During at least one point during your educational or professional career, somebody had to take a chance on you, and that one chance hopefully helped push you to where you are today. The team at Inner Spark believes it is important to take time to invest in the up and coming professionals within the Auburn community, to share the skills and knowledge that come with working in a professional environment. Helping students at Auburn University learn and develop their advertising and public relations skill sets benefits the student, the community and our company.
Inner Spark is proud to be a member of the Auburn community and has developed an intern program that helps prepare students for their bright futures ahead. The program includes:
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Mentoring
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Providing industry insight
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Giving career advice
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Helping to network for future jobs
Hands-on application of information outside the classroom immensely helps students grow in their desired fields.
Mentoring
Learning in the classroom is important but can only take you so far, it helps to apply that knowledge an internship or career. Providing career advice through mentorship is a great way to engage with a few students on a smaller scale while providing insight on their desired careers. At Inner Spark, our internship program works to provide one-on-one guidance to help them be successful in our program and in their career. Our agency assists with student’s job/internship searches, teaching new industry skill sets and setting student up for networking success. As an independent mentor, you can do something as small as setting up a coffee date once a month to talk about the industry, help go over resumes, or to assist with a job hunt. Helping to train the next industry professionals is a way Inner Spark works to help cultivate student’s skill set and give back to the Auburn community.
Providing industry insight
On campus, there are a lot of organizations that look toward practicing professionals for real-time insight. Speaking at organizational meetings, conferences, or sessions can be a great way to give students perspective on the day-to-day of the industry they are striving for. For example, our agency speaks at student organizations like the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) to help students in those organizations witness agency professionals first-hand. Hearing from professionals that are in fields of interest for the students helps them gauge if they’re on the right path, network and translate their academic knowledge to their future careers.
Giving career advice
When you’re a student, the world of jobs and careers can seem daunting and scary. As an industry professional you can give back through career advice to dull that intimidation factor. This can include anything from writing advice columns on LinkedIn, one-on-one meetings, or speaking to bigger groups of students about your career path. Learning from people who have already been through their internship and career search can be very beneficial. At Inner Spark, we advise our interns on the do’s and don’t’s of resumes, cover letters and interviews, and we find it makes a big impact on the success of students. Often when students are beginning their internship and job search they don’t know where to start, and you can help them run the race to the finish line.
Networking
As the saying goes, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This statement could not be more true, especially in fields like marketing, advertising and public relations. Students will often reach out to alumni or other professionals in neighboring areas for guidance, and this is a great opportunity to help them out. To help with networking, we use both our personal networks and the networks of our internship alumni to help our interns. Any connections you can provide students will help them immensely.
Hiring interns
A lot of the students look for internships that coincide with their selected fields of study. Some of the colleges require the students to do an internship for credit, so this is a great avenue to help further the academic and professional careers of students. Internships are a great outlet for students to learn and experience marketing, advertising, and public relations on a deeper level. Our program provides a great learning experience for the students and we want them to find our program appealing. It is because of this, we love furthering the students’ educations through our internship program. Having a comprehensive program is beneficial to the business and helps grow the skill sets of students along the way. An intern is more than just a hand to go on a coffee run, and it is important to provide them the strong foundations they need before starting on their job hunt.
There are a lot of ways to give back to the community through mentoring, advice, internships and more. Inner Spark loves the opportunity to meet students each semester and share our knowledge with them as they become aspiring professionals. Everyone needs somebody to invest in their personal development and career growth at some point and, with the wonderful community that Auburn is, we love being able to give back to the students at Auburn University.
If you or someone you know is interested in the hands-on experience Inner Spark provides during their internship program, check out our internship posting here: https://www.innerspark.rocks/