After graduating from Newcastle University in the summer, I was unsure of what route to go down. After a few months of job hunting, where unimaginative and mundane jobs appeared to be my only option and numerous rejections were coming my way, I was starting to lose motivation and feel very disheartened. Thankfully I came across Wexo and I was immediately attracted to the fact that the internships they offered were with small, unique and quirky companies. These are the type I aspire to but are often overlooked when huge graduate schemes are thrown at you. Wexo really tried to get at insight into my strengths and preferences in order to focus on what I would be most suited to, so that I would end up doing something I really enjoyed. Unlike many other recruitment companies they really care and focus on you, giving you a lot of time and thought.

Wexo found me a month long internship in travel PR working at a small, exciting and unconventional company called Wedge and Wildlife. As I was living in Oxfordshire at the time, I was able to work from home, allowing me to save money. I spent my time writing spiels for their website about a number of locations across Africa. I had around 30 locations to describe, consisting of beach, safari, wine land, battlefield and fly/drive trips. Not only did this allow me to dream about going to incredible five star lodges, but also improved my writing, vocabulary, research skills and allowed me to get an idea of what a job in travel PR would be like. It also improved my time management and organisational skills and gave me more experience at working to a deadline. Originally I had never considered working in travel PR; however the internship helped me realise that it is something to think seriously about. I could not have enjoyed the internship more and my time there would not have been possible without Wexo!

Chekkie

Earlier this year after I completed an internship, the time came to start my job search. Whilst looking for a job I wanted to keep busy – having already gained an intern opportunity through WEXO in October 2009 at Extreme, I was keen to see what the site had to offer. I came across a position looking for a writer to join the London-based charity Kids Company. After the initial interview they were happy to take me on.

I felt, however, that the posting on WEXO was initially misleading as it was filed under the job section; it was only during my interview that I realised it was to be an unpaid position. I took the opportunity anyway and for two weeks was immersed in the Kids Company world. I went to a centre visit to see all the great work Kids Company does for young children in inner city London. I found the staff to be very welcoming and friendly which is always a massive plus when you are the ‘newbie’. For a journalism graduate I enjoyed reading all the different print media they produced and was itching to get down to some writing on their behalf. Unfortunately, it transpired that I was to be more of an editor than a writer. Initially I was disappointed with this but then was able to put my own stamp on pieces that I had edited.

I enjoyed my time at Kids Company and would have happily stayed there if I thought I was going to be paid for my contribution in the near future. Sadly, I had to leave for a job that was paid. I am still in touch with Kids Company and have put myself and a friend down to volunteer this Christmas as part of their volunteer team.

Catherine Andrade

Standing outside the House of St. Barnabas, a beautiful Georgian building, I felt sick. It was the morning of my interview and my nerves had the better of me.

I had moved to London two weeks previously, yet another graduate anxious to find a job. I spun off hundreds of applications, evading boredom through an incessant hunt, and landed an interview here.

During the interview I gave it some welly. The role had two aspects to it, both to assist the CEO and to help the charity to run a Life Skills Programme. The Life Skills Programme is a 12-week schedule of training, work experience and personal development for those who have been homeless and are looking to return to employment. It sounded quirky, unique and philanthropic: I liked it.

Within a week I had the job. I started just before the next programme began and at first helped to ensure that all the paperwork was ready for the programme to start. I was introduced to all the staff at the house and was given a special historic tour. Built during the eighteenth century, its original purpose was residential, hence the plethora of rooms and elegant interior. However, in 1862, after an interim in the House’s use, it was taken over to be put to use as a House of Charity. From then on the House of St Barnabas has continued to help the homeless in some shape or form.

I quickly learnt that this was no ordinary internship. Although primarily administrative, as part of the Life Skills Team, my role demanded perception and delicacy above all else. Helping the CEO too also proved a diverse and varied role. From researching projects to diary management and, of course, refining my mail & label merge skills, I was never sure what might come next!

Now, I have just two weeks left of my internship and can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. We are almost at the end of our programme and the volunteers are soon to graduate. During my interview, all that time ago, I was told, “No two days will be the same.” And that is exactly how my experience has been.

Philippa Record

“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.

As lead developer here at WEXO, I thought it was about time I shared some of my experiences of starting out in the IT sector.

