Business Development Intern Review

In order to increase the amount of internship opportunities for my cohort, that being students whose degree has an ecological, zoological, environmental, or biological focus, I contacted and liaised with companies in relevant industries and fields to create new internship positions. This entailed emailing companies to enquire about their interest in hiring interns from the University of Reading cohort and arranging meetings to discuss in more detail what this involved.

Yes, I was given the responsibility of conducting outreach to companies and doing data analysis on the internships over the course of the last academic year to ascertain if there were any particular factors that influenced the likelihood of an internship to be popular with students.

I learnt how to effectively 'cold email' companies and developed my confidence in speaking to strangers on the phone. I also developed my persuasive skills in attempting to encourage companies to come on board with this idea.

My line manager was always on hand to help, whether that was working together in person or arranging a Teams meeting if I was working remotely. I never felt that I was left struggling with a problem; anything I wasn't sure about was quickly resolved.

The team was friendly and everyone helped each other out if the need arose.

I enjoyed many aspects of the internship, such as feeling that I was achieving something meaningful for my cohort and developing existing skills of my own. I learnt that some aspects of the internship were less interesting to me, which is important knowledge moving forward into a future career.

Yes