第五期 实习开始！Doing it – getting the most out of your internship

澳大利亚墨尔本大学音频节目——职场第一步

第五期 实习开始！Doing it – getting the most out of your internship

Buffy Gorrilla: This is Starting Somewhere - a podcast from the University of Melbourne allabout internships - finding one, landing it, and making the most of the experience.

I’m Buffy Gorrilla, and all of a sudden I find myself with three mentors - better latethan never, I guess...and now I’m host of this podcast.

Ben Pawson: I’m Ben Pawson, I’ve done 12 informational interviews and now I’m co-host ofthis podcast.

Buffy: So, we’re clearly the best people to help you start somewhere

Laura Raiti: The first day you suddenly are able to sign off on drug orders and writeprescriptions and things, and that's something I definitely remember being waived. ECGs infront of me and asking me to sign off on them and feeling very anxious that, "Oh, right, I am thedoctor. Yes, this is my job now," and just that steep learning curve, so yeah. I guess the patientsdidn't know that that was my first day as a doctor and you kind of very quickly assume that role,but I guess that's what you've been training for for your whole degree is that day one. But yeah,it was nice.

Buffy: So, you’re in the door. Day one is done and dusted. Your laptop works, youknow where the printer is and who your boss is.

Ben：We covered all that in Episode 4.

Buffy: What next? What do you want to achieve while you are in your internship. Whatare your goals? Here’s some advice we gave way back in our first episodewhat about internships can do for you - oh the memories:

What we learned was, is that they can help rule something out, or give you awindow into a new profession, or they could even be a stepping stone into thatprofession, all in a super low risk environment. It’s just an internship, it’s not ajob! It’s four weeks, three months, part time, full time, whatever. Which is great!

Rebecca Ashton: Yeah I feel like it's important to set those expectations andreally clearly communicate with whoever it is your line manager, or who you'rereporting into at that time from the very beginning to understand, what are thegoals. If you're there like Hayley for a four week period or like me, it was threemonths. What are we aiming to do during that time period? And then takingnote of what is the goal at the end of it? And then breaking that down intosmaller steps beforehand. And I feel like, most likely, they'll be a key to thepathway to your internship. For mine, for example, it was in marketing and HR, so we set out some clear goals and steps of what we wanted to achieve duringthat time.

Buffy: You are so correct, Rebecca Ashton of Tandem Partners HR,verbalizing your goals will help them become more concrete and you will havea tool for benchmarking your internship progress. But Hayley Smeding, also ofTandem Partners, lets you know that it’s ok to to have goals that you don’tshare with everyone - super secret goals. My favourite kind.

Ben: it’s something we all do and I know I did at my internship. Try not tooverthink it.

Hayley Smeding: And I think it's really important to have your personal goals aswell as perhaps, professional goals. I think, as a student, it's quite a bigexperience. It can be kind be a little bit overwhelming, but you're at the very,very start of your career and there might be a little bit of soul searching orcareer searching that will happen during the time of your internship and I think,on a personal level, walking in and knowing, okay, well what do I want to getout of this experience, on a personal level? Is it to really test out if I actually likeHR? That's probably not something that you might disclose to your linemanager, but it might be a big aspect to your experience. But also when you'resetting professional goals, I think, make sure that they're in line with your linemanager's expectations. So what are those expectations? What would they liketo see from you during this experience? And then align your professional goalsto that, so you know that you and your line manager are on the same pagefrom the get go. And then write it down and track that throughout to see, well,am I meeting expectations? Am I kicking those goals?

Ben: Much like a choose your own adventure novel, the ending you have in mindmight be very different to what your manager sees for you, and that's OK. Weare all the entrepreneurs of our own careers these days.

Buffy: So take charge, it is your career, no one else is looking out for you. And as NeilWilson, ace psychologist with the University of Melbourne will confirm later,people are not thinking about you very much. So you need to think about you.

Ben: And the people you work with aren’t mind readers either. So if you wantsomething ask for it, tell people what you want, and why you want it.

