The interns are coming. The interns are coming.
It’s somewhere between Parris Island and Harvard. You have to work your butt off and it’s hard as hell to get in. We had nearly 600 applicants for 24 slots in our Boston office summer internship program. But in some ways, it’s no surprise. You create something great and it pays you back.
Suzanne Daley, in our HR group, with the help of many others in the agency, has built one of our industry’s most highly regarded internship programs. Every aspect of the program’s been thought out, from the application process — which includes not only a resume, but also an essay and a rigorous phone interview — to the work experience.
Every intern gets a mentor, who has him or herself only been out school a few years. Mentors not only counsel interns on their career development objectives while they’re here, they even commit to staying accessible to interns after the program is over, and in many cases, the relationships continue.
Each week, the group has a lunch-and-learn session with department heads; over the course of the summer they meet the leader of every agency discipline. Toward the end of the summer, after working closely with agency staff in whatever department they’re part of – creative, planning, account management, analytics, media, PR, and the highly popular social influence group – the interns themselves create miniature competing agencies for a full blown mock new business pitch judged by our new business team.
Finally, there’s even a Mullen intern Facebook page for this year’s Boston interns to connect with past interns who’ve gone on to work at other top agencies in addition to Mullen. But the best thing about the program? We probably learn as much from the interns as they learn from us. How good is your intern program? Any ideas or tips or elements you can share?
It is an honor to be part of the Summer internship program this year! I cannot wait to join the Mullen team during this exciting time
I consider my time at Mullen last summer to be THE key element that helped me evolve from an intern to a potential employee. Both Suzanne and my mentors in the brand planning department were crucial players in my transformation because they truly trusted me with projects that challenged me mentally on a daily basis.
My advice for both the incoming class of Mullen interns: take your curiosity to the next level. Go to work each day with the goal of coming up with questions/ ideas that haven’t even crossed the minds of anyone else. Use each other as resources to learn about the picture, but keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with a little competition — it makes you perform at your best.
I’m incredibly excited and grateful for the opportunity to learn from the Mullen team this summer. And thank you for such a warm welcome!
Lyndsey:
Great advice. Hope all the interns read it. Given how selective we were in “admitting” applicants, I’m sure they’ll all work hard to take advantage of it.
I was so confident looking for a job in a tough economy, and I nailed a great one. Why? Because I worked at Mullen. There’s no substitute for an agency on your résumé that everyone knows. There’s no substitute for the networking, for the mock new business pitch, and for the ability to learn from a 400+ employee agency that’s not too bureaucratic or hierarchical. Not to mention, that after getting admitted to the highly selective internship, I thought I could do just about anything.
My advice: agencies need to be idea-based workplaces. That’s how David Ogilvy (the small deity that founded the place I’ll be working at) saw it. And it’s true, even–especially–for interns. Show your mentors how much you care by thinking of new ideas to make the clients life easier, to make the internal team’s life easier, to streamline communication or to build a brand story. Make a list and share them when you’re ready. It’s never too early to start thinking, and thinking outside the box is one of the most important things we forget to do. I’m obsessed with ideas, and you should be too! They’re what move businesses, transition brands, build community and make money for clients! Not to mention, they make the 9-5 a little bit more fun.
I wish you all the absolute best and hope that you enjoy your time at Mullen as much as I did. -AMF
Hi Edward,
At one agency I worked for we had a very active internship program. When interviewing interns for my department I asked them what kind of experience they wanted to have during their internship. I think the words “not getting coffee all the time” came up more than a few times. (Hey, they were lucky because I don’t drink coffee anyway).
I wanted to make sure that whatever the rest of the agency had them doing, they’d always have something that added true value to their experience. One of the most successful ideas was creating an agency newsletter and giving the interns 100% responsibility for the content and production. Their role was to capture the agency culture, have their pulse on agency activity, and keep everyone educated on new developments relevant to branding, technology, and advertising. They rotated responsibility for stories every week and two of the creative department interns served as co-editors.
The newsletter was structured to include team-building components, opportunities to write articles and to do their own independent research at the university, interview various members of the agency staff for feature stories, and ultimately be seen as thought leaders. They were actively encouraged to express their opinions, communicate their ideas, and look for ways to build team spirit. Not only did this go a long way in bringing everyone closer, it also gave the interns a great opportunity to be proactive participants in the agency and never have to feel like they were just there to make copies or look over shoulders.
I’d suggest the intern-driven newsletter strategy to any agency that doesn’t have the resources for a structured internship program, but wants to make sure the interns have a positive learning experience. At the time, we didn’t have the resources for something structured, but by giving the interns autonomy and responsibility, it gave them something to focus on during the times when they weren’t working on agency projects. This was developed before the recent surge of social media, but the concept could easily be translated into a social media project. With online groups, community aggregation, and agency blogs, the sky’s the limit.
The key is to give interns responsibility for something that’s tangible, on-going, and that encourages creativity and self-motivation. Interns are giving us their time and trust. We owe it to them to give back something valuable and lasting!
Lyndsey & Aaron, thanks so much for your advice! It is very humbling to be selected as a Mullen intern during this unique time in the agency’s history. I’m looking forward to building great relationships (and campaigns) with everyone this summer. See you all in a few days!
Michelle:
Great advice. In our case, however, we won’t have a newsletter, it will be a blog. This one, in fact, where I hope you’ll see some of their thinking and experiences recapped.
I totally agree, Edward… a blog is more relevant today than a newsletter. At the time we did it I was also using the newsletter to teach the interns to use layout and design software. But if I was setting up an intern program today it’d be much more beneficial for them to be experimenting with web technologies. I’m looking forward to checking back on the Mullen site often to see how you guys continue to grow it and leverage the creativity of the whole team!