If you’ve never thought about offering internship opportunities for your company, then this blog is your sign to give it some serious consideration. Internships are a great way for young minds to get the hands-on professional experience that they might not get in school. You also get the chance to ensure your next generation of staff members. Building that professional experience under your company’s guidance is something they will be forever grateful for—trust me, I know firsthand! I’ve been a D&A copywriter intern and am now a full-time D&A junior copywriter, so who’s more qualified to share the pros of onboarding an intern for your business than me?
Reason One: Feeling at Ease in the Workplace
The D&A workplace dynamic was something that I meshed well with as an intern, so I was already comfortable in the office on my start date as an employee. I also didn’t have to stress learning a laundry list of names after getting introduced to every other employee, because the introductions happened last summer. Another plus about my initial reentrance into the office was sitting at my official desk with a computer, phone, and a place to put a Bluey coloring page per my niece’s request.
Offering internship opportunities within your organization shortens the “new employee” transition period for you and the employee. Your employee won’t feel the dreaded pressure of navigating a new workplace environment and wondering if they fit in or not. Plus, you will pick up quickly during their internship if they’re a good fit for the company and if the company is a good fit for them.
Reason Two: Fresh Ideas
I knew wherever I ended up working needed to be an environment that allowed me to exercise my creativity as much as possible—D&A was just the place! In the time I’ve been here, I’ve brainstormed and built out possible campaign concepts for clients, joined the creative department’s monthly meetings, and participated in an all-agency creative exercise. There’s always an opportunity to think of outside-of-the-box ideas and apply them to a project. That’s part of the mutual benefit of offering internship openings—your company adds an innovative addition to your team and your intern-turned-employee gets to flex their creativity.
Reason Three: Preview of Future Work
Another thing I knew about starting my professional career was I never wanted to reach a plateau in my education. Just because I’m finished with my college degree doesn’t mean I have nothing more to learn. Thankfully, D&A prioritizes further education that keeps employees at the absolute top of their game. Whether it’s traditional classes, conferences, or internal learning where a member of the agency shares their research on an up-and-coming marketing concept, everything we learn is priceless to the agency.
D&A’s prioritization of continued education was stressed during my time as an intern when I created a capstone presentation. This internship-long project was a way for me to share a topic that I had a keen understanding of and that the whole agency could benefit from. Implementing a capstone presentation like this in your company’s internship program will help showcase what an intern could bring to the table as a potential employee.
Overall… I couldn’t have asked for a smoother transition from an undergraduate with a summer copywriting internship to a full-time junior copywriter with an English degree. Before interning, I didn’t know copywriting was a career option, yet here I am pursuing it! If you and your company want to experience the benefits of offering an internship program, there’s no time like the present.
Still not convinced about offering internships at your company?