Working in an advertising internship or marketing internship is going to give you a great opportunity to develop yourself professionally, but you are going to be much better off if you take a somewhat strategic approach to that development.
You can do that in three simple steps:
Learn what the skills and traits are that you will need to have to get your first advertising or marketing job
This is really not as hard as it sounds. For starters ask your internship supervisor and tell her your plan, she will be glad to help and impressed you took the initiative. Another good way to do this is go to sites like TalentZoo, Career Builder or Monster and read the job descriptions there. Find your dream job and work backward from there and you can even start to lay a career path for yourself. I know if you are a creative type, you may not want such rigidity and that is fine too, but even a cursory knowledge of the skills you will need is vital to getting that first marketing or advertising job.
Evaluate where you stand in relationship to each of the skills and traits you will need
The next step is to look at what you discovered and next to each area write down where you stand on it. For example if that first job you want says “Requires some HTML knowledge” and you wonder what happened to the vowels then it may be time to hit the bookstore or conversely if it says “Will need to work with several vendors” and you put together fundraisers for your sorority then you are probably pretty strong working with a large of number of service companies or organizations. The key is to address your weaknesses while you are still in school and have time to do something about it. It is much easier to build skills when you don’t have the pressure of finding a job than graduating and realizing that you are missing crucial skills or experience that you could have easily gotten exposed to while you were in university.
Try to work on projects and put yourself in situations where you will get a chance to improve in the areas you are weak
Like I said earlier the easiest way to do this is through your current internship, but if you do this early enough in your marketing or advertising education then you can actually use this to help you determine what kind of internship you want to get and work on your weaknesses that way. Another way is to volunteer at non-profits or get involved in school organizations. And of course don’t be afraid to make mistakes and ask questions, you won’t learn, grow or evolve without them.
