Yesterday I got my wisdom teeth out and have been stuck in bed since. Because I can barely talk or move, I've resorted to TV for entertainment (mind you, I removed the TV from my room about 3 years ago). Although I love a night out to the movies, I'm not one to sit at home and binge watch them or TV in general. When I'm home I'm normally running all over the place doing one thing or another. But, I start work on Monday and I want to be sure I'm in mint condition for then; therefore, I've put together the ultimate bed rest guide of movies, TV shows, and blogs that will be my sole entertainment for the next four days. I hope this comes in handy to you someday- whether it be wisdom teeth extraction or simple summer boredom. Xoxo, happy bed rest!!
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Day 3 of the 'Intern Diaries' weekend series. This one is a sort of "reality check" considering there is always the possibility situations can get sticky and sometimes its hard to react the right way. I get so stressed when things don't go my way but I accept they won't always will and its best to just address the situation. So here are some of my intern situation solutions.
What To Do When.. 1. The internet isn't working You better trouble shoot, restart, and use your hotspot before you bother someone with your internet issues. Oh and for the record, that assignment is still due in an hour.. internet or not. If nothing works, address your issue and give a soultion. If the internet is suddenly not an option offer to work by hand, on your phone, or on other non-internet based tasks. 2. Your boss doesn't like your work You may have spent hours or days on a project and boy were you off target. Your boss just isn't feeling it. It might not even be what you did, it might be she realized she didn't like the project idea at all. Don't be crushed. It doesn't phase you. It's not personal, it's business. Write down exactly what she didn't like about it. If she still likes certain things, keep them. If you want to know about certain things ask, "what did you think of this?". But never feel discouraged. Breathe and get back to work as if she had given you a totally new assignment. 3. You don't know how to do something Ex: Excel looks like Suduko to you. Your boss gives you 5 pages on Excel work due by the end of the day and it needs to look professional and chic. Now you not only need to learn how to plug things into Excel, but also how to make it looks chic. The internet is your best friend. Seriously, God bless the internet. If you don't like to read, watch youtube or look at a diagram on Google Images. If you're still lost, call someone, anyone, that you think might know about this. Last resort , just ask. 4. You have to talk to someone important Its like preparing for a speech. You make an outline of points you must cover, you figure out what to say to them and how (in a way that makes you look like you know what you're talking about), you try to recite it without looking at the paper. Practice. When the moment comes, don't stress. You know what you're going to say and how you're going to say it because you practiced it and practice makes perfect, right? 5. Your friends invite you on a vacation Face it, you chose #worklife over #vacaylife. Now deal with it. You can't have them both so you'll have to choose one and while a getaway to Key Largo sounds as great to me as it does to the person who will replace me on the trip, making sure my boss thinks I'm the best intern she's ever had sounds even better. Internships are marathons. You have to show up and work hard even when everyone on Instagram is making you regret it. One day you'll look back and realize the lessons you learned on your internship were way more important than learning not to drinking beer before liquor. Welcome to Day 2 of my 'Intern Diaries' weekend series!! I'm glad you came back for more. Today is my first official day of summer!! I'm done with all my classes, work, and it's my birthday tomorrow! I've been planning a "Pinterest-themed" dinner party and can't wait for it. If you're like my boyfriend and have no idea what the term "Pinterest-themed" is, it's basically a party with everything I've pinned on Pinterest but never actually done. Hopefully my crafty side works out since I'm one of those girls who hardly knows how to tie a bow. Any way, here are the lessons I learned about marketing in general.
