My name is Amalia Băjănaru and I have just finished my summer internship, where I had the pleasure of working as a Recruitment Intern within the Unitemps team in ISG. Although I will be continuing in the role next semester, I wanted to reflect on my unusual time as an intern so far. It has been a balance between improving the intern experience and learning how to navigate it myself.
How did it all start?
Like some of you reading this article, I was brutally hit by the reality of finishing the penultimate year of my degree without any work experience outside of hospitality, or relevant to any potential postgraduate career paths. Thus, I set my mind on getting an internship for the summer, despite lacking a clear direction for where I wanted my career to go. I applied for plenty of internships with the university, through both Unitemps and Employ.ed. I initially tried to keep my options open, yet doing that resulted in less impactful job applications and quite a few rejections. In hindsight, the applications that tend to stand out are the ones with a balance of relevant experience and genuine interest in the position. This is especially true in a competitive job market where most people will have the essential experience for the job. This realisation came after having been rejected from jobs I would fit the criteria for on paper, yet I had no real motivation to do.
Some things that I haven’t mentioned and may be relevant here are that as a first-generation university student I was also clueless when applying for corporate roles. Thus, in an attempt to help myself, I extensively researched the internship application process, and booked myself onto 1-to-1 Career Advisor meetings as well as Internship Guidance Sessions led by the Unitemps team. Combined, these things helped me understand how the internship application process worked but also, unknowingly, familiarise myself with the Unitemps team.
With my rejections coming through after most summer internship applications closed, I was starting to lose the hope of getting work experience for the summer. However, whilst I was looking for a summer internship, it turned out that the Unitemps team was also still looking for their summer intern. This sounded like a match made in heaven, especially after reading the essential and desired requirements, which I seemed to fit seamlessly.
Thus, after being asked for an interview, I booked myself in for a Careers’ Service practice interview and started reading the posts of past student workers on this blog. It turned out that the last blog posted was from someone who just finished in the exact role I was applying to. Reading their post made me realise how well my past experiences and values aligned with the internship I was now set on getting. That discovery gave me so much more confidence going into my interview. I really hope at least some of you will get to experience this level of things clicking into place. Just like that, after a lot of work put into the summer internship application process, I ended up becoming the perfect candidate for a Recruitment Internship and securing the position.
How did my summer go?
As much as I was over the moon to have secured an internship, I quickly realised I had a lot to learn as a Recruitment Intern, all whilst I needed to adjust to the pace and workload style of an office environment. Initially I was tasked with organising intern events and making posts within the ISG Student Worker Forum. I loved doing this as it gave me the chance to connect with other interns, which I had expected to be more challenging after joining late. It was also a great outlet for my creativity and social nature. I am so happy I was able to meet so many cool fellow interns as that made my experience interning this summer that much more enjoyable.
Soon after, I was introduced to how the recruitment process works within our Unitemps branch. The diagram below is my best try at showcasing this in an easy-to-follow manner, with the writing in bold indicating tasks I learnt to manage throughout the summer.
Luckily, each of the five stages below were introduced to me individually. Whilst it meant I only had a complete picture of the process towards the end of my summer internship, this approach helped me understand each step better. It also got me focusing on doing everything accurately. Since unspotted little mistakes can have drastic consequences in this job, such as a student not getting paid on time, the stakes seemed quite high initially. With time however, as I was getting to grips with each task and how they all fit into the stages and the overall process showcased above, I was able to perform all of the tasks with little to no mistakes.
Within the last two and a half weeks of August, I managed to lead around 40 Right-to-Work check meetings. During that time, we were onboarding close to 150 student workers due to start around Welcome Week time. As we had at least 10 recruitment processes going on at a time during the whole of August, helping throughout the various stages meant I actually made a difference in the recruitment and successful onboarding of all those students. This in turn got me feeling like I actually made a difference within ISG and the University’s student body.
Ending note
Although this isn’t the end of my internship journey with Unitemps and I still have things to learn within my role, this summer felt immensely enriched by this internship. Whilst the fast-paced nature of the role meant there were many steep learning curves at times, being able to keep up with the busyness of the Unitemps department during peak recruitment time ended up being so rewarding.
