Your overall reflections on the internship and your studies

The internship experience with Sportslink Travel and The Richies have been fantastic, I have been able to receive a taste of what working in a professional environment is like and had the opportunity to work alongside people with like minded interests. The internship experience wasn’t always smooth sailing as it came with its challenges early on with COVID having a significant impact of my time at Sportslink Travel given the nature of the business. Unfortunately, due to the impacts that COVID and lockdowns around Australia had on the sports and travel business this meant my internship at Sportslink Travel ended as there wasn’t enough opportunities for me to be able to get the most out of the internship with them. Although my time at Sportslink was cut short early I was able to jump into focusing on an intern role with The Richies. The Richies has been a brilliant experience working with Michael and other interns who have similar interests and goals which has allowed me to learn a lot from my time spent at The Richies. I believe that the internships have strengthened my knowledge on social media and marketing strategies that can be implemented in real world situations to achieve great results. I hope these experiences will be provide a foundation for future opportunities in the sports industry and enable me to reach my career aspirations.

My studies have been quite the journey, having made the decision in the middle of 2018 to completely change universities from Deakin to Holmesglen to pursue the Bachelor of Sports Business and pursue my career dream of working in the sports industry. Throughout my studies it hasn’t always been easy with significant challenges presented through COVID and lockdown meant I spent a significant part of my studies on Zoom and Webex which wasn’t the experience I was hoping for. However, this has allowed me to develop new skills which I didn’t have before in working with people online and presenting online from doing numerous academic presentations. Given the working landscape now these skills will hold me in good stead for the future job opportunities as I have extensive experience of doing things from home and online. My studies have given me the knowledge in many different aspects of business such as social media, sports marketing, sponsorship, and various parts of the media landscape. The knowledge gained in a practical sense will allow me to transition to a professional workplace and put my skill set into practice.

I now believe I made the right decision in 2018 to change degrees and chase my dreams to work in the sports industry.

Reflection on your supervisor evaluations and how these align with your future career professional development requirements

*Updated to include Final Evaluation*

It is important to get an evaluation off my supervisor where I am doing the internship as these types of evaluations provide a stepping stone for the intern and supervisor to identify and discuss areas where performance can be improved and can also be an important opportunity for employee and manager expectations to be reinforced or clarified (Villanova University, 2021).

I recently received my 1st evaluation from Michael which was completed at the halfway mark roughly 50 hours with The Richies. Overall, the feedback was positive with the work I have been completing in social media asset development and providing creative solutions to problems discussed. An area of improvement which was mentioned was taking on a stronger leadership role or delegating amongst the team on topics that I am confident in. This is an area I need to work on in general to be confident in my ideas and ability to speak up in a meeting situation and take a leadership role during a meeting or a project. Developing my leadership skills will strongly help with my future career aspirations as it will enable me to present my ideas more confidently to different people. Self-confidence is widely regarded as an important asset being possessed by an individual which can help in achieving personal success, which can be defined as the human feeling of trust in his or her qualities, abilities, and judgment (Gelaidan & Aliyu, 2017).

Having received my final evaluation rom Michael which was completed at the end of my internship with The Richies. I was very happy with the feedback I received and it was great to receive such positive feedback from Michael around my willingness to tackle harder projects which enabled me to be more creative. The feedback from the 1st evaluation was around taking a stronger leadership which is something I tried to achieve in the later stages of my internship. From the comments I received from Michael it seems as though this was noticed as he mentioned that I had stepped up to lead more projects in January which was positive feedback to receive. The final feedback aligns with my future career aspirations in me wanting to find a role in the industry that allows me to be show my creativity. To align with these aspirations it will be important to continue to develop my creative skills and using various programs such as Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro which allows me to show off my creativity.

References:

Gelaidan, H. M., & Aliyu, O. A. (2017). Entrepreneurial intentions of business students in Malaysia. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 24(1), 54-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-06-2016-0078

Villanova University. (2021). Understanding performance evaluations. https://www.villanovau.com/resources/hr/understanding-performance-evaluations/#:~:text=Ideally%2C%20performance%20evaluations%20provide%20a,to%20be%20reinforced%20or%20clarified.

Career aspirations including goal setting

From the experience I have had as an intern at The Richies it has given me an understanding of the career path I want to take and given me more confidence I will be able to reach my career goals. I am extremely passionate about sport which means that is the industry I want to be working with in the near future. There are several steps I can take to help me identify my skill set these are considering what I enjoy, thinking about what people recognise me for, recall your childhood and consider your accomplishments (Indeed, 2021). From my experience working on The Richies social media and marketing strategies I have become passionate about that area and believe I can take the knowledge I’ve gained, and skill set to get into a professional work environment.

