The Internship Pod: How did Lisa's internship go?

This week I had the opportunity to record a podcast episode for The Internship Pod with Doug, where we summed up my internship and tried to come up with some tips for future Zooma interns. 

I've now spent 14 weeks at Zooma, and time really flies by when you have fun. This episode discusses some of my reflections during the internship. Some of the topics were:

• How has the internship been, and what did I think it was gonna be like before I started?
• How has it been to work with Zooma's clients?
• Has anything surprised me?
• What advice would I give future Zooma interns?

To summarise the experience, I've had a great internship, I don't think I could've found a better place to finalise my education with. I've grown so much professionally as well as personally from this experience and the trust I've been given here, and I'm so glad that my time at Zooma isn't over.

For the possibly final time from me, I highly recommend you to subscribe to The Internship Hub if you're curious about an internship spot here, and if you want to hear more pod episodes from me or the rest of the Zoomers in the future you should subscribe to The Onlinification Pod on your preferred podcast platform below. There's also a full transcription of the episode further down.

If you're currently studying, I hope this episode got you interested in an internship at Zooma. If you want to apply, you can do so via the form on our contact page.

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Transcription

Doug Bolton: So, Lisa, welcome to The Onlinification Pod.

Lisa Sundgren: Thank you.

DB: First time in a podcast?

LS: Yeah, ever, I've never been in one.

DB: And we're at the office as well. Usually we record online, but I thought I would drive here today so we could actually do it in person.

LS: Yeah, that's very nice.

DB: Bit of a last minute panic with batteries to the recorder, but we've solved that by now. So, um, so yeah, we've had quite a few pod episodes where we've just had people who work at Zooma to come and talk a bit about what they do and what Zooma does and what we're going to do in the future and stuff. And you are one of the newest additions, um, previously an intern, soon to be the newest Zoomer. So, why don't you start off and just tell us who you are and what you've been doing so far?

LS: Yeah, so I'm Lisa, as you mentioned, and I've been doing my final internship here at Zooma, which is a part of my education at IHM Business School, where I've been studying to become a digital marketing specialist. And I've been a part of the content team mainly, and I've been doing some work and I've been working both with internal Zooma things and for some clients as well. A very varied workload.

DB: Yes, it usually is at Zooma. So this is the second internship. You had one before and then now you're at the end of your course. When did that start? That was two years, right?

LS: Yeah, it's a two year long program. So I had one internship last year as well. And it was a bit shorter because I had to switch in the beginning. But that was fun as well. I worked at a B2B event company and helped them with their social media, emails and things like that.

DB: Okay. And I've never you know, I've studied as well, but not the same topics that you have. But like, how was that both at Zooma and at the previous internship? Like going from learning about all this stuff in a classroom to actually working?

LS: It's been difficult. The last internship, they only had one other marketing person and they didn't really have the capacity to do anything of the things I've studied to the full extent, they were very locked in their old ways for some reasons I didn't really understand. So I've learned a lot during my time here because I've been able to try everything and anything I've wanted. As soon as I figure something out, like if I want to try it, you just told me to go ahead. So that's been a lot of fun and it's been very interesting to see how the things I do affect someone else's work. Like if I've done an analysis, then how are we going to split it and do the content for it and things like that?

DB: Yeah, exactly.

LS: So that's been fun.

DB: You've almost finished your internship now, and it started in January?

LS: February.

DB: February, February. And then the last day is in a couple of weeks.

LS: In a week.

DB: In a week?

LS: Yeah, next Friday.

DB: It seems like it's gone very.quick, right?

LS: It's gone so quick. The first few weeks were a bit slow, but it's because there's so much information to take part of and understand how procedures work here and everything like that. And then in the middle, when I started working with clients, it was all over again, trying to understand how things are done for each different client. But after all that is done, the time has flown by so quickly.

DB: I think, yeah, it seems to go quick. I think because you end up jumping around with so many different things, and that's kind of what it is being an agency, you know, because I worked at somewhere else before I worked at Zooma, which was just a company, and then I was just focusing on the business of one company, basically. Whereas here, you know, I have work with lots of customers. I guess it was kind of similar if you were to compare the first internship, right?

LS: Definitely, yeah.

DB: So before you started, and then obviously first internship wasn't an agency, how did you think it was going to be?

LS: I wasn't too sure. I was recommended by my teacher in data analytics to apply here when she heard that, I wanted to learn more about SEO, and when I looked at your website, it didn't say anywhere that you worked with SEO, so I didn't really know what to expect from there. But then I saw that you have focused on how your solutions are for the clients instead, which I really liked. And then I realized the more I read through it that, okay, you do everything you can imagine that I've studied. So I was really excited. Yeah.

DB: So how has it been to to work with customers? Because it's not, we've had a few interns in the past and usually sometimes they end up working with customers in some capacity. But you've actually done quite a lot of important work for big customers of Zooma, and was that kind of a challenge to just be thrown into that, you know, during an internship?

LS: Not really, I feel like everyone has taken such good care of me, like making sure that I know what to do and everything, and I always have someone to ask for help if I don't understand anything. It's mostly just scary because the customers are so big. So that's been the scary part. Just knowing that, oh, what if I do this wrong? What happens then? But nothing like that has happened. So it's been a lot of fun. I've been doing a lot of different things for them as well, like trying to do keyword research in languages you don't speak yourself has been a challenge.

DB: You've had a express course in Italian, I think, before you started, right?

LS: Yeah, Italian, Danish, lots of languages.

DB: And your other classmates on the course. Where have they ended up?

