Posts Tagged ‘Inspiring Interns’

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Inspiring clothing designs

February 6th, 2012

We are creating an Inspiring clothing range! Some of the clothing will be given to our brand ambassadors to wear around their university campus. We have designed three possible prints for the t-shirts and hoodies and we need your valued opinion to help us pick the best one. Have a look at the three designs below and vote for your favourite.

By voting you will be automatically entered into our prize draw to win the final design. Comment below to vote by leaving your full name and favourite design or vote on our Facebook page.  The winner will be announced next week.

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Posted in Inspiring Office Antics, Just for fun

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Celebrating our 3rd birthday with over 1,300 internships!

January 30th, 2012

London’s leading graduate internship recruitment agency is celebrating their 3rd birthday this month. In three years Inspiring Interns have successfully created over 1,300 internships for unemployed graduates. Over 65% of these internships have lead to new, permanent jobs and the majority of the remainder have gone on to secure permanent work elsewhere as a result of their additional experience.

Inspiring Interns had a very exciting year last year.  Our expanding business took on six new members of staff, five of who started as interns themselves. As we grew we needed somewhere bigger and better to house our budding team.  We bid a sad goodbye to our old office which has been our home from day one and moved down the road to our new headquarters. Our new office houses two candidate interview rooms so we can help twice as many graduates into jobs every day.

Last year saw us celebrate the publication of our careers guidebook Brilliant Intern which provides practical and meaningful advice to help graduates find and make the most of their internships.

We announced a wonderful new partnership with Job Centre Plus and the Work Experience Programme towards the end of the year to help support graduates who want to undertake an internship. Thanks to the partnership, interns are able to receive JSA (normally £53.45 a week) for a minimum of eight weeks during their internship. When graduates would otherwise be job hunting this scheme allows them to gain invaluable work experience at no additional cost. With this added work experience the likelihood of them getting a paid graduate role is highly increased, along with their employability due to their newfound awareness of a commercial setting.

An internship bridges the gap between student life and the working world – it is a vocational learning experience which provides graduates with practical experience, valuable skills and a network of contacts to increase a graduate’s understanding of an industry. Inspiring Interns founder and CEO Ben Rosen explains;

“Internships are a great tool to allow companies to minimise their risk when hiring inexperienced staff, while giving graduates the opportunity to create and earn positions that may not have been there without the internship. A three month placement gives the intern the chance to learn lots of new hands-on skills and make themselves indispensible, and therefore move into permanent employment.”

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Don’t be disheartened by unemployment figures

January 19th, 2012

The recent unemployment figures may make grim reading for job hunters and those poised to leave university but the view from Inspiring Interns is that there are innovative solutions to these disheartening statistics.

The latest survey by the Office for National Statistics revealed unemployment figures have risen to 2.68 million in the three months to November 2011.  The unemployment rate for young people was 22.3%, up 1% from the three months to August 2011 with a total of 1.04 million 16 to 24 year olds out of work.

The UK’s jobless are losing hope for the future with the number of people unemployed for over one year reaching 857,000 in the three months to November 2011. Research conducted by The Prince’s Trust found that unemployed young people are feeling less confident about the future than they did this time last year.

With job losses in the public sector likely to continue, the Government must make every effort to help the private sector and SMEs to create more jobs. The key to reviving the job market is to focus on enhancing the right skills and considering roles in growing sectors and newer industries.

In our experience most success has been found in newer industries which often complement many graduates’ personal interests. Areas such as mobile technology and digital marketing offer potential for swift progression when compared to more traditional professions and also allow university leavers to draw on familiar skills, such as knowledge of social media.

Inspiring Interns are championing graduate internships as a new and successful approach to encouraging small business to hire university leavers and getting graduates into work. Their model – a three month placement with minimum lunch and travel expenses, with a view to permanent graduate job – has seen over 1,300 graduates complete internships in the London area in the last three years, with 65% of them going on to secure full-time work with their host company. Inspiring Interns CEO and founder Ben Rosen believes that internships are the perfect model to get graduates into meaningful work.