I have several goals that I want to achieve that will either help me get into my dream job or put me closer to achieving that dream career. The goal setting theory proposes that people perform better when they have ‘high goals’ that are specific, challenging, and achievable, Locke and Lathan argue that goals should be challenging because this produces a high level of motivation and requires new strategies that enhance effort or performance (Clements & Kamau, 2018).

One of the key areas that need improvement and one of my initial goals is to improve my interview skills. Although I have had practice during my studies and in the subject transition to professional practice, nothing quite is the same as a proper interview going for a job. I’m planning to develop these skills before applying for full time positions that align with my career aspirations. One of my ‘high goals’ is to get a job in sport or in the social media/marketing field overseas. I hope to put this into action this year by applying for a VISA in the UK and going over there/applying for open positions in hope I can get a job in England. Although this is a risk, it will allow me to combine my passion for travel and career goals into one which makes it a risk worth taking. My other ‘high goal’ is the get a job at my favourite sporting club North Melbourne Football Club who I have supported my whole life.

References:

Clements, A. J., & Kamau, C. (2018). Understanding students’ motivation towards proactive career behaviours through goal-setting theory and the job demands-resources model. Studies in Higher Education, 43(12), 2279–2293. https://doi-org.ezproxy.holmesglen.edu.au/10.1080/03075079.2017.1326022

Indeed. (2021). How to develop your skill set to advance your career. https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-develop-your-skill-set

Achievements and milestones (both technically and professionally, during your internship and personally

There have been several achievements that I have got while completing my internship at both Sportslink Travel and The Richies. One of the big achievements I have had working with Sportslink was creating the logo for the 2032 Towards Brisbane logo. Paul and I worked together to create the potential logo for the Towards 2032 program with an idea to have the cityscape and then a gold medal as the core elements wanted on the logo.

During my internship at The Richies I have been able to use my skills in video editing which has allowed me to be creative when it has come to content that needs to be created. One of the achievements was creating a video that was used by The Richies when announcing a partnership between Kookaburra and The Richies.

As I mentioned previously, I really took control of The Richies video content during my internship and one of my proudest achievements is seeing the content you have created get so many views on Instagram Reels and show the improvement in views from where it began to the views the video content is receiving now. Reels offers opportunities for brands to catch the trend of content and leverage audience engagement, reels benefits business to drive sales and conversion through the showcase of products (Nguyen, 2020). The picture on the right shows the first lyric video I put together which was a Marnus Labuschagne song.

Since the original Labuschagne lyric video, I created 5 other ones which include a range of Australian cricketers I have included the number of views below in order of oldest (Hazlewood) to most recent post (Boland). Views as of 10 Jan. 22.

Another milestone through my time at The Richies has been the growth of the follower count on Instagram which has seen the engagement on the posts created skyrocket. The follower count on Instagram was just under 5,000 followers at the start of December and as of 10th January the follower count on Instagram is at 14,000.

References:

Nguyen, P. T. T. (2020). Instagram Content Marketing in Higher Education.

Challenges you faced (the nature of the work, working hours, organisation, motivation, tabling of ideas).

Sportslink

One of the major challenges with completing the internship was the impacts that the Melbourne lockdown had which meant the only time I was able to get into the Sportslink office was for the induction day. Working from home presents a unique challenge, it’s meant to be a place of play, relaxation, family time and sleep (Daddhism, 2020).

The lockdown meant that the internship was completed online and took on a working from home type arrangement. The challenges that this brought were with communication between myself and Paul as well as the other people who worked at Sportslink Travel. The only consistent communication was from the weekly Zoom meetings which was able to give me a run down on what everyone was doing in the company and any projects that people were working on. The main type of communication between myself and Paul was through email asking for feedback and for any extra work he had for me to complete. The working hours we agreed at the induction day were 8 hours in the office a week with another 4 to be completed throughout the week on a range of various tasks including posting on the social media channels. This proved to be its own challenge with lockdown as staying motivated to complete an 8-hour day working from home was a challenge to stay focused to complete the work that had been given to me as I had not been used to the working from home arrangement. The opportunity to work from home generally increases employees' autonomy but, in turn, lowers firms' possibilities to monitor their employees (Rupietta & Beckmann, 2018). This was relevant to me as I was new to the company, they couldn’t monitor my progress which meant I didn’t have great communication with the staff and wasn’t able to learn off the staff at Sportslink to enhance my professional skills