LS: Oh, they've been in many places. I have some friends who are at agencies as well. Some have been working in-house for other companies like Axkid and Jollyroom and things like that. And most have actually gotten to work, they've been offered a job at their internship, which has been a lot of fun to hear and, one even works at one of our partners here at Zooma, Comactiva. So that's fun as well.

DB: Comactiva together with Linda Gårdlöv, who is a previous alumni of The Onlinification Pod. Um, so I'm interested in, uh, you know, obviously you learn how things, I guess you could say, like how it should be done, you know, on your course and then you come to like, how we do it at least, or how it happens in real life. Like has it been any kind of contrast there, you know, with like the theory and then putting it into practice?.

LS: No, not really. Like, I feel like my courses, I discussed this with Alfred as well, I've had twice as many courses as him in two years. Right? So I've had like crash courses in all of the different topics we've had. So I feel like I've gotten a much broader perspective on the subjects when I've been working here, seeing a lot better, how they flow together, how a social media post affects like the website and traffic there and everything like that. Um, which has been great. Um, mostly I've been noticing the things that I was missing in school I've been struggling to do here as well. Like I don't really know how to pull data from Google Analytics and set it up in an Excel to compare it, because I've done all the reporting and analysis in the actual tool itself. So it's just different ways of working. That's been the challenge.

DB: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I definitely do a lot of learning on the job, you know, like you can still go a course with HubSpot or whatever, but it's, um, it's a bit of a luxury to have like, all the tools available to you right there and you can just test it.

LS: I've been spending like one day a week with the HubSpot Academy and that's been a lot of fun. I've been learning a lot about the HubSpot itself because we only had like barely one course with it. So that's been a lot of fun as well.

DB: And um, has it been anything that's been a surprise or that you weren't expecting?

LS: Maybe just Anders pranking me when I'm trying to get into the office? But yeah, but not really any. I've been a bit surprised by the trust you're given really quickly. Like since we can work remotely, like you get your tasks to do and your projects and you're expected to do them. And I haven't really had that trust before at a workplace. It's always been like a supervisor working with you almost every step of the way because you're so new.

DB: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's an advantage with IHM, and then also with Alfred and Sam, who were also here that, uh, this is your second internship. You know, someone else has taken the first bit, and then we get you when you're basically almost finished and completely qualified, you know? So what happens now when you finish? Do you have, like, a celebration ceremony kind of thing?

LS: Yeah, we have on the 1st of June, so I'm gonna ask to be free the day after at least. But I'm completely finished with everything. My last assignment was done last week, so it's just finishing up the internship these two weeks and then it's just waiting for the exam, the graduation.

DB: And, I actually spoke to the person who's in charge of your course, because that's part of the whole thing, you know, that I need to, check in with them a couple of times, and she was asking for feedback about, you know, what I think the course should be focusing on. Like, do you have any ideas about that now that you've been here? Like something that you wish could have been included or that you might have spent more time on when you were studying?

LS: I don't really know because the internships for us are so broad. Like we don't really have any guidelines compared to Alfred and Sam. They have a very specific assignment to do during their time, but since we can be everything from a marketing automation specialist to a SEO specialist to a digital marketing specialist who is just working with strategists all day, they can't really niche it down and make it more specific. Um, so I don't know. I really like the way they have it right now because it's very free. Yeah, I wish we had an extra page or two to write an assignment. That's it.

DB: And what does that assignment look like, have you got a long report to write?

LS: We have 3 to 5 pages where we write about what we've been doing, uh, how we have developed our knowledge and things like that. And the final one is like, uh, a suggestion to Zooma what they should work on to be better at. And it was a pretty easy assignment to do since I've got to do so many different things.

DB: So, you will be finishing soon and then you're going to carry on at Zooma, which we're very happy about. So you won't be an intern anymore, but I'm sure we will have more interns in the future. And, you know, both from your school and from others, can you think of any, like, tips or anything you would give to someone who, you know, might be in your position in you know, January next year or maybe in the autumn, starting an internship at Zooma?

LS: They should be very open minded. Not that Zooma does anything weird or anything like that, but like, when I applied here, I was like, okay, I want to do SEO because I really want to focus on that and I want to learn more about content to help me further, like how good my optimizations are, when I do SEO. But I've gotten to do so many different things. I've been helping out with our own internal projects and campaigns, planning campaigns for us and I've been doing workflows and I've been doing some email marketing and now when I'm going to be a real Zoomer, I've been asked to be a production manager for projects and that's something I never thought I would do. So just be open minded to the things that you actually get to do here and take every chance you get to do something just to try everything out, because Zooma does everything. Which has been a lot of fun.

DB: I think that's a good tip, to kind of be open to trying things that you maybe haven't done before.

LS: I feel like it has helped my marketing thinking a lot to just try everything and just see how we do this, how it affects everything. And I think my education has been good at that as well. But now I can really see the thread between all of the different channels we've been working with.

DB: Yeah, exactly. Good. Well, I hope there's people listening, students who are looking for internships and maybe they come across this episode in six months or something when they have to apply, so they know what to expect a little bit. And of course you can apply to be an intern on zooma.agency, I should just throw that in there as well.

LS: Highly suggested.

DB: And yeah, we have a lot of pod content to produce, so I'm sure you will join again at some point, and maybe we should talk about SEO or something, because you've kind of become Zooma's SEO expert while you've been here and can do a lot more than I can. So that would be good.

LS: We should do it.

DB: Good. Well, thank you very much for joining. And yeah, we'll have you again as a guest soon.

LS: Sounds good. Thank you.