“An internship provides that stepping stone between student life and the working world – it is a vocational learning experience that more often than not will lead to a job.”

Rosen also explains the benefit for employers;

“Internships offer employers the chance to hire someone on potential rather than experience. A three month internship period allows them to offer the intern training and the chance to observe them in the workplace before committing to taking them on permanently. This limits their risk and allows them to take a candidate on who they would not have otherwise.”

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The big office move!

December 5th, 2011

Last week we said goodbye to our old office and moved down the road to our new headquarters.

It was a sad farewell to our old pad which has been our home for nearly 3 years but for an ever expanding business we are moving on to bigger and better things.

The new office offers more space for our growing team to help even more graduates into jobs. We now have two candidate interview rooms so we can help twice as many young people every day.

In the move we managed to keep the essence of our old office and not lose any of the Inspiring charm -we have just spruced it up a bit!

Have a nose at the photos from our moving day:


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Ten interview mistakes

November 8th, 2011

We have been speaking to some employers who take on graduates about interview tips & techniques. Instead of putting this into the standard interview tips blog that we have all read before, we have compiled the following list of things you shouldn’t do. Everyone knows you should do some research and arrive on time, but what else?

Don’t be too early. Plan for everything to go wrong, do arrive early, find a cafe and then get there around ten minutes before the interview is due to begin.

Don’t forget to wash your hands. It sounds simple, but having dirty hands or stuff written on hands will be visible to the interviewer. You’ll almost definitely shake someone’s hand and you probably don’t realise how much you use your hands when you are talking. So put down that newspaper on your way there.

Don’t forget to be nice to the receptionist or whoever greets you! More often than not, the interviewer will ask this person what they thought of you.

Don’t fidget! Sit still, remain calm and compose yourself. Speak clearly and give the interviewer a good impression of yourself.

Don’t apologise for being nervous. Of course you’re nervous, this is fine. The interviewer knows this, and apologising could make things a little awkward.

Don’t lie. Be honest.

Don’t forget to sound enthusiastic. If you want to come out of the interview successfully, sound like you do. If you are lacking passion, either fake it, or question why it is you are really there. If you can’t fake enthusiasm, don’t go to the interview. You’re only wasting time.

Don’t ask about how much you will earn or the amount of holiday you will have until the very end of the final interview. Be it an interview for a graduate internship or permanent job, wait until the interview has concluded. Usually the interviewer will bring the issue up when they feel comfortable.

Don’t pretend you have no weaknesses. This is an absolutely classic interview question, so prepare for it. Unfortunately, you are not a superhero and everyone has a weakness. Make sure that you can turn your weakness into a positive. For example – you could admit that you are not very proficient with MS Excel, and counter this by stating that you are planning to take an online course to improve.

Don’t forget to continue in ‘interview mode’ until you are completely out of ear and eyeshot of the office. You never know who will be watching!

The advice we at Inspiring Interns would give you on top of all this, is to be yourself.

Do you have any further advice? Let us know by commenting below!

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Posted in CV & Interview Tips

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Meet the Team – Sam Bloom

May 18th, 2011

We are giving you the chance to invade Inspiring HQ and meet the people behind the scenes.

The idea is to interview each member of the Inspiring team to give you a little bit of a sneak peek of what goes on behind the graduate internships and the roof-top parties.  We will be digging the dirt on each of the team members so you can learn more about their roles, their ambitions and their inspirations.

To kick off the ‘Meet the Team’ series, the marketing team gets to know co-founder and Business Developer, Sam Bloom…keep an eye out for his little known fact!

Let us know if you have any of your own questions for the team, we are not afraid to ask them!

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Posted in Inspiring Office Antics, Just for fun

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An Inspiring interview – guest blog

March 30th, 2011

Written by guest blogger, James Goldson.

I’m a recent graduate who, like many, are finding it extremely hard to get into the world of work. I found Inspiring Interns from the recommendation of a friend and thought I may as well get in contact and see if anything comes of it. Although I’m already in the middle of an internship, it’s a bit of a dead end placement as there’s no prospect of a job at the end. What appealed to me about II is that the majority of interns gain full time employment.