Buffy: So what is your goal? Thinking back to my internship it helped me confirm thatIdidnotwanttoworkinTV,butthatIdidwanttoworkinradio. Ididagoodjob of making connections and they turned into a mammoth internship and thathelped me achieve some of my personal goals - pitching stories and getting a radio story I voiced and edited onto Radio National. I had to put myself outthere and ask for some of the opportunities.

Ben: Could asking for things be the secret to getting what you want your of yourinternship?

Tess : Definitely and that was a very much a conscious decision despitebeing uncomfortable about it. Something that I'm aware of as well, sometimesI've noticed that my male colleagues would be more eager and readily availableto go yep, I want to put my hand up and I didn't want to miss out onopportunities by not doing the same so it was v something I wasn't comfortableto do but something I pushed myself to do and I'm so glad I did because I gotexposure to so many other things I wouldn't have otherwise.

Buffy: So, even if it’s uncomfortable don't be afraid to stick your hand upand say yes. Like Tess, a legal intern at a community law centre did.

Tess: The client exposure was one of the biggest things for me, that Icould actually help clients with my limited legal experience. Already with onlyone year I could see that I was making a tangible difference in somebody's lifeby helping them filling out paperwork or explaining a process within agovernment institution. And so it really affirmed my knowledge and myeducation that I was getting at law school that it did have a real worldapplication.

Buffy: It was good that Tess had clear goals for her internships. And there are appsthat can help you identify and track your own goals, but your internshipsupervisor should be your first port of call. If the company is small or interns area new addition to the hierarchy, think about finding a mentor. But I am gettingahead of myself - we’ll dig more into the mentor/mentee relationships inepisode 10.

Ben: If you are going hit your written or unwritten goals you are going to need help.Because very little gets done without the help of somebody.

Buffy: Where do you nail your flag in a sea of new people? If the urge to make bestfriends with everyone in your office overtakes you, as it often does with me Ihave some advice. RESIST!

Ben: What is it you call that?

Buffy: I call that Fast Friending - and it has backfired on me many a time. We could -but won’t - talk about: the drama queen, the debbie downer, the fair weather friends. I could goon...

Ben: It’s a hard balance to strike, you’ve got limited time on an internship, and one ofthe people in your office could give you a job in a few months or years. But youdon’t want to go around puppy dogging everyone.

Julia Jansen: I was just in a team that was very competitive and a lot ofpeople who are single contributors and very on their own. And it was veryisolating and they don’t share much. We sat at lunch at one point and I justasked, I’m a very talkative person as you might hear, I asked people how wasyour weekend. They’re like, “I’m building my house right now, it’s quite astruggle." The other colleague who they’ve worked together for years said,“You’re building a house?” There was no private exchanges. There was verydistant relationships at work and you sat in rooms with no windows and had towork all day on your own. I realised that that’s definitely not an environmentwhere I strive. I’m an odd person who cannot be communicative or be in anenvironment where people help each other or worked more like a team, so thatI learned. I learned amazing PowerPoint skills and I learned a lot of detailedwork. Work wise I learned that that’s definitely not an environment I seek. Butluckily I knew in an internship, this is always temporary. If you’re really in aworkplace, sometimes it’s a bit harder to just say, let go again.

Buffy：That’s Julia Jansen bringing us a perspective from Germany. Julia interned atone of the big four consultancies and then at BMW in Singapore.

Ben：I guess, once again, it’s a spectrum. The Starting Somewhere office is veryopen, very sharey, and it’s a lot of fun, with intense bouts of head down work.

Buffy: Over the first days in your internship you might be doing some serious plottingof the social landscape, but as Neil Wilson counsels, when people are nottalking to you they are not thinking about you.

Neil Wilson：I think initially it is difficult to analyse the different personalities and go, "All right.That dude's grumpy in the morning. My boss prefers this. The person sittingacross from me at the desk has three kids so sometimes is stressed in themorning." Keeping note of that is actually typically the best place to start.Again, being aware that the amount of judgement that you may be feeling, noone is actually doing that. There's a one percent chance your direct supervisormight be doing it, but when they are not within eye shot, it's impossible.

