Intern Impressions: Alisha

The challenge in writing this blog is being able to sum up months of experiences in just a few paragraphs.

Hello! My name is Alisha, a student of Otago Polytechnic. As a background, I am a commerce student and have done a Bachelor of Commerce from a renowned university called Kurukshetra University. I came to New Zealand to pursue my career in the field of Management and started studying Applied Management as my interest is purely in Business Management. After completing my studies, I started an internship according to my interest in the field.

The weeks continue to fly by as I intern here at Huse Hill Associates. Being an intern under hHA has been a unique experience that has allowed me to synthesize the abundance of information that I’ve received at hHA and see how it applies in the real world. As the Social Media/Web Marketing intern, I feel my duties are diverse. Sometimes, it’s tough to recall everything I have taken in over the past months, but I feel that these are some of the most beneficial lessons I have learned.

As an intern, Jim, the managing director of the company has taught me more than I could imagined. I had never heard of lead generation or marketing automation until this B2C and B2B internship came into my life. I was totally new to the B2B and B2C side of marketing. So, I had little knowledge of the best practices that go into the strategic process of prospecting and retaining potential business clients. Now, I can identify an appropriate message and tell what marketing approaches work most effectively.

Jim has told me how to be more well-versed in the digital marketing landscape. It’s hard to condense my experience in a single blog post, but I think the key takeaway can be summarised as follows:

If you’re going to fail, fail fast!

These words of wisdom were given to me by Jim, and now they’re words I live by. One of the great things about working in Social Media is it’s very much an ego-free environment. Whether you’re an intern or a full-time employee, you have to accept that you’re not going to know everything. In fact, you’re going to make mistakes at some point regardless of where you are on the learning curve. Although we shouldn’t bask in our failures, my digital marketing internship has taught me you should learn from them and not repeat those same mistakes.

The learning curve is steep!

The reality of interning at small company like hHA is the learning curve will always be steep, especially at a smaller company where the team works with dozens of clients on a daily basis. You’re taught to wear multiple hats. For myself, this translated into learning how to deal with all facets of pay-per-click including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Clients will always come first – they drive the business. This means it’s important for interns to take responsibility for the things they don’t know. Research outside hours. Read marketing blogs like Wordstream and HubSpot to keep up to date with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) trends. Ask questions. Other than the technical components required for digital marketing internships, I also learned a lot in regards to my professional development.

How to behave professionally!

This being my second position in an office atmosphere, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The environment here is an experience is quite relaxed and flexible, yet it taught me how to behave in the workplace. Simply working in the office and getting used to everything here has definitely prepared me for whatever my next position may be. Just observing the everyday events has taught me more about professionalism, business communication, task management, Microsoft tools and digital marketing. Although sometimes I have to remind myself to use my inside voice, I feel I’ve adapted to the office life relatively well.

It is truly a pleasure to be an intern at Huse Hill Associates. The culture of the company is welcoming and amiable which will make it that much harder to say goodbye to everyone. However, I know that my experience at hHA has set me up for success as I apply for jobs.

This has truly been a great learning experience and I’ll be forever indebted to Wayne and Jim, who gave me a hand here.