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There are many positives when it comes to interning for any company. So it might be in your best interest to consider joining the team at ADVFN for a week or ten.
You could expect to get a unique insight into working for an international company and with the business’s HQ based on Throgmorton Street, right in the heart of the city of London, you would jump straight into the deep end of the big, business ocean.
Getting a placement in any company can educate you in a number of areas, whether it be learning about the industry that the company is in and how it relates to another, or allowing you to grasp a rough idea of what working in an office environment is like. You could expect to leave with a much better idea of some of the possible steps you could take, no matter what stage you are at, after your education.
My father always tells me, “what do opinions and navels have in common? Every idiot has got one.” To this end, do not just take it from me, a 20 year old student. Clem Chambers, the CEO of ADVFN, said himself: “Think of the world of work like a castle, you can’t possibly tell what the inside is like when you are on the outside, but being an intern allows you to jump over the wall and see the inside of the castle, and just how it works.”
ADVFN Newspaper’s Chief Political Correspondent and Contributing Editor, Tom Frew, is a former intern himself, for the Liberal Democrats, and shared some of his thoughts on the subject. He said “[internships] simply are the best way of learning and demonstrating the practical skills employees are looking for. In my view, they are as important as a degree. Mine lead to a career, so I am certainly a fan of them.” There really are a vast number of priceless lessons that you can learn as an intern to help prepare you for the reality of work. Tom said, “it’s like road-testing a job and finding out whether it’s actually what you want to do” and even if during your time interning you realise it is not what you want to do, the opportunity to learn practical skills that University simply can’t teach you is one to be jumped on if you ask me.
Fiona Craig, who leads the publishing arm of the company, told me about some of the benefits of internships to a company, besides the extra teas and coffees… She told me, “in explaining how a particular function in the company works to somebody new, you often highlight things that need to be changed, or you end up learning things that you didn’t know yourself,” On occasion though, due to the sometimes limited time with a company, as soon as an intern becomes a real benefit to the work force, they are gone! It is important with any placement you get to be there for more than 5 minutes. This not only means you have time to settle and integrate, but will also benefit the company which can attract them to have you in the first place.
I am reminded that it’s not all work and no play as I have an amusing chat with the UK Fundamentals Manager, Shivantha Thambirajah, who tells me I have been a terrible intern! While asking him about his view on internships it becomes clear to me that just because you are bound by a 9-5 schedule and firmly a part of this weird new concept of “the work place”, it does not mean you cannot enjoy yourself. One comment that Shiv made, which I completely agree with, is that, “each intern can extract how much they want to from the role and the ones who out-shine the rest are the ones who show passion and dedication.” It is common sense, if you turn up late, leave early and put your feet up for the few hours that you are there, then what do you expect to learn? The effort you put in “will come through in your work, and that will ultimately be to the benefit of both intern and company,” more wise words from Shiv.
Mexico’s country manager, Eden Smith, says it’s a great way of safely entering the world of work. Eden closely supervises all of her interns and says that the key to success for an intern is to be self motivated. “Come in with an open mind in order to get the most out of it and the longer you work the more you will learn.”
I have spent only 3 weeks with the company and next week I am off to a different company, in a completely different industry. I would much rather be on holiday somewhere, as I’m sure any would. However it is necessary these days for anyone job-hunting to have some good juicy internships on their CVs. Plus if you are very lucky, an internship can lead to a job with a company later.
