work experience

Fancy joining a small, but frenetically busy team doing some interesting work at the forefront of the digital media and marketing world for a 3 month paid marketing internship?

You do? You know someone who does? Well, that's marvellous, read on...

The return of Social Media Week London (SMWLDN) 24-28 Sept will see a number of changes to the way SMWLDN works including the creation of several content-specific hubs and the launch of the SMWLDN work experience programme.

We're on the hunt for some space for the SMWLDN HQ in the run-up to September's event to house the team including the work experience folks and our fantastic volunteers that between them mean we can keep the majority of SMWLDN events free for everyone to attend. Can you help?

The importance of work experience was underlined at Chinwag's recent Careers Day (see our round-up blog for some top CV tips). There's plenty of competition for the choicest work experience or intern positions, because they provide such a powerful point of differentiation for candidates, not to mention heaps of useful job-hunting contacts.

So, with London's biggest collaborative event, Social Media Week returning to London in September (24-28), what better time to offer a lucky few the chance to get their teeth stuck into one of the largest digital events to hit London? Find out more about what's involved and how to apply below.

There are a lot of challenges for any company taking on an intern.

From where to advertise the vacancy to the costs involved in hosting and training can all be a drain on company resources.

It's been challenging at Chinwag, so I bent the ear of Dominic Potter, co-founder of Internocracy, a company that helps employers set up and run their internship programmes.

Here's a brief run-down of his top-tips to consider before taking on an intern:

On Friday, Chinwag waved goodbye to Gregory, our first tech intern. It was an experiment, which proved extremely fruitful for Chinwag, and hopefully, Gregory too.

For a company that sits at the S end of SME, combined with some control freakery thanks to yours truly, taking on an intern would be a challenge on a number of fronts. Could we find the right person? Would they learn anything? Did we really have time to make it work?

Previous internships had worked well, with an editorial intern progressing into a full-time role, but we learnt just how much staff time is needed. Tricky for a small company that finds itself stretched at the best of times.

About the time we waved Gregory off, a tweet from Loic Le Meur (@loic) popped up, agreeing with Seth Godin’s take on internships,

"I think internships are overrated. Most of the time, the employer thinks he's doing the intern a favor, but he doesn't trust the interns to do any actual thoughtful, intelligent work worth talking about. And to be fair, most of the time the interns are busy hiding, not grabbing responsibility but instead acting like they're in school, avoiding hard work and trying to get an A."

Pretty cynical. Perhaps this applies more to internships within large organisations, because that’s not been the experience at Chinwag. He’s right about one thing, there’s little point in having an intern if you’re not going to let them do anything.

This Autumn could be a testing time for some of the 400,000 graduates looking for a digital career, with the number of vacancies taking a dip, competition will be hotter than ever.

Internships and work placements, when well executed well, can be a fast-track way to getting a dream job as well as providing employers with seasoned recruits.

We're big fans at Chinwag with two interns currently learning about the industry and providing valued help in a busy environment.

News of another great scheme has reached Chinwag Towers. Creative digital support agency Northwest Vision and Media are working to help make the region’s new talent make the right start - and partnering with agencies keen to find them.