My digital internship at Mindnow
From photographer to digital all-rounder in just six months. I think that's a good description of my digital internship at Mindnow. Well, maybe not that easy - there were a few intermediate steps. So: First things first.
From the job ad to the interview
In search of meaningful employment for the months before I plan to start university, I scroll through the LinkedIn job listings - already starting to get a little annoyed and desperate. My eyes linger on the word "digital internship." Sounds good, but what about the job description and especially the requirements?
"Interested in our topics around digitalization, user experience, Agile Development, etc." - Yes, even though I don't really know what Agile Development is supposed to mean.
"Ability to write and edit really good texts in your native language German." - I've always been good at German classes and even wanted to be a writer at one point, so I'll be able to manage that.
"Excellent English skills - our company language is English." - As someone who always got along better in French than English when I was in school, this one made my hackles stand up a bit. But hey, a little challenge never hurt anyone, right?
On October 28, 2021, shortly after noon, I send off my letter of application and my resume. Five days later, I write a short text as an assignment, and another two days later I sit excitedly in front of my laptop at the dining table at home, click on "Join now" and enter the virtual meeting room.
A fine line between pride and despair
After first almost missing the job commitment because I wasn't expecting a call, the first day of work started with the next near-miss. I almost made a mistake in the door to the co-working space and ended up in the men's room. But apart from that, the start at Mindnow went quite well and I quickly found my way into the team.
I had conquered the social media channels after just under a week. Texts, photos and illustrations - the mixture of different media and working methods had always interested me. In addition to researching, writing the texts and producing the images, I also had to figure out which content was best received when and why.
What a pride I was. Proud when my first blog article went online. Or when I independently completed and published a case study for the first time. From interviewing the Product Owner to copywriting to checking the designs.
And how desperate I was. "Kaja, you could actually do the keyword research for us for the trading project". I, who had never done keyword research on my own and had never had anything to do with trading and cryptocurrencies in my life. But, as we all know, you grow from challenges, besides I could benefit from the help and experience of my colleagues. And fact; I didn't learn much about investing and trading, but I can now accept a keyword research job with a clear conscience and in fact it's kind of fun. Keyword researches are not so much about intensively dealing with a topic, rather you have to be able to understand what meta properties are and how search engines tick.
Where proactivity leads you
If there's one magic word at Mindnow, it's proactivity or initiative. This is probably one of the qualities I have come to appreciate most here. Everyone does their best to contribute and support their colleagues, and there is practically no upper limit. I've been able to experience that myself on several occasions.
Photos for a customer? No problem!
Mindnow designs online presences for companies, but commercial photography is actually not included in our offer. But: Every ability that someone brings to Mindnow is appreciated and, if the opportunity arises, put to good use. This is how it came about in my third month that I was allowed to implement the entire photographic visualization for our client Clanq. And - as a heart and soul photographer I must think so - what could be better than a relaxed shooting (with dogs!) and afterwards looking at the photos in various magazines.
And that's how fast you design a website
I am not a designer. I've always been interested in designing websites, otherwise I probably wouldn't have ended up here, but I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination. But, as I mentioned before: skills and interests are used and refined at Mindnow. And although my job description didn't say anything about UX design, I suddenly found myself sitting in front of my screen working on a website redesign.
What I learned from this is that I have nowhere near the creative talent that my colleagues have, but I can learn new work processes very quickly. In addition, I was once again able to rely on the knowledge and support of my teammates, who helped me with advice and support in various calls.
Tacos and LinkedIn titles
It's the last day of my internship. More has happened in the past six months than I could ever pack into a short blog article. There was the Christmas dinner, where I also met some of our employees from Belgrade for the first time. Or the tacos assembly with the team, which to this day haven't taught me how to eat a taco respectably. Or our little company outing to Sicily in May, where the team-building thing worked out really well.
The last day
This last day of my internship went very differently than I imagined on my first day of work. Contrary to my expectations, I don't log out of my accounts or change admin permissions for my website designs in Figma. I don't write instructions for the next person to take over my tasks. Neither do I take my charging cables, which I just left in the office at some point out of laziness, nor do I write an emotional goodbye message. Like every Monday, I open the door to the office (by now I know which one to go through), greet everyone in a friendly manner, sit down at my computer and change my job description on LinkedIn from "UX Intern" to "UX Strategist at Mindnow".
