Date published: 09 January 2018 by Anna Jackson
My name is Max and I am an undergraduate studying business management. I joined Rainbow Trust as part of their digital team after my second year of university as I needed real world experience on my CV. Just having a degree doesn’t seem to be enough to stand out anymore.
When I joined Rainbow Trust I had never worked in an office environment, so immediately everything felt alien, running out the door was sounding very appealing. However, after talking to my new colleagues, I soon found that everyone was looking out for me, whether I didn’t know how to use a software or not knowing what to say when answering the phone, everyone was always extremely helpful.
I have been particularly impressed with the structure of the internship and how seriously Rainbow Trust take their interns, sometimes when you say you’ve done an internship people assume you’ve been making tea for a couple of months, but not here! When I arrived, I had a meeting with my manager about my personal goals and what I wanted to learn and gain from the internship, on top of this I have an online checklist of what I needed to be trained on, it’s extremely rewarding when you can finally tick everything off the checklist as you can see how much you’ve learnt.
My main tasks as part of the digital internship have been staying engaged with all social platforms to ensure that their audience is always well informed, this could be answering any questions that people have online, creating new content when Rainbow Trust’s social sites were looking a little thin, or keeping positive relations between Rainbow Trust and other businesses.
Another challenging task was learning their website CMS system for making webpages on their website, when my training begun on this program, it felt like I was trying to learn a new language, there were many times where I thought I understood the program but I kept getting stumped and doing things wrong, however with a lot of patience from the team I was finally got my head around the program and have now created many pages on the website, even entire campaigns!
Other parts of the internship included making emails that they would send to their supporters, giving weekly updates about what the digital team had been up to, making video content and using editing tools.
The experience I have gained from working at Rainbow Trust has given me invaluable experience, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I can now go into interviews knowing that I can give something to back.
Working an unpaid internship as a twenty year old was always going to be a challenge, and sometimes it was tough, however when you hear the feedback from families saying “your work is invaluable” and “we wouldn’t have been able to cope without you” it makes what you are doing completely worthwhile and gives you an immense sense of pride to know that you are making the lives of families with a seriously ill child, easier. I know that Rainbow Trust will continue to grow and help more families across the country who need their support, as their work is truly remarkable.