So anyway, I spoke with Christina from HR who told me what the procedure is and asked me to come in for an interview. I’ve done quite a few interviews before but have never had such a surreal one as this. It started off terribly. Literally a worst case scenario occurred. I found the office fine but the lift gods decided to smite me and break the lift. Great, I was stuck on the 4th floor and couldn’t get out. Luckily, the friend that recommended Inspiring Interns to me, Alex, actually works for them and so I gave him a quick call to say ‘please rescue me’. As Alex is a kind soul, he decided to tell the whole office who found it hilarious. In fact some of them came down to see if I was OK by speaking through the lift doors – pretty embarrassing really.

After nearly 25 minutes stuck in the lift, a technician rescued me and I collapsed into the office dripping with sweat and nearly dying of dehydration – worst first impression ever. Considering I looked like I’d just arrived from the Sahara, the team were very hospitable and fetched me a glass of water and apologised profusely. Once I’d recovered from my ordeal, I had my interview with Christina which involved a few general questions about what I wanted to do, what experience I had etc. The more daunting part was having to do a video profile which they send out to businesses to accompany your CV. I’d been warned about this before so I had prepared a minute or so spiel on how great I was, but I’m not the best speaker in the world so was quite conscious of mucking it up. But it was all very relaxed and luckily I could have as many takes as I wanted, and once I’d finished I could watch it over to check it was OK. On take 3, I had an acceptable video profile (by my low standards) and Christina assured me it was good. So once the interview was over I decided to hang out with Alex for a bit who gave me a guided tour of the office. They have this amazing rooftop balcony with a crazily good view, a kitchen full of food, and a football they like to kick round the office – one of the nicest offices I’ve seen.

So to sum up, I got stuck in a lift, made a video and then played football in the office. Quite a fun interview really.

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An internship is for life, not just for 3 months

March 14th, 2011

Those of you who regularly check our website may have noticed the cloud and moon formation on the menu bar encircling the words ‘Get Inspired’.  This a new section we have been working on to let you know about our vision for your future careers.  It aims to inspire and demonstrate the benefits of undertaking a graduate internship.

Of all the graduates we have found internships, 65% have secured permanent positions at the company they interned for.

At present, seven real life success stories feature to give you a little background on their reasons for coming to us in the first place, what they were looking for, what they did during their internship and how they earned a full time job.

This is Jess’ story:

Why did you come to Inspiring Interns?
I came to Inspiring after having applied to many jobs and either not hearing back or getting rejected. I realised that while I have a degree, I didn’t have much experience and so I wanted to do an internship to enhance my skill set, boost my CV and potentially get a job. I went specifically to Inspiring because I liked that they organised for lunch and travel expenses to be paid and the way they seemed to have so many contacts and want to match you to an internship that matched your skills, interests and career aims.

What kind of internship were you looking for?

I didn’t particularly know what industry I wanted to work in but said I wanted something challenging, with immediate responsibility, where I could use my skills. I wanted to be put in the deep end.

What did your internship involve, and what did you learn?

My internship involved joining a small management team and 3 other interns in starting up a company in the diamond industry. My initial role was to work out some processes, create documents we needed and manage the technology solution that the company would be using once we’d gone live. Once live, I was part of the client service team (contacting and managing client relationships) during the first two sales cycles but then moved to a different role and managed the technology development, delivery and use. I learnt how to start up a company, how a business works (from models to processes to HR), management skills, team work in extremely busy and stressful times, technology development and delivery, negotiation theory, managing client relationships and a huge amount about the diamond industry.

How bigger role do you feel the internship played in you gaining a permanent position?

Without the internship I would never have found such an enjoyable job. It was the only way to get into the industry and into the role I am in.

So thanks to Jess, Catherine, Katharina, Katie, Nabila, Poormina and Thomas for your contributions.  If anyone else has a story they would like to share, please get in touch!  We aim to build a community, so if you have anything you would like to see featured in our blog or on our website then again, please contact us.

