Learnings from across the pond.

Working abroad is something unique that few people get a chance to experience. Living and working in a brand new country offers so many amazing opportunities, adapting to new social norms, office culture, and (not in my case) maybe a new language. Yet despite the extra cups of tea, the happy hour pints, or that dry wit and humour with a u, interning in London this summer has taught me some useful tips that apply to any internship, whether across the Atlantic or in Hometown, USA. 

(View of Canary Wharf, London's other financial district)

1. You don't have a real job.

Sounds depressing, but hold on... there's a definite upside to not being a permanent employee. First off, you have an incredible flexibility in your job description that your coworkers are probably more than a bit envious of. Since an internship is meant to be a learning experience, your supervisor and coworkers are usually pretty eager and happy to give you more responsibilities and teach you new things. 

With only 8 weeks, you definitely can't wait and hope that someone will realize you want to learn more about finance, typography, what have you. So ask around, whether you know you'd love the new task or just don't know how Excel works and you want to figure it out over the summer. Having an internship in London on your resume is a definite plus, but if you haven't tried everything possible at your office, then you haven't taken full advantage of the summer. 

Internships are a great chance to explore new career paths, expected and unexpected. I've had internships in sales, only to realize that wasn't what I wanted to do in life. You learn just as much from bad experiences as you do from the good. Being on the phone each day taught me an incredible amount of patience and the elusive skill of the sale... without sounding like a salesman. (Well I hope I learned that last bit anyways.)

(Above: a marionnette made for Head... odd, but a bit of insight into the office personality. Unrelated to the post subject, but I liked it so here it is.)

2. Who you know actually matters.

Networking is not an imagined idea that adults made up to bother us, but it also doesn't have to be as evil and corporate an idea as it's made out to be either. It's a pretty simple concept really. You'll help your friends a lot more quickly than a perfect stranger, but one thing I've realized over the past months is that's only the first step to networking. It doesn't take a lot to establish a relationship with someone; it can be as simple as knowing their name. You're much more likely to help out a familiar face than a perfect stranger. 

So make sure to introduce yourself around the office. People in other departments, anyone in the lunch room, whatever. Take advantage of your unique position of being the new intern. Adjust your elevator pitch to each person, making yourself just memorable enough. Ask people about their lives and their job history. It can be enlightening to you, plus most people don't mind talking about themselves for a bit. 

Obviously if your dad is best friend's with a partner at EMI Music and you've always of dreamed of getting into the music industry, then you won't have nearly as much work finding a great job. For the rest of the world, getting your name out to your old coworkers can mean a great recommendation or it can be as simple as keeping your resume at the top of the pile of hundreds of applicants. It's kind of like applying to university, having that little bit of edge, in this case just having your name known, can be a huge difference in getting the job. 

 (Jake, Rose, me, Katherine, and Brad at the Prime Meridian.)

And if you're lucky enough to be on a program like Intrax with 20 other interns, don't forget to get to know them professionally too. Besides finding out where they want to travel for the weekend, find out what they like about their job. You may learn about new potential career paths or you may even be interested in working for their host company later on in the year.

As part of the Global Skills Training, we had Garrett's boss at Steely Eye Digital Media, Tony Grubb, come and talk to us about being an American expat living and working in London. He talked about the cultural differences, adjusting to life in London, but the main point he focused on was the importance of networking. It's important whether you're a recent grad just trying to find a job... any job or whether you're an experienced businessman expanding your start-up in its first years.

3. Everyone's always too busy for you.

Something I wasn't too excited about learning? People are busy, sometimes too busy to help you out. Whether this means that you have to ask someone else for a new project or just waiting around for a bit while your supervisor finishes up her own work, you're going to have those moments where you have to take care of yourself. 

As an intern at Head, I had to update a lot of their admin docs, make sure that everything was up to date on the server, which takes a lot of coordination with the different departments at the company. With strict deadlines, finding archived case studies for me to upload was not a high priority of anyone, but it had to be done. So I reminded people over and over again. No I'm not saying that being obnoxious is how to get things done, but I had to show a much higher level of confidence and assuredness in getting things done. Being able to manage others, encouraging them to do their work while getting yours done in the process... it's a key skill that I've only begun to learn. 

... but that's kind of what an internship's for isn't it?