Mitch Blum

A while back I read an interesting blog post from an intern that was bitching about their tenure at an ad agency (I can’t find the link, sorry). The gist of the complaint seemed to be that the intern was criminally underused and the whole experience was a waste of time.

My initial reaction upon reading the post was: “Wow! They’re letting interns do entry-level work now?”

I remember all too well being an account coordinator.  The entirety of my responsibilities seemed to be making copies of presentation decks at Copy Cop and ensuring that we had a spare bulb packed for the overhead projector. I recall being jealous of closed door meetings and frustrated by feeling that I could do so much more.

Fortunately, early on in my career one of my superiors gave me some wonderful advice. She told me to be a sponge. She counseled me to absorb everything that I possibly could around the office. She encouraged me to read faxes and watch how people interact with each other and clients. She told me to actually study the decks that I was copying. She explained to me that I should take advantage of my unique position – proximity without real responsibility – to learn the business from the ground up.

It was great advice then and it’s great advice now.

The one thing that I’ve learned after all of these years is how much more I have to learn. I still have as many ideas now as I did back then. But I’ve come to appreciate the other aspects of the business that are required for success. So what are some things that an intern could learn merely by observing an agency?

• Internal negotiations. How do people deal with each other inside the agency? What techniques are effective for successfully interacting and compromising? How can one change behavior without destroying trust or the relationship?

• Client handling. How do people successfully manage the client? How do people deal with different client types? How do people address crises or screw-ups?

• Running the business. How does an agency actually operate and turn a profit? Who does what? What are the key roles and responsibilities?

• Nurturing creative. The purity of creativity is a wonderful ideal. Unfortunately, it’s rarely a reality. Great ideas need to be refined, they need to be nurtured and they need to be sold. We all know that more bad ideas get produced than great ideas. You’ve got to learn how to keep great work alive.

• How to get a job. Good interns often get hired by their agencies. And even if you can’t get a job you can start networking with actual working professionals that’ll probably end up at different agencies in the future.

These are just the first five things that came to mind but I’m sure there are many more examples. Being an intern at an agency is kind of like being Jane Goodall watching the chimps – you’ll learn a lot just by watching them play. Sure, feeding the apes might be fun, but you could get your hand bit off, too.

It should go without saying that no one should have to put up with an abusive situation but boredom probably doesn’t qualify as abuse, especially when there are so many sponge-worthy opportunities within the walls of any thriving agency.

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