Buffy: Being professional is really just being nice and socially aware. Hopefully we allhave a way of doing that. But navigating where you fit in is hard. Michelle Lau, a University of Melbourne Comms student has been keeping up her InternshipDiary, which has been going really well, mostly.

Michelle Lau：There were a few little challenges. Mostly mentally, I'd say. For example,because the office has such a horizontal hierarchy. Which is amazing, all thecoworkers, the staff, the bosses, everyone, it's just like a massive friendshipgroup and get along so well. But unfortunately, because some of the staff,because they're nearly the same age as me, I feel quite pressured to act acertain way and become quite cool. I don't know why but I find that quite tough,especially because I'm an intern. There's always this voice at the back of myhead feeling like I have to act a certain way, and it's quite hard for me toarticulate exactly what this feeling is, but I think as the weeks go along I mightunderstand how I'm feeling a bit better, and as I kind of interact with thecoworkers, I'll get a better understanding of why I'm feeling this way and how Ican overcome it. It's definitely quite a challenge for me, especially because I'vealways felt myself as quite an outgoing person, and so I didn't think that thiswas going to be an issue, but you know? This is going to happen to everyone,so I'm just gonna have to learn to power my way through it, basically, until I feelmore comfortable.

Buffy：Survey the scene, take it all in, be wary of fast-friending and watch out forgossiping. Hayley Smeding from Tandem Partners HR again.

Hayley Smeding: It can be done through body language. You don't need to verbally say, "No. Irefuse to engage in this conversation." But you are able to excuse yourselfquite politely from social situations to perhaps move over and speak withanother group of people. And that's probably how I would suggest it, ratherthan verbally stating, “oh, no I really disagree with this. I must leaveimmediately”. So I think doing it in a very tactful, tasteful way would probably bethe best way to go about it.

Ben: Really it’s a high wire act, but at an internship the stakes can be pretty low, soexperiment with your workplace personality. Bear in mind it’s exhausting to besomeone you are not, but there is no harm in trying to be the best version ofyourself.

Buffy: What would your workplace personality be?

Ben: Pretty much as I am right now.

Buffy: Perfection walking around. The things you learn now will come in handy for therest of your working life.

Michael Bergdorf: I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be prettygeneral to most jobs, that being: it's tough to work under systems and understructures. When you see a lot of injustice, a lot of oppression and inequality inthe world, it's tough to work in a system that you know is perpetuating that. Butin that way, I think the tough thing there is also the best thing of it. That youlearn to work through that, you learn to work with that, and be able to makethese differences, even when you're going up against very, very challengingodds.

Buffy: That’s Michael Bergdorf, he did an alternative to an internship,something we’ll explore more in Episode 9. As a US citizen he signed up withAmericorps for a year of high school teaching in a pretty deprivedneighbourhood in exchange for some forgiveness of an astonishingly highstudent loan - that’s our version of Hecs Debt. So this goes to show you canpick up skills in a lot of places, and the school yard is probably very appropriateto the workplace.

Michael: I think another challenge was definitely just getting to know thesestudents and meeting these students, at least it was a scary thing for me goinginto it. But, once again, that was one of the things that I was most excitedabout, and that I left the year most excited about. Because I knew that thesestudents had impacted me an amazing amount and, yeah, I still keep in contactwith them. I still go back to visit them whenever I can. I still feel like I'm a part ofmy lives and they're definitely a part of my life in many ways, more ways thanthey would know.

Ben：And just like the school yard sometimes you might need to stick up for yourself,especially if you feel your being taken advantage of. Something that we’ll lookat in Episode 8. Here’s Neil Wilson again.

Neil Wilson：Attempting to be assertive, I think that also involves trying to figure out whetherthis person is doing something to me that they shouldn't be doing or if they areasking something of me that they shouldn't be asking. So obviously getting areally, really good grasp from the person who is actually responsible for you,what you need to be doing, not the person who is not directly responsible foryou. The person who you are reporting to is the person you need to be listeningmost closely to.

