Summer Interns
I wish I had a tape recorder for this convo. Last night, I met a girl who is interning for McCann-Erickson for the summer on a large integrated account (of course). This girl epitomized naiveté in advertising and it’s best illustrated in sound bite form. Here are some of the things she told me:
- I just love advertising. I’ve wanted to get into advertising my whole life.
- The people at my work are amazing. They all get along so well.
- They told me that if I can work on this account, I could work on any account
- Can you believe that some brand is paying Fergie to insert their brand name into one of their songs? That’s like so crazy to me.
- I’m doing stuff like budgets, lots of creative briefs and like attending lots of meetings and taking notes and then distributing them (this is how she answered when I asked her what she was tasked with, which really means that she’s acting as someone’s secretary).
She’s just a naive girl straight out of college, but unfortunately in a couple of years she’ll be completely integrated into the system and be a part of the engine that keeps its wheels turning.
August 27th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hi there! I came across this blog accidentally, but felt compelled to comment on the intern story. I’m not in intern, in fact I’ve in Advertising for going on five years now. I’m still just a lowly assistant account executive, but I love advertising just as much as I did when I started out. I realize that the road to success in account management will be long and I have a lot learn (not to mention a lot of s**t to take from a lot of cocky people). But I have a passion for the business of advertising that I feel gives me a competitive edge. Here’s to hoping I always have passion for my work! Otherwise, it’s going to be a long and sucky road, which will leave me being a miserable person.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Georgia - to be honest, I don’t think I’d be too happy if I were still an AAE after 5 years, but I’m glad that you have the passion…and the patience.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
After I read you comment I felt a little discouraged. Is this really what everyone thinks about interns? Trying to find an internship in PR and advertising myself, sometimes these interns don’t have a lot of experience interviewing and are really nervous. Any suggestions for landing an interview or impressing an employer?
July 25th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I’ve interned for an account role before. You know you’re starting at the bottom but you just have to take everything as an opportunity to learn. If you’re positive about it, people will notice.
While the advertising industry is tough… and we’ve all become quickly jaded after a few years… passion is a good thing. We all have passion for it, otherwise we wouldn’t bother putting up with all the shit and we’d all jump to client-side.
Working in advertising isn’t something you can turn off. You leave the office, you’re still examining and reviewing every ad you see on TV or in a magazine… or blogging about it on the weekend… like me. If you don’t have the passion, you’re doomed.