Evan Carmichael advises a high school student on landing a marketing internship. Start by engaging with the company's social media, then reach out to the founder or senior marketer requesting a brief meeting, not an internship. Bring coffee, ask thoughtful questions, dress well, and show up on time.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of #AskEvan. Today I'm answering a question from one of our YouTube viewers, SparklyMango13, who wrote in saying, "Hey, I absolutely love your videos. I'm thinking about getting into marketing in the future. I'm in the 10th grade, and I was wondering if you could make a video about getting an internship." There's a marketing firm near the city I live in and I have no idea about how to even begin to get involved. Thank you. So thanks for the question. Welcome from the 10th grade. It's awesome. Great to hear from you. In terms of getting an internship, I don't know how big this company is, but smaller companies always need help. The biggest challenge with bringing on interns typically is the internship period is really short often and there's too much handholding and training that's involved. And too little value that comes back on the intern side. And this is the challenge that you're gonna have. So if they have a regular internship program, you might qualify for it. You may be a little young, 'cause if they're looking at interns, they're typically looking at university interns and not high school interns. But it's still possible. The thing you're gonna have to get over is making yourself stand out. And so step one is showing your ambition, right? If you can show that you're really eager, you're really ambitious, you really wanna help, then that's gonna cut, you know, you out from everybody else who may be trying to apply to them. And a couple ways to do it: one, get involved in any of their campaigns. So look at their social media channels. If they're a marketing firm, they have to be on social media. Look at their YouTube, look at their Twitter, look at their Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever they are, and start to get involved. Comment on their projects, offer suggestions, give praise where you think you really like something. Just try to get involved so that they know who you are. And if you are repeatedly commenting on something, then you'll start to stand out. They'll start to know you. Uh, the next step I would do is try to identify who the leadership is at the organization. And again, the smaller the company, the easier it is to find out and get in touch with somebody. And try to just set up a time to go and talk to them. Uh, people like helping people who seem motivated and ambitious and they think they're gonna take their advice. So as an example, I get asked a lot from local entrepreneurs and from entrepreneurs on the web, to mentor them and to answer questions for them. A lot of times I just do it through these YouTube videos. The people who are closer in my city of Toronto, I'll often meet up with them, but only the ones who seem really genuine and who I think are really gonna take my advice. And there's a great feeling of joy when you feel like you're helping somebody out and that they're taking your advice and they're gonna use that. And there's there's a huge benefit to mentors as well as mentees in that mentorship relationship. The biggest fear and the biggest frustration is that they're not going to do anything with your advice, they're going to waste your time, and then that feels, that feels terrible. It feels like you just wasted an hour or however long you spent with that person. And so the challenge that you have is standing out and showing them in advance that you're the kind of person who is going to really listen to their advice and take it and be helpful, and not just a person who's going to waste their time. And so one method that I've used that that's been used on me that I found really helpful was a woman wrote in saying she's basically just starting up and she wanted to meet me to ask my advice on her business. And one of the lines that she used in her email was something along the lines of, "Even if it's just walking with you while you're on your way to a meeting, I'll bring the coffee and treats and I'd be happy to meet with you for that short walk to your car." Something like that. And that really showed me that, hey, this person is really ambitious She's really serious, she really wants to learn, and so I took the meeting. And so even showing things like that, if you get first involved in all their social media channels and give some advice and just praise them on the things that they're doing, or give some tips that you think might be helpful or some other resources, and then try to line up a meeting with hopefully the founder of the business if it's a small company, if not, somebody, you know, lower down if it's a bigger company. And show that you're eager to learn, you have a few questions. Don't, don't, I wouldn't lead in with, I'm looking for an internship opportunity, because if they don't have anything, or they see you're 10th grade, you may have a lot of strikes going against you there. Just go and ask for a meeting. Say you're a marketing student, you're really wanting to learn about the business, you're really eager and excited, you've been following all the great work that they're doing on social media channels, and you'd really appreciate, you know, 20, 30 minutes of their time. To grab a cup of coffee, or even if it's on the way to a meeting that you can walk with them to. You'll bring treats and the coffee, and that hopefully will give you the ability to meet them in person, learn about their business, see if it's something that you're still excited about, and then start looking for opportunities. And opportunities will come from the conversation. Show you're eager, come prepared with questions that you want to ask them, things that you're genuinely interested in learning about, you know, from marketing that you want to learn from them. And then see ongoing if there's gonna be some kind of fit. But the first key is getting in the door, learning from them, and when you do get that meeting, you know, make sure you're on time, you look good, you're professional, you've shown up with coffee or with some treats, and make that first good impression so that you're ready to go and rock and roll when you have that meeting. So hopefully that helps. Good luck. Keep me posted with your progress. I'd love to hear how things work out. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes me want to do more for you. And if you have a comment about your own business or a question, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. I always read those and I respond to everybody who writes in. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.