Mary Trumble：You cannot learn business maturity and you cannot learn that experience thatyou get in a workplace.

Ben：Business maturity? What does that phrase mean?

Mary: Yep. So, things like how to hold yourself in a meeting. Things like presenting.Do you move around and pace a lot? Do you stand still and hold yourselfstrong? The types of words that you use when you speak. So, do you get into ameeting and say, "Yeah, like. I think like would be really great to have like,more um lunch breaks, like." Or can you actually deliver a suggestion withpurpose? So, those were the things that were really valuable to me in myinternships.

Ben: So what Mary Trumble, client services manager at LinkedIn Australia learnt, isjust one of the skills employers are looking for to make a difference to theirorganizations. We did some research and we found a few surveys, and the topthings that employers are looking for today are: (in no particular order) Problemsolving - makes sense, Data analytics - a surprise to me, social media literacy,creativity, resiliency, good business sense, and a willingness to learn.

Buffy: I feel I have most of those covered and I will just have to learn to live with thefact that data analytics will not be something I can add to my resume. Sad face!

Ben: My MBA really helped with my business sense, understanding how the place Iwork fits into a market and what value they add, and where their money comesfrom.

Buffy: So an MBA would be a great thing to do, and I hear The University ofMelbourne Business School has a top one. But what about the time poor rest ofus?

Ben: Well this is where MOOCS (that’s Massive Open Online Courses) and TEDTalks, and other stuff on the internet can help - so can professional bodies. Ilearned some great tips from the Institute of Fundraising Special Interestgroups in Scotland. Every profession has forums like this. They’re just peoplegetting together to reassure themselves that they are not alone with theirparticular struggles.

Buffy: I second that bit about professional groups - when I worked in higher-educationrecruitment, I actually spearheaded a group of business school recruitmentprofessionals who got together to share best practices. Wow! Did you hearthat? I am business mature.

Ben: You’ll need this business maturity in your internship because you could beplaying with live ammunition. Or at least real customers the business countson. And where you work could you give more or less opportunities to make anactual contribution to the business. And iit sounds like this happens everydayfor the interns at Stake, the startup Dan Silver runs in Sydney:

Dan Silver: In terms of the day to day responsibility, the intern team isreally integral for us in managing the whole onboarding customer experiencejourney. So really to ensure that all of our customers have a great firstexperience with Stake and then once they've had that great experience, howdo they continue to have that? So if there's further questions, queries that comeup, how do we go and make sure that we're the first line of defence, andactually go and respond and resolve their queries at the time. So that's Isuppose the bread and butter, it really comes down to well how do we go andensure that that customer’s having that best possible experience on Stake.That comes into both in terms of what happens when they sign up, furtherquestions they've got, but also how do we then go and improve those journeysand automate processes. So like challenging all our interns every day abouthow can we go and improve the experience for the customers.

Buffy: Compare that to the opportunities, Julia Jansen says you mightget at a corporate head office, or a regional branch office.

Julia Jansen：I think the difference sometimes if you work for those companies that haveheadquarters somewhere, that the headquarters are like hyper specialised.Everybody has a really specialty role and does something really tiny, so to say,in this whole framework. Whereas, if you’re more in those subsidies or entitiesoutside of that realm or in the international environment, it can happen that youjust have to do with all these specialists, but you have to touch all thesedifferent subjects to deal with them. Your scope is bigger automatically, andyou’re getting more exposed to more diversified topics. In my case, you dealwith interest rates, you deal with liquidity, you deal with currency risk, you nameit. In the headquarter, you always have one particular person for all or even agroup of people for that particular topic. You never get a super deep diveunless you decide to, but you get to know a lot.

Ben：So interning with a bigger company has its perks, but they might not always bebetter. Smaller businesses are nimble and often welcome the fresh eyesinterns can bring.

