Digital Producer Intern Review

The main functions of the role revolved around helping to build and manage the charity's website(s). This mainly involved using a third party Content Management System to build and edit pages - either designing new ones or fixing problems on existing ones - and sometimes this involved using HTML and CSS too. I got to see a whole range of work, it wasn't just a case of being given one tiny task to do in a bigger project - I got to see the whole What, Where, When, How and importantly Why of the initiatives and projects that I was involved in, the full design process. But there were also a lot of smaller ad-hoc tasks and queries which helped to give real experience of the team's typical day-to-day work. The Digital Production team sit within the Design team in the Tech department and were basically a jack-of-all-trades meaning you could end up helping out wherever needed within the design process. This resulted in a lot of collaboration and experience with the User Experience (UX) team in particular, but also doing some project management and working with UI and Content teams.

I gained a lot of experience of the design process and how collaboration makes for success in digital products, especially in web editing. This included planning and designing new pages using techniques such as "Know, Feel, Commit", brainstorming for ideation and "How Might We" questions, and sketching sessions. Thanks to working closely with the UX team, I also learnt a lot about UX processes and was able to take part in conducting UX research interviews, testing and note-taking. I learnt how to use or applied existing knowledge of a lot of software used in Tech design teams, including Slack, Teams, Mural boards (I have a newfound love for them after seeing them in action within design teams), Content Management Systems, Photoshop, Adobe XD and PowerPoint. I also got to put some HTML and CSS knowledge into practice, and build on my problem-solving skills in doing so. We were encouraged to take part in a free design course run by Acumen Academy/IDEO.org and given time to block out of our working week to study it, in teams with colleagues from the charity. This was great as it gave us an opportunity to work closely with other team members whilst also helping us to understand and develop both the design process and project management skills. We were also allowed to study other related courses that we wanted during any quieter periods. In addition to this, during quieter times we were also able to reach out to other teams within the department to learn more about them and gain a broader knowledge of Tech teams in the workplace, and how everyone collaborates together. For me, this meant being able to shadow Infrastructure and Software Engineering teams which allowed me to get some great insight into broader Tech teams and what was going on within the charity.

The charity was in the second half of going through a transformation project in their Tech department when we joined, and we were the first intern intake since Covid happened so I feel my answer to this question might not be a fair reflection on how they'd normally deliver in this area. I was thrown in the deep end without proper support in my first project within a couple of weeks of joining, being asked to come in half way through an initiative and take over project managing it. On top of that, my manager left the charity just weeks into me joining - and it was him I was taking over project managing from. The caveat for doing this was because I'd had some minor experience in leading a couple of very small informal initiatives in a previous organisation, but this was my first job in Tech, first time doing anything in a design team and the charity was in both an entirely different sector and did things very differently to my previous organisation - so my experience there didn't transfer well for this particular project. I should have been supporting an experienced design project manager in my very first project instead, particularly given that this is an internship position and intended for learning. Not just for me, but so that the design team in the project weren't impacted by my complete lack of Tech, charity and design experience as this wasn't fair on them. But I fed this back and I think lessons were learnt. It was largely down to unfortunate timing coming off the back of the restructuring and my manager leaving so soon after we joined. On the positive, it was a lot of responsibility to take on, but without proper support I didn't learn as much as I could have and it impacted the team I was working with in a negative way, although ultimately we got the job done in time through hard work and compromise. Everything said, the team I was working with were brilliant and very understanding of the situation. Throughout the rest of the internship I was trusted with the normal kind of jobs that any team member would do and was given support within the team if I ever needed it. A lot of this was ad-hoc queries working with different people around the organisation which gave a nice opportunity to meet different people, see content from different areas and get an idea of how parts of the organisation fit together. The queries were mostly fairly easy but some were very time-sensitive which kept me on my toes at times. In design teams there are often periods with a lot of work, or very tight deadlines, and other periods where there isn't so much passive work coming in so you have to proactively find your own projects to work on. My team were very open to us doing this, looking around for things we could review or improve by ourselves and then making a case for doing so. There was a bit of a longer period of downtime in the second half of my internship which meant I didn't get to work on another major project after my first finished, but I eventually managed to fill the time in with shadowing other areas and doing some courses as previously mentioned. I fed this back and the team took some feedback onboard to have a bit more structure to the work given to future interns to keep them busy and make sure they have plenty of direct responsibility over the length of the internship. The teams were very open to taking feedback and seemed to genuinely want to improve things for future interns.

