How I used social media to get an internship with Mynewsdesk UK

(That's me, Kate, on the far left, alongside my new colleagues, Gabby, Heidi, Ben and Adam)

So I've now been working at Mynewsdesk as an intern on the marketing team for a little over a month.

To get here I took a bit of a different route to a standard CV application.

A year ago I realised that I wanted to work in marketing. But between writing a dissertation and studying for my International Relations degree exams I didn’t have much time to search for job. After finishing my degree, the time finally came to apply for jobs. 

Last year I did an internship with a PR/media agency, where I got my first impression of this industry. I worked with the strategic communications team and decided that was a path I wanted to take for my career. 

Marketing is a tricky business to break into and in most cases a simple CV and cover letter won’t make it.

I needed to stand out among many other applicants. I created a website/blog called “Hire Kate” (now "HireD Kate"). The initial purpose was to present my CV in a new way and provide some space to write about interesting advertising and marketing campaigns that I came across. Later I proceeded with the job search campaign. In the beginning, I was simply contacting companies and talking about my website, but this didn’t result in any suitable interviews.

I had a plan for a social media campaign, but I needed an incentive to start. Then unexpectedly Facebook sent me a £25 voucher to spend on advertising. I took it as a sign and decided to take action.

I created a Facebook ad with brief text about my job search, which redirected people to my website. There potential employers could see more information about my job search, my blog posts, and contact me via email, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

The Facebook ad targeted creative people working in marketing, with college degrees and living in the UK. I also started #HireKate on Twitter and included relevant tags, so people could find me. 

My main aim was to encourage companies to find me and ask me to work for them. One day after I started my campaign I already had two interviews.

Then the response rate really took off, and by the time I received an email from Adam at Mynewsdesk to come for an interview I had already had five job interviews! But I was still looking for something different...

The interview with Mynewsdesk went well. Heidi and Adam gave me a list of very varied and interesting tasks for the potential job - and that was what sealed the deal for me.

During my internship I want to enhance my experience in marketing and learn more about social media engagement. Mynewsdesk seems like a great starting place to gain this experience, especially because the small UK marketing team will allow me to take on a variety of tasks. 

I’m pleased that my campaign worked. I’m full of enthusiasm and looking forward to new interesting projects.

I’m going to be blogging about my internship on the Mynewsdesk UK newsroom, so I hope you’ll be able to follow my progress!

Watch this space...

Best

Kate

(Follow me @katebes on Twitter)