Strategy Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship as it was my first job within the sector that I am truly passionate about and want to pursue a career in. Particularly, I was able to directly apply knowledge and aspects of my undergraduate degree to my role within CRUK. I enjoyed working working under the CRUK internship programme because of the amount of workshops and opportunities there are available for self development.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, however I was only working in a small team in small sub-section of the company and so was only assigned work and tasks by one person. I felt values by this person, but was difficult to feel valued from the whole company as I did not have that much direct contact with them.

The support was great. I had weekly 1:1s with my line manager where he would check up on how I am doing on tasks, or just spend the time talking through new projects with me (even if I had no involvement in them) to give me a good idea of the breadth of the company and the work we do. The HR team involved with early talent recruitment were also great, extremely helpful and always willing to help out. The HR team dedicate a lot of their time to the intern cohort and it made my experience a lot better.

Due to the nature of the charity sector and the kind of projects I was working on, the work was fairly slow-paced with few deadlines or tight timescales. Instead there were a lot of meetings and talking through partnerships, with little actions to come out of them. Of course, I understand an Intern is not going to be the busiest person in the world as we are only there for 3 months and is difficult to get your teeth sunk into a big project.

I was given a handful of tasks at the beginning of the internship that saw me through the whole 3 months. The work was always in conjunction with my line manager, however I developed a report summary and info-graphic independently that my line manager signed off.

Having graduated (with an industrial placement year) and now having completed a 3-month internship on my CV, I feel as though I am in a fantastic position applying to graduate schemes as I have experience in 2 different sectors, 2 different roles and 2 different companies. With all the soft skills I gained through these experiences, combined with the training and self-development workshops at CRUK, I feel confident writing cover letters, updating my CV, attending interviews and assessment days as well as starting a new role knowing I am equipped with the skills to succeed.

The atmosphere was a great informal but hard working environment. We did 'hot-desks' meaning everyone sat in a new place every morning. I enjoyed this as it was a change of scenery and also meant you got to sit next to and get to know everyone in the team. It was also great fun when there was fundraising events in the office (which was a lot in SU2C week!).

The structure of the internship and the different workshops and opportunities available was fantastic. It is clear that CRUK have been doing the internship programme for a long time and are constantly changing and reviewing it based on the interns feedback.

The company are massive on self-development and aim to try and encourage the interns to apply for permanent roles in the company after the programme has finished. This was my favourite aspect of the internship as they really invest in you as an individual.

Very appealing, particularly the graduate scheme.

Yes, more so amongst the intern cohort. When the whole company went away for a big conference we had a great weekend, however it is not often that we meet for work drinks.

The pricing of food within the office was fantastic, affordable (and delicious!) hot lunches and £1 coffees at the shop next door.

I did not go out in the area I worked, only for a few drinks after work.

Yes, such as a company netball team.