How Did I Get Here?
The Job Description
From the moment I read the job posting for ElementIQ, I knew it was the job for me. ElementIQ’s internship program is exactly what it says it is--a program. The program provides training on various aspects of digital marketing then assigns tasks related to the training. These tasks enable you to practice what you have learned. I was so excited to see this job posting because it is a job where I am actually going to learn skills that will better prepare me for a marketing career.
So, how has my first week measured up to my initial thoughts? Read on to find out!
The Internship Program
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Day 1 - Thursday - Orientation
The first day was a whirlwind of information. Ramesh is the main leader of the orientation program. He spent the day teaching me and Joseph, another intern who started on the same day as me, about the inner workings of ElementIQ.
ElementIQ is very up-to-date on innovative productivity applications. They use apps like Google Drive, Quip, Teamwork, and Slack to communicate and collaborate. These applications are awesome. They make staying focused and working efficiently much easier.
There are three important aspects in ElementIQ's culture, their recipe for success is:
Huddle
Every morning at 9:08 the whole team gets together either in person or via video chat in the huddle. We talk about what needs to be accomplished that day and anything that may be blocking someone from accomplishing their tasks.
Weekly Meeting
Every Thursday from 4-5 Sam leads a meeting to go over what is happening with the agency. Part of the meeting is a deep dive in which someone leads a discussion on a topic that will better the agency.
Weekly Check-In
At ElementIQ a lot of effort is put into ensuring their employees are improving. But at the end of the day, our primary focus is the clients. Through years of experience, ElementIQ has learned that communication is key. So every Monday, we send weekly check-in emails to our clients. These emails overview what we did for the client last week, what we will be doing this week, anything we may need from them as well as any other relevant pieces of information.
Day 2 - Friday - First Remote Day
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from about 9 am to 5 pm are spent work at a coworking office in Burnaby called SpaceKraft.
SpaceKraft is a true modern office space with chalk walls, free coffee, bean bags and a stellar view of Vancouver. The remaining two days of the week, Wednesdays and Fridays, are spent working remotely.
The day starts with a team huddle at 9:08 am, even on the days when we are all working remotely. In the huddle, everyone talked about what they had in store for their days. There was still a lot for me to learn to get up to speed with what was happening with the agency, so I spent the day reading over information about ElementIQ and some of the different aspects of digital marketing.
After a long day of reading, watching informational videos, and video chatting with Ramesh to review the material I read, the weekend had arrived!
I still needed to complete a Search Engine Basics course administered by DistilledU that I didn’t have a chance to get to on Friday. So I did that over the weekend.
Day 3 - Monday - Getting To Know The Clients
The first two days of the internship were spent learning about ElementIQ’s structure and the fundamentals of digital marketing.
Now that I understood the basics of digital marketing it was time to learn about ElementIQ’s clients! Ramesh spent the morning walking me and Joseph through each client and what we do for them. We then took some time to visit the clients’ websites and look over some work ElementIQ had previously done for them.
On Monday Ramesh also walked me and Joseph through the periodic table of SEO, a great resource that overviewed everything we had learned so far.
Day 4 - Tuesday - Blog Posts And Location Pages
On Tuesday, we put our knowledge into action and started working on projects for clients. Our first task was editing a blog post. Karmen, EIementIQ’s writing extraordinaire, showed us how to navigate WordPress. She also showed us where to find a blog post to edit which was our next task. I have used WordPress for school so I was familiar with the site. This previous experience made it easier to write my first blog post for ElementIQ.
Karmen and I were also tasked with creating some location pages for one of our clients. When I was first assigned this task I didn’t even know what a location page was! However, Ramesh provided us with some resources and Lincoln showed us a different company’s location pages so we knew what to do.
Day 5 - Wednesday - Always Learning
I absolutely love our office space, but the commute is about an hour for me so having Wednesday as a work at home day is nice and breaks up my week well.
One might be concerned that working from home makes us less efficient, but our collaborative productivity applications (such as quip and teamwork) helps us to stay on task.
Wednesday started off with the team huddle. Then, I spent the rest of the day working on a blog post, finalizing the location pages, and beginning to acquire a search engine optimization certification from Digital Marketer.
Day 6 - Thursday - Made It Through The First Week!
Thursday was officially one week after I started at ElementIQ. I was assigned the task of auditing one of our client's websites that we had redesigned. Auditing was a fun task. It included editing for consistency, formatting, creating some images, and all the while learning a lot about dental work!
Thursday is also the day of our weekly meeting so we spent an hour going over what was happening with the agency. The deep dive topic for this meeting was about prospecting and closing. Sam shared with us some information about how to always be selling which was the main takeaway.
In the afternoon, Caleb, EIementIQ’s search engine optimization whiz, gave me, Karmen, and Joseph a lesson on SEO. This is a topic I had been learning about all week so it was incredibly beneficial to have a group discussion about it.
Day 7 - Friday - Great First Week
At the end of the first full week, I can officially say I am loving my summer internship! Everyone on the team is so kind and willing to help each other out which adds to the great workplace atmosphere.
My favorite thing about ElementIQ is their mindset for growth. Everyone at the agency is dedicated to self-improvement and we are provided with ample educational resources to help us with that process. This aligns perfectly with my summer goal to learn as much as possible about marketing.
There are so many different fields of marketing and as the world continues to digitize, digital marketing is going to become more and more important. I am so happy my summer is dedicated to becoming as proficient as possible in this up-and-coming field.
