Week four boardrooms, break-outs and Bon Jovis greatest hits

Week four boardrooms, break-outs and Bon Jovi’s greatest hits by Michael Cheary Week four: boardrooms, break-outs and Bon Jovi’s greatest hitsOur interns are now halfway through their eight week internship here at reed.co.uk. In their first month they’ve learned a lot about how the business operates. Unfortunately, they may not have learned anything about good music.Here’s how they  got on at the halfway point:AndrewWoaah, We’re Halfway There!If my aim was to use as many clichéd terms as possible within three to four hundred words, then yes, time has been flying by for us interns.  To think that we’ve been here for so long and have been able to accomplish so much this past month makes the 4 weeks we have left seem daunting, but also something to look forward to.While I was at university, I was always concerned that I would never be qualified enough to do any sort of professional internship it takes me ages to read a balance sheet, finance can be a foreign language, and ‘Business Analyst’ was a title that seemed much too esteemed for what I thought I was capable of.  Truth be told, however, the skills that we have ended up using the most as interns is more often than not just a natural curiosity and drive to get a project done.Come up with more ways reed.co.uk can create entry points for new candidates?  Well first we have to go discover what kind of demographics they already have and what they don’t have.  Map the touch points all of our customers’ experience using journey mapping?  Another process and technique we have to acquaint ourselves with and figure out.  Want to see how reed.co.uk should be marketing to the next group of adults entering the workforce?  Then we first have to read up on studies done about Generation Z before making a recommendation.Being a new starter in a company is scary you think of how it’s going to work out and whether or not you’re going to meet expectations.  However, it’s been reassuring to figure out that one doesn’t always need to have the best technical background to be the best intern â€" putting the hours in often pays the biggest dividends.Now excuse me, I need to go get some Bon Jovi out of my head.StephanieAgile. Scrum. CX. Sprints. Daily stand ups. Break-outs. Scrum Master. So many foreign words from the reed.co.uk dictionary are being introduced to me on this internship. I’ve gone from awkwardly nodding my head and smiling in meetings to actually understanding the office terminology. I must say, understanding the practical implementations of these words does make you feel like you’ve unlocked a secret safe of knowledge here at reed.co.uk.Understanding the language was stage one, and now I’ve reached the next level: applying these various terminologies to our projects. Shadowing Sprint meetings and analysing the effectiveness of customer experience has given me new insight on how so many projects are tackled at once!Who would’ve thought, everything from stand ups to project demos actually do increase effici ency and productivity within the company. Okay, I know I’m showing off with the use of all of this jargon but believe me, I have earned my badge to do so! Excuse me as I’m off to a Sprint meeting, and don’t want to keep the Scrum Master waiting.Until next week world.AllyIt was cold in the boardroom last Wednesday. Whether it was the nerves or the air conditioning I don’t know, but it was cold and my fellow interns and I were sweating, despite the chill. We were presenting to a select handful of our colleagues at reed.co.uk, and the subject was jobseekers. The content of our presentation could have revolutionised the company or fluttered away meaninglessly like playing cards in the wind. It was game on.Fortunately we did our research. We unveiled our findings, spoke of our insights, and had conversation for dessert. It was a good hour.The presentation is where all the hard work here at Reed Online pays off. Like a lot of upstanding citizens we, the interns, value positive fee dback as one of the main benchmarks of success. An engaged audience and a sincere expression of gratitude are all we need to gauge the merit of collective hours spent tapping at our netbooks. So either we’re doing well or the staff at Reed Online are inordinately polite.Next week Wednesday, same time, same place, the stakes get bigger and the audience larger: we’re presenting a heftier project that took us more time to stitch together. All we can hope on is the enduring deference of our audience.ConnorAfter last week’s escapades, as you can imagine, I have become a bit more frugal â€" which means lunches have now been limited to the Sainsbury’s salad bar.On the subject of my work here at reed.co.uk, considering last week’s blog failed to have any relevance to it, I believe I have some catching up to do. These past two weeks have undoubtedly picked up pace. I’m not quite sure if this is because I have developed a routine, or just an addiction to caffeine let’s go with r outine.It is unquestionable that I have developed my computer/technical skills during my work over the past couple of weeks.And I am happy to say that I actually look forward to completing the various daily tasks that have been moulded into my routine, mainly because there’s a real sense of purpose and relevance to my particular interests and skillset.Yes, some tasks are repetitive (transferring customer contacts between databases anyone?), but I find myself completing the repetitive tasks as fast as possible and following up with the perennial intern favourite: ‘is there anything else you want me to do?’. Hey, sometimes pro-activity counts…Until next week. YaseenTo My Beloved Audience,I must dismally report that this fourth week blog marks the halfway point of my internship and, more importantly, my world famous blog. I am sure you desk-dwellers will find new avenues and mediums of entertainment in my absence, but I take solace in the fact that you will never find a more en tertaining array of Intern emotions so freely displayed.   I am writing this blog fresh off of my office drug of choice, Board Room Presentation Adrenaline, or rather BPA. I’m not sure why the R is not included in this acronym, nonetheless; it does not affect the chest pounding effects and its ability to instil superiority complexes within its abusers.Highs aside, I am beginning to dread the day when I must say bye to this office, and its lovely inhabitants. In the hopes that you will keep an open mind and ignore my naïveté, I can no longer restrain my emotions and must yell through my keyboard that my intern life at reed.co.uk is in fact better than 95% of all other internships.  I had to leave five percent for the select few and undeniably superior position of interning at Victoria’s Secret…I cannot tell you the satisfaction that comes with giving board room presentations every week, or having a work environment where we are surrounded by the technological superfluous wh ich only the likes of Google so often brag about.  Excuse the Disney channel theme propagation, but, I must say it is so truly rewarding to know that our work in analyzing various facets of the company are actually being used to adjust company procedures/products.  Unless of course it has been somehow possible that the ENTIRE reed.co.uk team is in on some plot to make us feel important, in which case, I would still commend them for such a unified and unwavering effort.I promise to unearth the truth behind reed.co.uk and in true detective fashion I will insist on taking my coffees shaken, not stirred.  You can be rest assured, as always, that I will keep my lovely audience up to speed on the latest.The interns have finished week four. Stay tuned to see how they get on in the coming weeks.