1. It's not what you said, it's how you said it. If someone tells you they have ice cream but they say it like they're not giving you any, it might be the best news in the world but it surely doesn't apply to you. Marketing has a lot to do with targeting an audience by making them feel like it applies to them. Ex: We read a Buzzfeed article titled, "3 Things Everyone Does" and they're the most generic things.. drink, eat, sleep... and we're all like, "omg that's so me. that's so true. Retweet. Repost. Share." I don't know about you but I catch myself relating to anything in one way or another. That is marketing. They want to include everyone because the more people who feel included the more people who will retweet, repost, and share. Also known as successsss. So, always talk to people/write to people the way you would like them to talk/write to you. All the while, keep it within the topic. If the conversation is about hotdogs, keep the conversation about hotdogs but make sure you're making the other person feel like they are the most deserving of a hotdog. Hotdogs are the best discovery on Earth. Be sure to highlight all its great attributes: easy to make, easy to eat, and sooooo many toppings. 2. What Was I Thinking? Revise. revise. revise. look away. revise again. Give yourself a day before actually presenting your work. You should do this because many times you will find that what you wrote on Monday was the worst writing you've ever done and you were probably under too much coffee to realize it. There are always writing and grammar mistakes to correct and you definitely don't want something important to get caught with one of those. So re-read your emails, press releases, and newsletters. 3. Check Da Stats What are people clicking on? Then ask yourself why it called their attention? Make a note of the trends that your audience likes so you can integrate them into your new content. Of course, trying new things never hurts. If they don't raise the stats, even better for you, now you know not to spend your time on that kind of content again. 4. Choose Your Stage There are a million ways to get people to see your content. Social media might run the world but Twitter and Facebook aren't the only places to access people. There's Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+, Constant Contact etc. Putting your content on all of these doesn't guarantee success. Again you have to relate to the viewers. Think of what their favorite thing might be to see on each of these. For example, on Facebook, I like to know what I'm being lured to click on before I do. Someone attracting who knows this about me, the viewer, might put a short sum up of what and why I should click on the link. 5. EXCELlent. If you slept through the excel lesson in your computer class, you might want to call your classmate for those notes now. Excel is used so much in marketing, it's terrifying. It's used for budgets, media lists, and even event planning. Even though I spent hours teaching myself Excel via Youtube, once I got the hang of it , it was weirdly entertaining. Call me nerdy, but I had so much fun plugging in different formulas. I even used excel for my party planning. Hi guys! I realized I haven't kept up with my 'Intern Diaries' series but it's mainly because I've been busy... well, being an intern. Also, Fridays are my only somewhat "free" days so it gives me a big chunk of time for blogging. Today was my last day at my marketing internship for a property management company. And while it wasn't the experience I had in mind, I certainly did my best to make the most of it. Although I wish I had a set list of tasks with directions waiting for me at my desk, my boss was a busy woman and many times I felt I found myself making up my own tasks and totally winging it. It hasn't been easy and many times I've wanted to click the opt out button. An intern isn't just a job (for one you're not getting paid), you don't just have to show up and do what you're told to do. You have to do all that as efficiently as possible while never complaining and always offering to take on more tasks. Yup.
So, I've put together an entire weekend of Intern Diaries just to share all the things I learned with you. Friday: "What I Learned About Being An Intern" Saturday: "What I Learned About Marketing in General" Sunday: "What To Do When" Ok, let's start with What I Learned About Being an Intern... 1. Getting the Internship Everyone always asks me how I found my internship. I go to a community college where the last thing on my advisors mind is helping me get an internship. I found this internship via internships.com (groundbreaking right?). But I found some of my other internships via internmatch.com and even directly on company websites. My first tip is to apply for recent posts. Once more than two weeks have passed, chances are the hiring manager is already regretting hiring an intern because their inbox is bombarded with amateur emails. My second tip is to personalize your note to them. Research the company and the way they talk about themselves. Then, match their lingo. Third, make sure to sound as if this were your dream internship, "please let me know if I can assist you with any further information needed for your decision. I look forward to hearing your reply. *optional: I will be following up with you in ___ days/weeks. Thank you for your time." done. Lastly, reread your emails. If your emails sound like you're awkwardly rambling, they'll assume you're an awkward rambler. 