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Why you should make a New Year’s resolution

January 12th, 2011

We are half-way through the first five day working week of 2011 and it is time to ask yourself a question.  Did you make a New Years resolution?  Of course you did.  And even if you haven’t consciously decided you have a New Years resolution, the chances are there is inevitably something you want to change about yourself or achieve this year.

Upon quizzing the Inspiring team about New Years resolutions for the purposes of this blog, the majority definitely fit into the latter category.

Of those that gave clean/legal responses, most of the team have decided that they will go to the gym more often and/or lead a healthier lifestyle.  The ever effervescent and apparently philosophical Ben (our CEO) informed me he planned to do into others as I would have them do to mean whilst Christina (HR executive) has decided to stop being stubborn (!?) and Leonie (HR executive), rather depressingly, has decided she needs a better life.

Upon asking Hannah (our newest marketing intern) the same question, I received possibly the most relevant answer to this blog.  In 2011 I plan to take every opportunity that comes my way.

If you are reading this blog it is highly likely that you are on the look out for a career or a career change and that you view an internship as a way into said career.  Maybe you’re thinking you’ll put off applications, that you’ll wait until next month or even the summer.  Whilst that is several months away, it’s never too early to start looking for an internship.  In fact, now is the perfect time.

There are always internships available throughout the year and those of you who get the applications in early stand a much better chance of securing the internship you want.

However, you may already have an internship.  In which case, why not consider a New Year’s resolution something along the lines of take full advantage of the opportunity.  Remember that in a working environment you are not only exposed to what could be a completely new industry but also those who are around you.  Networking during your internship creates huge advantages for you so do your best to develop relationships with potential mentors. You will be viewed as emerging talent and networking with new colleagues or those who work in the same industry will expose you to their experience and knowledge.  You never know, this could be a way of converting your internship into a permanent job or just a good way of developing working relationships which may come in handy in the future.

So there it is.  New Year’s resolutions.  It’s not too late to make one and perhaps making your target official will encourage you to go that little bit further to achieve it.

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Posted in Just for fun, careers advice

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Will you be affected by public sector job cuts?

December 16th, 2010

The Government recently announced that from August to October this year unemployment in the UK increased by 35,000 to 2.5 million, forcing the UK unemployment rate to 7.9%.  Whilst this is mainly due to the loss of 33,000 public sector jobs, the government will soon to pile on more depressing news.  100,000 public servants are likely to have their Christmas ruined by a letter stating that their jobs are at risk, in the face of local council budget cuts and the need to reduce the number of posts by March 31st.

Further statistics reveal that male unemployment increased by 11,000, while the number of unemployed women rose by 24,000 to 1.24 million, which is the highest total since 1988.

Clearly stating what is on everyone’s mind, the chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, John Walker said that “with inflation expected to remain above 3% in the foreseeable future, combined with public sector job cuts, these unemployment statistics are a worrying sign.”

So, as a recent graduate, where does this leave you?  For those who work in the public sector, or were looking to do so, the spectre of unemployment is sadly all too real.  However, there is a (dim) light at the end of the tunnel.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday David Cameron was quick to point out that the move away from reliance on public services to raise employment levels was already underway: Over the last six months, we have seen [the creation of] 300,000 new private sector jobs.

Evidently the Government is confident the private sector will be able to fill Britain’s increasing unemployment problems. Although Cameron’s statistics suggest this could be viable, there will undoubtedly be a lot more competition for the available jobs which will only enhance the current cut throat environment surrounding the job hunt. This downward pressure on the market will be felt most acutely by graduates who lack experience but are coming up against candidates with one-two years of working under their belts.

Students and university leavers therefore need to equip themselves as best they can before heading into the job market jungle.  A CV full of transferable skills and experience relevant to the world of work is the key to impressing employers and an internship is a great way to pack your CV with employer-friendly material. So with tough times potentially around the corner act now to insulate your career against the economic cold.

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