Colin McLeod：This might sound like a strange comment to make about innovative companies,but innovative companies tend to be great places for interns becauseinnovative companies tend to have a lot of humility. They actually don't thinkthey know the answer to everything. So they're very open, they're verytransparent, they encourage conversations.

Ben：That’s Professor Colin McLeod from the Melbourne Business School. He’s alsothe academic director of the Master of Entrepreneurship programme. He hashis fingers in many pies, but he studies and also helps run innovativecompanies.

Colin: Whether you're an intern or a seasoned employee, innovative companies havesomewhere you can go with a good idea. If you're an intern who thinks you'vegot a good idea, no one forgets about it just because you're an intern. There's aprocess by which your idea gets heard. It may get rejected. It may getaccepted. But once again, the important thing is you feel like your input isvalued.

Ben: I was told to approach pitching ideas like a mini business case. Here’sthe problem, here’s my solution, here's what it needs to get it done. Andaphorism alert, “in god we trust, all others bring data”!

Buffy: So if you have an idea, and want to get it implemented in thatbusiness mature way, it may involve having to manage up - something that willcreep up in your career time and time again.

Rebecca Ashton: I think a lot of the time you think, right, I report into my line manager andthey're going to give me directions going forward, but actually switching thatrelationship around. So instead of waiting for that formal meeting with your linemanager to get direction on what they see your next week looking like, reallygoing to them first and saying, “hey can I have five minutes of your time? Thisis my plan, this is what I'm thinking to reach the goals that we've set out. Doesthat align with what your expectations are?”, things like that. So taking controlof it first, instead of waiting for somebody else to come to you.

Buffy: Alex Alvaro recorded an intern diary for us when she was at The Agenewspaper. We’ve been hearing her real-intern experiences since the start ofthis podcast - go back and have a listen. But for now - she’s been learningbusiness maturity all over the place.

Alex Alvaro: So days three and four have been super busy. Today, I didn't even leave mydesk to get lunch, but luckily I'm finding that my internship at The Age isteaching me a lot of skills in how to deal with people, and I'll give you anexample. Today, a very well-known celebrity, some might even say nationaltreasure, hung up on me after kind of losing it at me and telling me that I hadn'tdone my research, and I had by the way, it just turns out they weren't quite inthe loop. But yeah, they just didn't even give me the chance to explain myself,and I was completely taken off-guard when they yelled down the line at me.

After the call, I spoke to my editor and she told me that they're pretty notoriousfor pulling that kind of thing, and she gave me some great advice, which for anyjournalism students is worth listening to, and it's basically just to butter them upand hopefully they come around, because who doesn't like a bit of egostroking? But, after the initial shock of the call wore off, I was kind of glad that it happened in a way because I did learn a good lesson and realise thatsometimes I just need to stand my ground.

Buffy: Meanwhile over at the National Australia Bank or NAB - any downtime might behard to come by, but I could be putting words in Rem Tzambazis’ mouth. Let’slet him explain.

Rem Tzambazis: Sure. I might start with the two that are the more structured ones, so the FICCInternships I'll start with. So, seven week programme. The biggest thing, orbiggest characteristic of that internship is that they get real life experience ofwhat it's like to be on a trading floor. They get to see and hear deals beingmade, all of those kinds of things, which is I think a very new experience formany of our interns. In addition to that, they get weekly leadership series,which fundamentally boils down to a chance to interact with both senior andexecutive management in those businesses. Beyond that, we also run asimulated trading competition for those grads. If I then go to something like theIndigenous internships, again it will come down to the business that they’re in,but fundamentally they get exposure to meetings, meaningful work, interactionwith senior leaders. That tends to be a core characteristic of any of theinternships we run.For our Indigenous Interns, the other piece that they have isan introduction to, and a chance to experience some learning and developmentpieces via our corporate partner who are career trackers, and who are very bigin the indigenous Australia space, particularly around internships. We work withthem, and they get access to learning and development via them.

Ben: Being mature about your business kinda assumes you believe you should be inthat business in the first place. But in all likelihood you are new at this. What ifyou start to feel like you are making it up as you are going along and you aregoing to get busted any minute?