I’ll start at the beginning. In what I determined would give me valuable experience and a leg up on potential rivals, I chose to do a Year in Industry for my gap year before going on to do a Computer Science degree. This scheme is still running and allows students (primarily those interested in engineering) the chance to gain valuable experience before beginning their degree. (http://www.yini.org.uk). Months in advance of the beginning of my gap year I was placed with a small software development company and was eagerly anticipating starting. The company was a small business and I was looking forward to playing a valuable role in a team. Then, in what was with hindsight an early indication of the economic problems to follow, I received a phone call. The company had lost some important contracts and could no longer afford to take on any new staff. I had only a few weeks before I was due to start, had already deferred my university entrance and now had to find something else fast.

At the last minute a new placement was found at Goodrich Aerospace. Goodrich manufactures and maintains components for all sorts of flying machines including aircraft, missiles and the Space Shuttle. I hadn’t really wanted to work in a large multinational company but Goodrich sounded pretty interesting and I needed work, so I applied. I was accepted and was given a position for a year in the marketing department. This placement worried me at the time since I had no marketing experience and no real desire to work in marketing. Putting these concerns aside, I was glad I had finally got a confirmed placement and prepared to start work.

As it turned out all of my concerns about working for a large company were unfounded. The ‘marketing’ work I was doing was actually working with the team which managed and provided data to other parts of the company. Although that may not immediately sound terribly interesting, as it was a huge company providing a very broad range of products and services all over the world I was working with a massive amount of data including databases with hundreds of tables (some with literally millions of records). My duties included producing reports from multiple data sources and the challenge was to work out the most efficient and accurate way of producing and presenting the data.

I really enjoyed my year, met a lot of great people and gained invaluable experience. They even invited me back and I ended up spending some time working with them during summers and other breaks from uni.

I guess the moral of the story is that with an open mind (and maybe a little luck) great work experiences can be found in all sorts of places and when one door closes, hopefully, another will open!

Ben Drew

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

It’s a strange task, preparing a blog post on a spot of broadcast intern experience I recently undertook in Brighton: perhaps since so much of my opportunity arose from being in the right place at the right time.

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

There’s been a bit of debate recently on BBC etc on ‘Intern Abuse’. The discussion seems to focus on a) Job-hunting university leavers being warned against paying for services to help get them internships and b) Companies not paying their interns.

The BBC didn’t get round to publishing our feedback so here it is:

We operate on the basis of a ‘Freemium’ model where users can create profiles and search for opportunities for FREE but pay a one-off £10 membership fee which gives them a number of membership benefits (discounts, access to events etc) as well as the ability to identify the names of companies and make applications. In our view this does not constitute anything more than a very reasonable admin fee. Without some form of hurdle like this, companies would be inundated with speculative applications – one of the issues we seek to address. As it is, we find that there is a correlation between the quality (or relevance) of profiles/applications and those that are prepared to pay to join the network.

With advertising rates low, we have had to find ways to make our business model work – we are not yet profitable! To increase supply, companies can post opportunities for free on WEXO but pay us to help them find the right people.

With regard to unpaid internships, we encourage our companies to pay their graduate interns at least the national minimum wage (as legally required and as we have done ourselves) but we do not enforce it. This is a grey area though. I understand that a lot of the internships available on the Graduate Talent Pool are unpaid and that there are unpaid interns at both the BBC and in parliament! Exploitation is wrong but ultimately I would argue that market economics should dictate and if someone wants to work for free to gain valuable experience then they should be allowed to. We are however lobbying the government to subsidise paid internships to encourage companies to offer them.

Robin Kennedy

All well in WEXO Towers…

We’ve just signed up our 70th company (looking to launch to users when we get to 3 figures) but one of the comments we come up against occasionally is “Why would we want to open up our offices to more work experience students?”. The companies we talk to are generally of two types. Company X is small, dynamic and growing and welcomes talented graduates (on the cheap) with open arms. Company Y tends to be larger, more conservative and already gets quantities of applications for work experience, feels compelled to accept some (especially from clients’ children etc) but does not necessarily subscribe to the benefits.

Company X is most commonly found in the Media sector (especially PR and Advertising). Company Y typically comes from vocationally geared sectors. Company Y is more often sold on what WEXO can provide in terms of marketing, matching and managing applications through the scarily named Web 2.0 tools and STP (Straight Through Processing) techniques that we provide.

An article by Rosie Gamble in the Sunday Times last weekend picked up on this theme. Despite a tacky title, it made a compelling case for student placements not necessarily being a burden. The argument here was that in smaller companies in particular, giving students responsibility gave them the impetus to rise to the challenge - and being new to the working world they often did so with a fresh perspective. With internships in particular (placements of 2 months plus), companies could really benefit, effectively conducting long term interviews that enabled them to then hire the best students in good faith when they left their studies.

The biggest problems then came down to how you sourced and picked your candidates. The answer here of course is WEXO…