORK EXPERIENCE. Because you know your CV will be NOTHING without work experience!’ We’ve all had this conversation far too many times, whether it was with earnest yet guilt-tripping adults, or those slightly patronising ‘our CVs are soooo obese with experience that they’re practically dieting!’ fellow students.

The truth of the matter is: they’re right.  Work experience is important.  But they seem to always succeed in putting the emphasis in the wrong place – it’s not just for the CV, though that’s always lovely; it’s for the actual experience.

Because so few of us know what on earth we’re going to be when we ‘grow up’.  And how can we be expected to know?  At school, we’re effectively given a list of about four pathways to choose from: ‘would you like to be a) a doctor, b) a lawyer, c) a banker or d) a teacher?!’  So we just do our exams and leave, feeling slightly bewildered and thinking ‘oh dear, I don’t particularly want to shimmy-my-way into any of these categories!’

And then you reach the big-wide world and are hit by a massive realisation: you can do ANYTHING in the whole universe, not just a measly four things.  Right.  So where to start?!

It was at that point that I turned to WEXO.  I had absolutely no idea what on earth (or universe) I wanted to be, and here was a lovely ready-built website set out to help me discover just that. Plus, all the companies registered with WEXO have done so because they want interns – they want to give students the experience and to give them a glimpse of an entirely new field of work.  So instead of calling upon ‘a friend of a friend of a friend’s’ father, who probably owes that first friend a favour but who’d frankly rather eat wasps than actually have a student following him round for a couple of weeks, you should just get searching on WEXO!  Because they genuinely offer everything.

I’ve now had 2 fantastic and completely different ‘batches’ of work experience through WEXO, first at Quintessentially last year and this Summer at Frank PR (more on that in Part 2 next week!). This has helped me to gradually pin-point my perfect job, and I have officially become an ambassador for WEXO at university, hoping to spread the word to other students about its amazingness… Work experience doesn’t have to be a boring means to a ‘CV-decorating’ end; it can be really good fun if you go about it properly, helping to point you in the right direction (which is always good news!).

Nell

Everyone’s telling you what a fantastic idea internships are – how you learn so much, build your CV and get your foot in the doors. All true, but once you’re sold on the idea, having cultivated that ‘can do’ attitude and bagged the internship(s), then making the leap from hungry intern to fully fledged employee can be troubling.

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 think I originally thought it would all be very clear-cut. Finish university, have the summer off and then ‘Bang!’ – straight into the dream job I always wanted… Well it’s a year down the line and I’m afraid to say I’m still looking for it BUT I have spent the last 4 months doing something. Actually doing something every day, having something to get out of bed for and to make weekends feel like they are well-deserved! A friend of mine introduced me to WEXO and after a couple of interviews, I accepted a paid internship.

For the past 4 months, I have been working for new start-up, made.com, an online furniture company, backed by Brent Hoberman, that cuts out the middleman by ordering in bulk and thus delivers at affordable prices. Design or furniture was never something I thought I’d start having an interest in at all so it took a while for me to come round to the idea. My responsibilities here have been varied; I am first port of call for all customer and press enquiries (which can get pretty busy), I also write the design blog on our site and have started doing the copy for product pages. It is a varied role and although I am still trying to explore and pinpoint what I would ideally like to do as a career, it has been an enlightening experience. Working in a small start-up company is educational as you are exposed to all sorts of vocations and involved in many different decisions. Opinions count and working in a small team makes you feel like you’re really part of it.

Since starting here in April, our collection has tripled and we launch a new product every week. This means there is always something to do and with our first deliveries, lots of customers to deal with. This can be quite testing but it does teach you to be patient and deal with all sorts of angry, frustrated or sometimes even happy people!

Looking back over the past few months, this has been time well spent, as I had come to the end of my tether with temping agencies and tedious, unrewarding roles. I have now gained more hands-on experience, feel like a part of something and I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do but I’ve learnt a lot and it has undoubtedly been a good starting point.

Nicola Seagroatt

Will Gordo's news be good for you?

AT WEXO we think it’s important to keep you guys up to date with what the government, (or anyone else for that matter) are doing to help young people looking for work. So…

The government just announced The Young Person’s Guarantee. According to the Government, the guarantee will offer up to 470,000 training or work experience opportunities over the next 15 months, benefiting almost 100,000 youngsters straight away. It offers the chance of work through the Future Jobs Fund, work-focused training, a place on a community task force, help with self-employment and internships. Young people will still receive JSA (Job Seeker’s Allowance) while on the schemes. If they do not take up the offer, young people’s benefits will be affected.

It means a bit more freedom and funding to help develop your career. BUT we think they don’t go quite far enough and have one reservation about the plans: The government should be offering more incentives for businesses to pay their interns at least minimum wage. A graduate on Job Seekers Allowance for 6 months could legally be taken on for an internship and paid £46.85 per week? That could be even less than the travel and expenses bills met by some 14 year olds that we send on work experience placements. WEXO would like to see more action being taken to incentivise companies to recruit graduates in particular and pay them a respectable wage. Otherwise talk of a ‘lost generation’ could still become a reality.


More info on Young Person’s Guarantee – Press Association Coverage


Tell us what you think of the situation. Is the Young Person’s Guarantee Good news?

There is an interesting discussion going on at the moment on econsultancy.com called ‘Death to spec work and unpaid work experience’. Our take on it is this: The UK legal situation on unpaid work experience and internships IS a grey area.  See our FAQs for more details. The real point is that this is a free market and companies can decide whether or how much to pay their interns (if they are not constrained by the government regulations). Equally, students or graduates can decide what they are prepared to accept as reward for gaining important experience. So the big question is: why should interns be paid – isn’t the experience payment enough?

Whilst work experience placements and internships help get students and graduates on their chosen career path, the work they do still adds value to a business, and this should be rewarded. We encourage the companies on WEXO to offer interns payment if possible and paying our own interns above the National Minimum Wage guidelines.  We think this is fair given what we are looking for but no two ‘experiences’ are the same… I’m sure some people would happily do an unpaid internship at The Playboy mansions in New York (and I can see how it could fulfil all 6 of the US legal restrictions – especially ‘If the training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in a vocational school!’).

Now more than ever, we believe that internships give companies AND interns a cost-effective and non-binding solution to financial and commitment concerns allowing them to try each other out before they pursue more permanent arrangements.

And in conclusion, I defer to Sir Arnold Bax (English composer and poet): “You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing”.