Buffy：Don’t you feel like that every minute of every day? 

Ben： Mostly, yes.

Neil Wilson：I think it's not a diagnosable thing, but I come across it quite a lot inenvironments like that. It's called imposter syndrome. It's where people feel likethey don't deserve to be in an environment so they tend to shut down or get abit worried about what other people are thinking. Generally if you've got theinternship, they've seen something in you that they like. People don't go out oftheir way to get people into their office if they don't like them or if they don't seeanything there. Really reminding yourself of that.

Buffy: Neil Wilson are there any ways that you can get over having that imposter syndrome?

Neil: One thing that I often recommend is to get people to keep a log of thedays where no one actually said that. That concern that we have aboutourselves. It's usually, "I don't deserve to be here" or "I don't know what I'mdoing." It's usually a variant of those two things. What I do ask people is "Didanyone look you in the eye and say that directly?" When they say "No" then it'slike, "Well, maybe keep a log of days or hours when that doesn't happen"because it starts to build evidence in a different part of their brain that can beused later on in life to challenge those type of negative thoughts. That's what Iwould recommend is just keeping a log of “did anyone actually say what I wasthinking?” It'll be "No."

Buffy: There it is. You are supposed to be there, don’t worry about it.

Ben：As one of the best bosses I ever had used to say, there’s nothing you can’t do,just things you don’t know how to do. But being an intern means you havemore than most to learn, and as we have seen, doing is one of the best ways oflearning, so you better get comfortable asking for what you need. Lean into it!

Buffy：It’s so easy to ask for birthday and holiday presents, but why is it so difficult toask for feedback? I used to be terrified of feedback, the constructive criticismwould almost make me cry and the effusive would make me a shade of vividpink, but as I have transitioned careers, I learned to LOVE it and have gottenso much tougher at taking some of the constructive feedback. You can ask mycolleague Mira, she loves to say, “Buffy loves feedback, give her some!”

Michelle Lau：I had to go get some boxes from Officeworks, and the manager of the officedecided she would offer to drive me. It was so nice of her. And she told me abit more about Keep Left and all the colleagues. She kind of motivated me toreally take initiative and ask to sit in in meetings, which has been a goal of minesince last week, on like Friday, because as I said, I've been doing a lot ofmedia lists and logs and I really want to understand how the whole backgroundworks a bit more. So when I went back and I talked to Jordan, who was givingme another task, I got the courage and I asked him, "Hey, look, if there are anychances at any pitches, any brainstorm sessions, could I please join?" And itwas nice. It felt like even if I don't get to sit in any pitches or brainstorms, thefact that I even took up the initiative to ask was a big step for me. As an intern,one of the main things that you worry about is whether you're doing a good job.So for that, feedback is so important. There was a really cool experience thathappened that was on Wednesday. Jordan asked me to find some pictures fora company, because Current Affair was interested in writing or reporting in anews report on it. So, I had to go on this website and find pictures, and then onFriday he came up to me and was like, "Hey, by the way, you know thosepictures that you found for Current Affair? They absolutely loved it, and they'regoing to use it." That was a pretty cool feeling, because that was actually the first time I got face-to-face feedback on how I'm actually doing, and it was apretty cool feeling.

Ben：Good work Michelle! But sometimes the feedback won’t come to you, you haveto go and ask for it. Linda Rose Edvardsdottir, from Iceland, who on top ofdoing a super challenging internship is doing it in another language.

Linda：For me, it's been organic I think. I try to be independent because I'm veryaware of they're all super busy, and the work they're doing is incredible. So I tryto be as independent as I can, but of course, you can't always be selfsustainable. So maybe I'll write an email, and we're sitting next to each other,but I'll write an email with some questions. And either they answer right away,or we have a weekly meeting where we'll address the different questions thatI've written. English is not my mother tongue, so if it's something concerningEnglish, I'll just often ask. I'll just interrupt and be like, "Is this phrase English, oram I making it up?".

