Karl's Brand and Marketing Internship with LSI Architects -- First Two Weeks

My name’s Karl, and I’m a graduate of UEA (twice, I went back because I loved it so much). To give you a little bit of information on my background, I graduated from BSc Business Management in 2012, and then went on to the MSc Brand Leadership course in 2013, a course run in partnership with world famous brand agency Wolff Olins. I had an unbelievable year on the brand leadership course, where I learned an incredible amount from experts like Peter Schmidt-Hansen, Robert Jones and James Cornford, and I have found the thing I want to spend my career doing. I’m sure many graduates will empathise with me when I say how difficult it was to decide where I wanted my career to go, so to have found something I feel passionately about, and enjoy doing so much is a big thing for me.

After finishing the course I went on to another exciting and famous brand agency, FITCH, where I got the opportunity to work with branding experts at the top of their game, on some of the worlds biggest and most recognised brands. My internship at FITCH came to an end at the end of last year, and it was time to find my next step. The graduate job hunt can be frustrating and it was something I found tough, so I’d like to share some advice on how it might be made a little less painful.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to build up your experience, it helps to show employers that you can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. If you don’t have a way of picking up experience yet, and you know what kind of area you might like to find experience in, read about it, find out what’s going on in that world.

It’s also important to keep the right attitude and be confident. Knockbacks are not something to be scared of or worried about, I’ve had more knockbacks from companies than I can remember over the last few months. If you get knocked back, ask for feedback, work out how you can do better next time, view it as a positive opportunity to make sure your next submission is better than the last.  You’ve worked hard to get a good degree and it will pay off, all you need is your chance to shine.

So picking up experience, and a chance to shine, this is where graduate internships come in. I found out about the internship through UEA, and a week after I had had two interviews and found myself starting at LSI in February.

My role here as the brand and marketing intern is to assist with the rebrand project that LSI has undertaken, working on an audit for the LSI brand, and a competitor audit as well as various other aspects of LSI’s communication with the outside world like social media for example. Once again I am really lucky to be working on the rebrand project with an external consultant, and someone who owned their own brand agency, and has years of experience of delivering work of the highest quality.

It’s been a ‘trial by fire’ first couple of weeks for me at LSI, which although a little daunting, has been exciting. Straight away I have been able to get involved in a wide variety of tasks, from creating surveys, writing case studies and award submissions to designing an ad. It’s helped me to learn a lot about LSI in a short space of time. LSI is clearly a fantastic place to be, there is a very welcoming, friendly  and supportive culture  that has made it easy for me to feel at home and get straight down to work.  

After a great start, I’m looking forward to what the next few weeks have in store.