*cue cheesy intro music* Hi, my name is Jonathan and I am a marketing intern at InternMatch. Here’s my story. *end music*
I started my internship early in April while still studying at UC San Diego, working just ten hours a week and holding down two other internships on the side. InternMatch was the fifth (and hopefully last) company I had interned for and hands down, it was the best internship I had ever done. Two things made it stand out from the rest.
1) Ownership of projects
From part time to full time, interning at InternMatch always meant there were projects that were assigned to me. The other InternMatch interns both marketing and development expressed the same enthusiasm and surprise over how much ownership they had over projects. The Mastering Summer Internship blog series and Internship activities were both intern run projects. Success of these projects depended completely on the intern’s efforts, which made us feel like a valued part of the team.
Over the summer I was in charge of employer lead generation. I wrote the copy, decided on the budget and built the landing pages for our Facebook ad campaigns. I was tasked with building out a process to win customers from our competitors. Towards the end of the internship, I was put in charge of building autoresponder email campaigns, something that was completely new to InternMatch and which no one on the team had any experience with.
A sense of ownership combined with the supportive management of Nathan, under whom I felt safe to make mistakes led to a strong dedication to my work. Even data entry and grunt work did not bother me because it was towards my own projects with my own goals. At the end of the internship, I felt incredibly accomplished as I could point to results that benefited InternMatch’s bottom line and say that it my doing.
2) Office culture
I have never worked at an office that was so welcoming, playful and transparent. Immediately, on my first day I felt I was part of the team. In addition, there was nothing in the company that felt off limits, I know I can get a straight answer to any question I asked. Interns at InternMatch are not micromanaged; their judgment and work are trusted. There are no egos or gatekeeping in this office, everyone on the team treats each other as equals no matter their title. As a testament to how equal it is here, I regularly play FIFA with the CEO.
Every Friday, work stops at 5pm and the whole team gets together in a conference room and crack open beers. Each person then shares a cool work related achievement with the rest of the team. It’s times like this when I feel that we all friends that just happen to work in the same company, and at times, it feels a little like family.
Final Thoughts
Before coming to San Francisco, I had told myself that I would look for a full time job in August just in case InternMatch did not extend me a full time offer. Come August I had fallen so in love with the company that I could not imagine myself anywhere else. I would look through websites of hot tech companies like Square or Evernote that had positions with better pay and just feel nothing. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not get excited about working at another company.
Thankfully things worked out and now I am a real employee with the snazzy title of Growth Marketing Manager. Who knew that my casual coffee meeting with Nathan a year ago would lead to where I am today? I cannot imagine being more fortunate. It’s cheesy, but I must say that I sincerely hope to work here forever.