Buffy: And it’s going well, David Bacon says ask for more things to do - what could gowrong?

David Bacon: We're kind of busy, but if you pin people down and say, "I want to learn," noone will turn away from you if you say, "I need your help, or I'd like your opinionor your expertise on this."

David Bacon: I know when I started my first job, I didn't say no for the first year and a half,and I probably went the other way, it's like, "Yeah, I can do that, I can do that."That nearly killed me, and people pulled me aside at the end and said, "Listen,you need to slow down, and you can say no."

Ben：If only David Bacon had the wise consul of Hailey Smeding

Hayley Smeding: Be very aware of what your capacity actually is, because you don't want toover promise and then under deliver, and take on too much and then not beable to deliver on that workflow.

Buffy: If this is your first time in an office, you’ll be picking up new skills everyday. Andbefore you know it you’ll be thinking about what’s after your internship.Because sooner or later an internship will come to an end, and you have todecide, is this your red thread? Julia Jansen explains.

Julia Jansen：Two key things I wanted to tell them is, yes everybody tells you the doors areopen and you can do a lot of things and just try, and I would fully agree. I wouldalso say that at one point longer when you’re into your career, there’s a...wecall it “roter Faden” in Germany, so there is like a red thread that continues inyour life.For example, in my case I have realised that I have been in automobile industry for quite some years, then I think five and a half or six years after awhile. They always want a place in automobile industry, so you have a redthread. You should not forget that if you decide to go on a certain path, try tomake sure you’re comfortable with that, because at the beginning you canchange around a lot and unless you specialise in something like search engineoptimisation or IT, where you can flexibly chose around, at one point you getbranded a certain industry. I think at the beginning you can still switch, but justkeep that in mind.I think the other was that at the beginning, at internships, it’sreally fascinating if you want to work for the big corporates. I think skills likePowerPoint and Excel sound so basic for a lot of students nowadays, butthey’re still very valuable to the company. Try to really increase those skills.Writing some things are usually still advanced in a lot of big corporates.

Buffy：A mentor mentee relationship like Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy’s can help. If itfeels right ,think about approaching someone as a mentor. They can beinvaluable in helping you identify that red thread, and for a host of otherbenefits. We’ll take a closer look at how to go about finding a mentor in episodeten, but for the moment, some mentoring-lite guidelines from, Glyn Davis, theVice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.

Glyn Davis：It always depends on where you are in the journey and what you're looking for.It's hard to have golden rules. What a mentor gives you is perspective. Youshouldn't think of them as the person who's going to get you a job or introduceyou to ... that's not an appropriate use of a mentor. That might happen, andthat's fabulous, but, actually, not what you're looking for. What you're lookingfor is someone who can help you reflect on your journey, your experience, yourambitions, to think about what you'd like to do, who can quietly help you thinkabout the things you're not good at, we've all got those, and help you thinkabout how you might improve. What a mentor does is help you work out thedirection that you want to pursue. They're not there to direct you. They're notthere to tell you what you should do, and nor are they instrumental. They're notjust there because it helps you. They're actually there because it's someoneyou can have empathy and a conversation and a discussion with. That's whythey matter.

Ben：And even when you think you’ve got your internship figured out - remember:always be learning.

Alex Alvaro：Today, my highlight was probably was finding where the office fridge is, afterseven days of eating tepid salad for lunch, so that was a win.

Buffy：Solid advice Alex! And in the next episode of Starting Somewhere - you’ve gotuni, your internship, maybe a job, definitely friends, a social life (more or less) -how do you keep it all going? Ben and I try to help you juggle it all. There will be stories of burnout and how to identify it and even manage it. Plus,productivity hacks - because Starting Somewhere means even more to do!

Starting Somewhere is brought to you by the University of Melbourne ExternalRelations team. The producers and editors are Buffy Gorrilla and Ben Pawson.Our supervising producer and original concept is from Dr Andi Horvath. Thanksto everyone who has made Starting Somewhere a reality. Stay tuned for futureepisodes.