Indea: My BristolGrad Internship experience

My internship with the Careers Service as the BristolGrad Careers Support Intern was a great opportunity to gain loads of skills with a super-supportive team behind me.

Picture of Indea. A young woman smiling as she stroked a large ginger cat
Indea and a furry friend

Let me set the scene: I was a wide-eyed Arts graduate, leaving university to enter the world of work in 2020 – in the middle of a pandemic. After months of rejections (or just being ghosted by employers), and a job I didn’t love, I spotted the chance to apply for the BristolGrad internship.

My role consisted of supporting the delivery of the BristolGrad project. You can find out more about how the Careers Service supports graduates on our website. Because we were focusing on supporting a varied cohort, my role was also varied.

I wrote the fortnightly newsletter to recent graduates and worked with the Comms team at the Careers Service to market events and services to graduates. I used our database system to compile and analyse data on our graduates, to inform decisions on how to better help them. I created a script and began the calling campaign to check in with recent grads and attended meetings within our team and across the University to stay up to date and inform others. During my internship, I designed, wrote, and presented a review of a software program we explored incorporating into our practice.

The best thing about the internship?

The best thing about my internship was its flexibility. Working with my manager, Gareth, I spent time at the beginning of the internship designing my goals and discussing what I wanted to achieve. The Careers Service team supported my development and provided extra opportunities to help me build on my skills. It was great to develop my professional skills in such a caring environment, and I felt really lucky to be able to pretty much design a lot of the internship around my own interests.

Skills I developed

I was really interested in developing skills in comms and marketing, and I got to use software like Mailchimp and Canva as well as analyse performance through Google Analytics. I also wanted to gain some data analysis skills, so using our database to create reports about the BristolGrad cohort was a great introduction to these areas. I learnt time-management and project-management skills and also just professional skills – what it’s like to go into the office, how to settle into a workplace, when to email vs. when to use MS Teams to message. These are the kind of things I didn’t even think about learning but are super important!

How did it turn out?

My internship was a thorough and interesting introduction to the world of work. I was lucky to be very well-managed and be offered support throughout, as well as building up great relationships with colleagues, and I really felt like I was helping people. After completing about 5 months of my internship, I applied for and got a permanent role within the Careers Service, and I’m still very happily working there now!

How to prepare

Here are my top tips if you’re interested in applying for the internship.

  • Read the job advert carefully. Make sure your application addresses everything listed in the person specification.
  • Give yourself time to complete the application to a standard you’re happy with and have someone read over it for you.
  • Make sure any accessibility needs are accounted for. Please get in touch to explain your needs and ask for any measures that would make the process better for you.
  • Use the Careers Service resources to improve your CV, write your covering letter, and practise your interview skills!

The BristolGrad Careers Support Intern role is now live on mycareer and applications close on Friday 15 July at 23:59 pm.

Visit mycareer to find out more and apply