Twitter - a useful tool for your placement search?

Usually, every couple of Saturday’s of each month, I’ll post a new exciting intern opportunity for students and graduates. However, this week, I’ve come to a little bit of a blank. After numerous attempts at researching on websites for publishing opportunities, i.e. ‘Prospects’ and ‘Rate My Placement’ - I’ve received nothing and simply told that there are ‘No Results Found’. In my despair I even ‘Googled’ the phrase ‘publishing opportunities’, and once again I came to a blank.

Are you finding yourself in a similar situation, when it comes to searching for intern opportunities?

Researching for placements and internships can be very time consuming. However, after reading an article on the Guardian Careers website today, called ‘Job Hunting on Twitter’, it inspired me to write this blog post, along. So instead of the normal ‘intern opportunity’ post, this is what you’re getting instead. Information about how you can search for intern placements on the social networking site Twitter.

I’m still relatively new to Twitter (@steff_lever) so, everyday I’m finding out new things and in essence, I’m trying to become a ‘pro Tweeter’. During this time, I’ve come across quite a lot of profiles - mostly aimed at career s and recruitment. Of course, inevitably I follow these little profiles of ‘intern gold’, and thus I get regular intern opportunities displayed on my Twitter feed every day.

Don’t worry though; you don’t need to join Twitter if it’s not your ‘thing’. Instead, I’ll just paste below a few Twitter profiles, which are useful and worth checking out for opportunities. Remember, you can browse all of these without signing up.

Twitter profiles that are great for intern opportunities/careers help: @4Talent @voxpopPRcareers @Prospects. @GuardianCareers @bbc3tv @futurerising @SYP_UK @internaware @gradvine @Careercake.com and so on.

Of course, there will be many more so get researching.

Snapshot Diary - London Confidential July-September 2011

London Confidential was my first work placement where I was able to try out a bit of journalism and writing. I’ve always had a passion for writing, which started during English Lit A-Level, where evitably I was writing a lot of essays.

I came across London Confidential, a relatively new online magazine company that is based in London, whilst searching for journalism based placements. Once I applied, I had to attend a short interview with the Listings Editor, at this point I was confirmed a placement shortly after. This placement was longer than others and instead of being full time; it was just 2 days a week. This suited me fine, as at the same time, I was working 3 days a week at OldCastle Books.

Anyway, I didn’t have any set tasks as such, except that that I had to be able to write articles – one article per day. Even though at first, it didn’t seem to be varied in terms of tasks, I found it varied in terms of the articles I wrote. I would do articles covering various sections of the magazine like, beauty, fashion, arts and entertainment. So, to say the least, I did enjoy my time at LC, going on this placement definitely reignited my passion for writing. Overall, during my time there, the office environment was comfortable and the Editors were quite helpful.

In addition, LC was very flexible about working from home, which would be great for students/graduates that can’t afford the expenses (such as travel). However, a major plus is, unlike some companies, LC do pay for all your expenses (lunch and travel) - as long as receipts are kept. I would recommend this placement for anyone who wants to do writing based work.

Website Pick of the Week

This week I have chosen a website that I came across via Twitter. The website is called careercake.com, which is a blog offering great advice, and tips for people on how to kick start their career. The Career Cake blog was created by Aimee Bateman, and features professional videos covering a range of careers. However, if you don’t have a specific one in mind, why not have a look at the more generic ones such as, ‘CV Advice – the personal profile’ or ‘What to ask the interviewer?’. It’s a very useful blog and it is particularly interactive - I highly recommend it.

Visit Career Cake @ http://careercake.com/

Snapshot Diary - Orion Books July 2011

I undertook a placement at Orion in between my time working at OldCastle Books. This is because I was keen to get back into working life at a larger company. At Orion, I was working in the publicity department. When I think back to my Orion placement, I always think about how little I was actually doing. It makes me think of the whole intern and employer debate, about whether employers are taking on interns instead of full time employees (because obviously it’s cheaper), but this certainly wasn’t the case at Orion. I definitely wasn’t replacing anyone full time.

Although the employees were very nice and friendly, unfortunately the work flow didn’t match up to my own expectations. Perhaps, one could argue that by this time I’d already been on numerous placements, and maybe the more and more experienced I got, the less stimulating intern work was me – partly I think that’s probably true.

As always though, I will provide a small list below of what I was doing on my placement.

These are the tasks I was involved in:

• General admin duties
• Web-link checking
• Editing Documents
• Showcards
• Mail outs

Overall, this wasn’t a placement I would rate highly in terms of productivity but in general it was a nice workplace. Though, I probably should have just stayed for the 1 week as opposed to two.

Keeping you updated...

I hope everyone has had a really good week, and taken advantage of all the opportunities that I have blogged so far.

Some of you may already know what I have been up to since my last ‘Keeping you updated...’, but for those unaware, I will paste some links below, which you can take a look at. Namely, this is my debut Guardian article and the debut of ‘Steff’s Love Column’, which went live on Cocokouture on the 11^th October 2011.

• http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/publishing-internships-sandwich-year
• http://www.cocokouture.com/category/luxe-life/steffs-love-column

I also want to take this opportunity to express my delight in the feedback I have received from people. It’s great to know that my blog has helped you, and I’m always happy to hear this. As usual, feel free to email me at steff.lever@gmail.com if you’d like some personal advice.