2. Interview Process Dress to your style. I personally have a very simple style. A light colored button up with slacks is ideal for me to feel comfortable yet professional when I'm heading to an interview. I make key points of what I need to know about the company in case they want to know my current knowledge on who they are and what they do. I make another set of concise answers to basic interview questions: Tell us about yourself, what skills do you have that will work for this internship, what are your future goals and aspirations. Then I make a list of things I want to leave the internship knowing: time period of internship, a typical day, when I will hear back. Be confident about what you are saying, be to the point, and natural. Anything else might make you look like you're faking it. Lastly, make sure to thank your interviewer for their time. 3. Preparing for the Internship Congrats you got the internship!! Wooo!! Now what?! Make sure you have a place where you can keep everything regarding your internship: an agenda for tasks, a notebook for notes/drafts/accounts, and a file in your inbox just for work related emails. 4. Keep It Real Be the person you told your interviewer you were. If you said you were positive, don't let them catch you whining. If you said you were creative, prove it. Also, as days pass you will learn what your boss likes and doesn't like and you can feed off their energy. If you won't be in the office for x reason, offer to send your work via email. This will prove you're not skipping the day because you want to but because you have to. Also, treat all your assignments like prized possessions. Give each of them your own personal touch, that's why you were hired and not someone else. If you don't know how to do something, Google it. If it's not even on the 10th page of Google, ask.. there's no shame in wanting to do the task correctly. 5. The Last Stride Toward the end of your internship there are a couple of things you will definitely want to get done in order to make the most out of it. First, make your last assignment the best one yet. Research a little more for it, be a little more creative. Second, ask for feedback on how your boss felt you did as an intern. Take this advice for your next internship opportunity. Third, ask for a recommendation letter. This sounds hard but it's really simple, "Do you think you would be able to email me a recommendation letter on my general skills as an intern. *optional: your opinion means a lot to me and it would be great to have for future reference". That way you will already have it as a PDF in case a future employer asks for one. You can also print it. Another option is to ask if you can request a recommendation from them via LinkedIn. If they say yes, send the link right away. Then, say thank you for taking the time to do this for you and that their opinion meant a lot. Lastly, give your boss a little gift of something that reminds you of them with a thank you note of how grateful you are for the opportunity to work with them. Example: I got my boss a coffee mug that read, "this may or may not be my third coffee today", because she was an excessively proud coffee drinker. 1. Make choices based on your personal and curated judgement
Your judgement was perfectly formed with a curated selection of experiences you have lived through. When we were five and had hardly experienced anything, just about every decision we made was wrong in one way or another. Once you're an adult, you have somewhat lived enough to make decisions based on the experiences you've had. Now, I'm not saying don't listen to your elders.. always listen to them, they've experienced more than you. But, when the moment comes to make a decision it can only go two ways: good or bad. If the thought out decision YOU made happens to go wrong, it is easier to accept your consequences than if someone else had told you to make a certain decision and you were stuck paying the consequences. 2. Finish strong Whether it's a workout or an assignment.. finish strong. The same way you don't wait until your car completely breaks down to finally put gas, don't wait until you're knocked out to stop. Remember to always finish right before you're on empty. Giving things your all can be tiring. It's good to remember it's not always the initial effort or the first impression that you're remembered for, sometimes it's the last. So if you've felt your energy going down remember to give the last stride your all. 3. Look at ALL your options (even if you really don't want to do one of them) This week I cleaned out my closet and decided to donate some stuff and sell the others (because let's face it, college students are broke). Anyway, I had high expectations that I would get a good amount of money for my simplistic, vintage, and somewhat trendy clothing pieces I had decided to sell. To my surprise, the buyer chose way less than I thought she would and offered me way less than I thought she would. Leaving me with two options: a low amount of money I wasn't expecting and a higher amount of money as store credit. But... there was a third option: reject the offer they were clearly ripping me off with. Of course I was embarrassed/uncomfortable rejecting their offer because it was one of my favorite thrift stores, I didn't want them to not like me. After evaluating my options, I decided to take the money and go. I made this choice because my initial reason for selling the items was for money; therefore, neither accepting store credit nor rejecting the offer would have given me that. Soon after leaving, I realized maybe rejecting the offer would have forced them to raise the offer price.. oh well, lesson learned. Bottom line, be tough and look at all the options - even if you wish one of them wasn't even an option. 4. Always do the right thing no matter how hard it is Not doing the right thing is always stressful. No matter how much you try to convince yourself its a one time thing and you'll forget about it tomorrow, you probably won't. If you're anything like me it will haunt you. On the other hand, doing the right thing might not satisfy you, but it will certainly never stress you out. You might get a little frustrated, like we all do when we don't get what we want. But how many times have you reallllly wanted something and realized down the road you lived perfectly fine without it. The best way I've learned to deal with this is to pretend it's impossible to do the wrong thing. It might be hard to walk away and do the right thing but it's certainly a possibility, and one you won't regret. |
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