The internship as a social media marketing intern in the energy labelling start-up, Label UP, became a lifebuoy during the disturbing period of my life. The first two months can be considered an adaptation phase as my internship was full-time, so I had to organise my life equally devoting time to new job responsibilities, new courses, and my personal interests. I successfully managed to squeeze my life in the new frames waking up at 7 am and going to bed at 10 pm. I was excited and full of enthusiasm as the working atmosphere that Label UP team had created inside the office was very friendly and supportive. My colleagues were patient in teaching me how to use all necessary for fulfilling my tasks applications even though my Dutch skills were far from perfect. Their constant support and attempts to involve me in the personal communications helped me to come out of my shelf building more buddy-like relationships with my co-workers.
After my adaptation period ended the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine started that drastically changed my life as me and my family were against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I was worried how my colleagues might change their attitude towards me as I was Russian. However, nothing in our professional and personal relationships had changed, and the office manager comforted me multiple times. My internship helped me not to lose a solid ground under my feet when my motivation was down, and all I could think about was the war. I still had the regime which I developed during the first two working months, so I tried to stick to it. Consequently, I managed not only to successfully perform my everyday tasks, but also improved my grades which lead me to a place offer on the exchange programme.
During the third month of my internship period, the head of the company began addressing me personal commissions such as organising a corporate event or interviewing candidates for the interior designer position for the new website. I devoted half of my working time to putting my Communication Science knowledge into practice by developing new social media marketing strategies, creating, and publishing content, and analysing the audience feedback. Nevertheless, my focus was on maintaining the stable flow of publications to Label UP accounts in different social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, I also got opportunity to improve my writing skills by writing the articles for the blogs section of the company’s website. What is more, I was responsible for assisting office managers with operational tasks such as issuing invoices to clients, communicating with the real estate agents, and organising project folders. At the end of my internship period, I was glad that I selected to start my career path with working in the start-up instead of applying to a corporation. Label Up gave me a chance to try myself in a wide range of professional activities so I will have a better understanding of my preferences in the future.
If you want your first, second or third job experience to be as positive as possible, you should apply to Label UP as they have two open vacancies right now: social media marketing intern and business support intern. Open communication between employees, and between employees and an upper management, embedded in the corporate culture, great team spirit, maintained by team building events, no extra working hours and promising career perspectives are what you can expect being a part of Label UP.
*In addition, the most important bonus for me was an office dog, Gijs.