Looking at the feedback I have received the past few weeks, I’ve gained more inspiration about future upcoming blogs. These include:

• Top 5 Tips to creating an impressive cover letter
• Why am I not getting employer responses and what should I do?

Of course, I will be continuing to provide my snapshot diaries; there are still about 4 more to be posted up. Additionally, I’m working hard on Twitter to try and get well-known Editors to provide us with their number 1 top tip for interns. I have a few so far, but ideally I would like a couple more before I publish the page.

Lastly, don’t forget that to avoid constantly checking my blog for new posts, you can easily subscribe to it via email. This way you’ll get new blog posts straight to your inbox, once you do, make sure you activate the subscription by following the link in the initial email.

It’s great to already see a steady increase in email subscriptions and followers. Thanks for all your support.

Snapshot Diary - OldCastle Books June 2011

I was really lucky to find this placement as OldCastle Books is probably one of the smallest book publishers in the UK, and it was great because it was walking distance from my parent’s house.

After being at 2 smaller book publishers (Little Tiger Press and John Blake), I wanted to once again sample working life in a smaller place. I spent a few months there, so it was also one of the longest placements I have been on. The greatest part of this placement was being able to do a lot of varied tasks. I was able to spend time with the MD, and mix with a team of people who are close and tight-knit.

At OldCastle Books, I spent time out of the office as well as in. For example, I was delighted to be able to work at the book launch for Lyndsay Russell and to publicise Clem Chamber’s books in London – this even got coverage in the local magazine Harpendia. (http://www.harpendia.com/Books.html)

These are the other tasks I was involved in:

• General admin duties (of course)
• Database work
• Using spreadsheets for data input
• Producing files as part of E-book production
• Digital marketing
• Mail outs
• Checking Amazon Rankings and Author Pages

Overall, this is probably the number one book placement I’ve had in terms of the variation of tasks given. In my opinion it was definitely worth the experience and I developed my skills a great deal.

Penguin - Getting into Publishing

This is a great book publishing event, which I must admit, I've had my eye on since last year. Penguin's annual open day called 'Getting into Publishing' is both for students and recent graduates, who are keen to gain a bit more of an insight about the book publishing world. The event is via invitation only, and due to the volume of candidates will be decided upon an application, which will contain your CV and cover letter.

Anyone with an interest in book publishing should definitely apply.

To apply for an invite, email: gettingintopublishing@penguin.co.uk

Don't forget to include, your CV and cover letter, name, University and graduation year.

DEADLINE: OCTOBER 14TH

Internship opportunity with Cocokouture

Cocokouture is an online New York based magazine company who are seeking new interns. The candidates can apply for any section of the magazine, which covers all sorts from beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. As the work is all online based, interns do not need to be from New York or America, they can be living anywhere. I'm proof of this, as I am a current intern at Cocokouture, and so far I've really enjoyed my time with them. I've even got my very own 'Steff's Love Column' going live on Monday the 10th of October - so don't miss it.

Anyway, don't delay in making your application as it's great experience to have on your CV.

To apply visit: http://www.cocokouture.com/contact/internship-opportunities

CV Workshop - 'Skills' heading

If this is the first time you are viewing this blog series, please refer back to the first summary post called 'CV Workshop - Top 5 Headings for your CV'.

I have left one of the most important CV headings till last; this is because this section should be a very clear and concise part of your CV. This is significant as employers will want to look here to determine your suitability for the job/placement.

I’ve placed key skills at the end of my CV, but really you can put it anywhere, the reason I placed it at the bottom is because it seemed like a nice section to round off my CV. Thus, effectively I’ve got a section summary containing the skills that I’ve learnt from the above (education, employment history and experience).

A really obvious skill to include in this section would be your computer skills. This skill is one of the most significant these days as everything is going electronic so, your employer will want to know whether you’re at least computer literate and to what standard. This is particularly true in the publishing industry - they do want people with computer skills. These skills are transferable in terms of Ebook production, websites and digital marketing. Luckily I have a double A-Level in ICT so I have quite a lot of computer skills that I can put in this section. However, if you’re struggling with this section you should at least put some of the basic skills down. This could include MS office package (a lot of people can use MS office), familiarity with a MAC or Windows operating system, typing speed etc. It’s definitely the little skills which will count – so don’t leave stuff out thinking that it will just be assumed.

As always, don’t forget to keep this section consistent with the other headings. So, I’ve spoken before about indentation and bolding/italicising fonts; make sure this heading is the same. Keep your font between 10 and 12, so that it’s readable and make sure you’re not too experimental with size or fonts – if in doubt, you can’t go wrong with size 12 times new roman.

I hope you’ve found the CV workshop series useful. At a later date, I will do a template for a CV, so that it can be more easily visualised.

Do you want a fashion internship at Debenhams?

Debenhams are a highly respectable and fashionable brand who are looking for a Fashion PR intern. This will be for a 3 week, full time duration. They are ideally looking for someone who has a keen interest in fashion, but also willing to work in a busy PR office. This would be a great placement to have on your CV.

Closing date: 14th of October 2011

Please apply via vox-popPRcareers.

vox-popPRcareers has an extensive database of PR jobs, search it today @ http://www.vox-pop.co.uk/