After taking all compulsory courses and writing my graduation project, it was time for me to taste the real adult life and complete an internship. This has been the final step in my Communication Science bachelor, and I couldn’t have been more eager to start my internship. Even if this meant a lot of anxiety over the internship search, some interviews and some rejections, my internship journey has been a positive one.
I mostly used LinkedIn to search for my internship and applied at whatever I could find – some could call me desperate. When I got the answer from CLUSE and was offered an interview, I knew it would be my first choice. One interview and one assignment later, I was offered the position and my journey was set to begin one month later.
CLUSE is a watches and jewellery brand, based and founded in Amsterdam in 2013. CLUSE’s vision is to provide people with an elegant and Parisian style and way of living through its accessories. It’s watches and jewelry are the perfect combination of minimalism and boldness; and its customers wear them in the same way – to make a statement. As an intern, I was part of the Brand communications team which focuses on collaborations with influencers. I was in charge of all unpaid collaborations with influencers in the Dutch market – that is influencers with a follower count between 2k and around 30k on Instagram.
What were my tasks?
In short, I had to search for new influencers each month that were a match with the brand and had the desired statistics. Then I had to contact these, negotiate the contract with them and finally send them the chosen products – either only watches or also some jewellery. The next step was to check whether they posted all the content we agreed on and if not, send reminders. The last step was to ask for their insights from the posts, so that I can create the monthly report with an overview of all collaborations of the month. Besides this, I was also in charge of conducting a competitor report each month – presenting one of the brand’s competitors and making an overview of their marketing strategy that month.
What are some key takeaways from my time at CLUSE?
- Even influencers with a lot of followers are people just like us and have their problems in their daily lives.
- There are outside factors influencing how things turn out – it’s not always your fault if things go wrong
- There are too many parents that want to make an influencer out of their baby
- Even hamsters can be influencers
- A great team does (positively) influence your job experience
