Diary of an eventeem Intern: Emily Powell-Jones
Welcome to an insight into what it is like to be an intern at the eventeem agency in Cardiff!
First, a little about me, my name is Emily, recently turned 21, and a student from Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales studying Events Management (scarily approaching my final year!). I found the Intern position at eventeem with the help of my university, and, within a couple of days of applying for the position, I was interviewing at the offices, here’s how it went…
A Day In The Life: eventeem Intern
Week 1
I am not a morning person, as a student I’m not used to seeing the mornings or the sun all that often, so my 30 minute stroll to the office was more of a sleep walk. I arrived to a lovely warm welcome from the team, and put some names to faces.
As this is my first proper taste of the world of events management, and also an office environment, I was eager to start doing some work and show that I’m more than capable.
My job is to find and recruit promotional staff in Cardiff, bringing them in to the office for a casting to see if they fit the role. I spent the majority of my morning going through Facebook, booking the people who showed interest in castings.
Later in the day, I shadowed Ceri with some work that she was doing for Rachel’s Organic, and watched her arrange the staff and requirements for a sampling day at Tesco’s HQ. Ceri then showed me how to create staff profiles, and also profile packs for the company to see who they are working with.
What I love about eventeem already is that even though I am just an intern to the team, they want me to get the most out of my short time here, taking onboard as much as I can. I’m excited to see what the next three weeks entails.
For the next few days, I worked on recruiting more people for the casting day, contacting universities and applicants directly, as well as flyering throughout the city centre. This is much harder than anyone thinks, lots of people aren’t willing to even have a conversation with you, I definitely have a new level of respect for the promotional staff! I walked home somewhat heavy hearted, but decided to take a different tack, distributing the flyers door to door.
Nearer the end of the week, I worked on building information on the top 100 FMCG brands, for business development purposes. For this, I got familiar with LinkedIn, discovering who was who in the brand world, and keeping my eyes peeled for certain job roles that would be most relevant to the business, should they decide to contact them in future.
Week 2
Week 2 begins, the early starts are normal now, luckily it has not rained once, so my walks to eventeem are rather pleasant… trying not to jinx myself here. I started the week by getting familiar with the database, Watu, used for both job adverts and staff payments. The profiles have pictures of staff at promotional jobs, enabling the next client to see what they’ve been up to. For the first few days of the week, my job was to trawl the database, finding out whose pictures needed an update. The database is huge, so it did take me a while to work through everyone!
Wednesday was the Champions League casting day! It was arranged for the models to come in for a time slot, for an interview and a few professional photos. I thoroughly enjoyed this day as, although I was only filling out forms and chatting to the models, I felt I bonded well with the eventeem staff, leaving as more than just an intern!
After Wednesday, there was only one more day to go for the week, Easter weekend was fast approaching! I started the morning with the database updates, and then I was set the task I thought would break me… 500 postcodes in two hours. Some may sigh and say this is easy, but it was the most stressful thing I’ve had to do, and the most pressure I’ve been under in a long time.
My concentration was unbreakable, doing 2.5 postcodes a minute for Tesco stores across the UK. Unfortunately, I failed miserably, and had only done 270 when the two hours were up, feeling defeated I continued, and with a little help from Ceri, powered on through. Three hours and fifteen minutes later, the list was complete, Phew!
Week 3
Week 3 begins on a Tuesday, another short week, and I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by! Tuesday consisted of a few tasks, starting with finishing off the Watu accounts and replying to emails. I then got the chance to do some research for a possible event that eventeem may be taking on, letting my creative juices flow. I was researching upcycling and how to rework clothes, so that they look completely different… or at least a little jazzier!
My main goal was information, researching eco-friendly campaign which includes promotional gift ideas, potential venues, and contacting people in the upcycling industry to find out more about what they do. It was so interesting seeing something old transformed into some completely different and rather beautiful! I also got to shadow Ceri, who showed me how to write a proposal and how she goes about research. I never quite understood, until that point, how much work and planning goes into events, as the only events I have held are university based and not exactly large scale! This is knowledge that I will take with me into the future, and I really am grateful I got to have input with that project.
Near the end of the week, I got to do a little work towards Uni. I’m often far too tired when I get home from my placement, and I work the weekends back home in Devon, so that was incredibly helpful for me to kickstart a bucket load of work I needed to do before Uni started again.
As the week drew to a close, I came to reflect on my time here as an intern at eventeem, and I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunities given to me, I will cherish the experience forever. I have learnt the world of marketing and promotion, is NUTS! It is incredibly fast moving, constantly changing, and always keeps you in your toes. I applaud you eventeem, for all the hard work you put into your jobs, you’re the hardest working bunch I know! It has been a fun few weeks, filled with hard work, but also a lot of fun, thank you for having me!
It’s a real pleasure for us to open the doors on life at eventeem! For more information on what we do, or even just a quick chat, contact us today, we’d love to hear from you!