Apart from the hiccup with the first project I was put on, which I've previously explained, there was plenty of support and guidance from not only my direct team but also the wider Design team and anyone I spoke to in Tech in general. I didn't meet a single person I didn't like within my department at the charity - everyone was so friendly and helpful. There was a really great spirit of collaboration within the Design team in particular and in some ways it felt like a family unit. The charity has been working on it's knowledge management, trying to make sure there is support and guidance for everything available online within the company so that you can always easily find what you want. It's not perfect but it's better than the majority of companies I've worked for in the past and they're actively working on making it much better right now. In the meanwhile, if you ask people to help you someone will always be able to get you to the right person, who will then be very willing to run through whatever you need help with. I had catch-ups with my manager to set out goals and talk about progress throughout, and also communication with the Design team Lead at least once a month about what I was doing and feedback on it. The L&D team in particular at the charity were great. They run workshops for different topics ranging from skills relevant to what you might be doing in your team or area, to general information relating to what the charity does (e.g. learning about cancer). They also had a consultant run several soft skills workshops focusing on things such as career development, being more persuasive and influencing people.

Everyone was very friendly, helpful and inviting. The dress code was pretty relaxed. Generally the atmosphere was very relaxed but people obviously get busier when deadlines are tight on certain projects. Hybrid working means you go into the office ideally two days per week and work from home the rest of the week, unless you specifically get a remote contract. The office was incredibly nice with plenty of plants throughout and floor to ceiling windows all around for a relaxing atmosphere. They have two floors in the building and a café upstairs which is good value for money and has decent food. The general work format in the office is hotdesking via a seat booking system and there are sofas, comfy chairs, huddle areas, with small bookable meeting rooms and conference rooms when needed. As the office is located right next to Stratford Westfields, it's great for grabbing a drink with people in Stratford or Hackney after work. In the time I was there we had a couple of team and Design team socials which was great to get to know people better. The charity seem very inclusive. I myself had struggled to find companies open to taking on career changers like myself in a position like this as a lot of companies seem far more interested in only taking on people around school leaver ages despite what they might say publicly and make excuses not to take on older candidates, whereas CRUK seem to be very open for inclusivity.

I loved it. We started with three month internships and many of us got extended another three months, to six months in total. I would have liked to stay for longer and was sad leaving the organisation, more so than I thought I would have been at the start of the placement. I got sucked right into the experience and didn't feel like "just an intern" there, I felt like a proper member of the team, which is largely thanks to the team itself and the culture of the organisation. The insight into the Tech world I gained from this is invaluable, especially with it being my first job in a Tech department. Even though there were a few things I've mentioned which could have been done better, CRUK wanted to take on feedback about these things and I trust they'll go from strength to strength improving even more with every new intern intake. It's not only a great charity to work for, it's a fantastic company to work for, full stop. In addition to everything else already mentioned, you're also adding value and helping to raise money for a such an important cause with everything you do. Doing something good for the world rather than just lining stakeholders' pockets adds even more value to an already great experience.

Yes

Just do it already! Be yourself, engage your head and think carefully but speak from the heart in your application. Don't just say what you think they want to hear, add your personality to it (whatever that means for you), engage and show your empathy. Think about what motivates you about the position and what you want to get out of it - then get that message across. Most importantly, if you get a place to work here, don't waste a single second of it. Get stuck into the work, be proactive about finding work and making the most of the time you have, don't sit around waiting for things to come to you. And if in doubt, just ask - people here want to help you succeed because if you succeed, the company does better which works for everyone.