Another major challenge that I faced was motivation to do the internship at home as I was very excited to get into an office environment after the induction day it all sounded fantastic, and I was excited to get started. Having that disappointment of not being able to have the full internship experience proved to be tough which led to a lack of motivation when completing tasks, I was required to do. Another challenge was communication as I wasn't in an office with co-workers it was hard to get immediate feedback and bounce ideas of other employees as the only form of contact was virtually or threw text or email. This was a challenge as I was doing mainly design work on Canva and needed feedback which sometimes I had to wait multiple hours for which meant I was stuck on moving forward on any work.

References:

Rupietta, K., & Beckmann, M. (2018). Working from Home What is the Effect on Employees' Effort? Schmalenbach Business Review : ZFBF, 70(1), 25-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s41464-017-0043-x

Daddhism. (2020). Feeling unmotivated working from home? This could be why. https://daddhism.com/work-life/feeling-unmotivated-working-from-home-this-could-be-why/

Becoming an effective team member and contributor: how did utilise the support of your supervisor/co-workers to help build your confidence and become more efficient as an intern (this may include feedback, training, or other support/opportunities’

During my internship at The Richies the support I had around me from Michael and the other interns was greatly beneficial for me becoming an effective and efficient intern. Through many weekly meetings I was able to build a strong working relationship with everyone which enabled me to be confident to put out ideas and to provide constructive feedback during group meetings. This was important in me becoming an efficient intern as without individuals who know themselves enough to be confident to speak up, when necessary, a team cannot achieve greatness (Center, 2018).

One of the important things that enabled me to become an effective team member was pairing up with another intern which allowed us to build a strong working relationship which allowed us to work together on certain tasks and planning content for the social media platforms. It has been found that having good work relationships are linked to better customer engagement and people are more likely to be engaged in their jobs (MindTools, 2021). Throughout the internship mainly at the start where I was gaining an understanding and working on building a relationship with Michael who was my point of contact at The Richies. I had received feedback on content I had created and ways I can improve the content to align with the style we were going for. Below I have shown a couple of examples on the feedback I had received from Michael during the internship.

After developing a relationship with the supervisor and internship it became clear that I had stronger skills in with video editing and the video content we wanted to produce. I took charge of the Instagram Reels and any video content that was needed to be created for our content strategy. By taking control of this pillar of content it allowed me to focus and really take charge of it which made me a more effective team member and gave me more opportunities to further develop my skills.

References:

Center, D. (2018). Knowing Oneself: The First Step to Be an Effective Member of an Interprofessional Team. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(9), 397-399. http://dx.doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20180813-04

MindTools. (2021). Building good work relationships. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/good-relationships.htm

Finding your feet in the internship: induction, and completing initial tasks (i.e. the first 40 hours discussion)

Starting an internship is an exciting time, as it provides invaluable career experience, meet new people, and face real-world challenges (Glion, 2020). The induction day was completed at the Sportslink Travel office where the day consisted of getting an understanding of the business and what they do. I was introduced to the small team that works at Sportslink and what each person’s role at the business was. It was important that I understood what the business was trying to achieve and what each employee was paid to do.

One of the key parts to starting the internship was talking to Paul who is the founder of Sportslink Travel and working out what my strengths are and what tasks I will undertake during the internship. As my present strengths will remain constant and my present weaknesses to improve in the future (Steimer & Mata, 2016) it was important to identify these areas with Paul so I can be given tasks that align with my strengths. I was tasked with mainly focusing on the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games marketing material which included creating a campaign and using Canva to create social media graphics for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The initial tasks were to go through all the social media platforms and marketing platforms that I will use throughout the internship to gain an understanding of where Sportslink are at and how I can help improve the overall marketing strategy. Doing this task started giving me ideas on what will benefit the organisation to increase their exposure and engagement on social media.

References:

Glion. (2020). Top ten tips for a successful internship. https://www.glion.edu/magazine/tips-successful-internship/

Steimer, A., & Mata, A. (2016). Motivated implicit theories of personality: My weaknesses will go away, but my strengths are here to stay. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(4), 415-429

Your preparedness prior to commencing your internship and how you assimilated into the organisation's culture

One of the important phases of preparing for the internship was the completion of the subject Preparation for Professional Practice which I completed in semester one. This gave me knowledge about how to undertake an interview and the skills that I have am required to have going into the internship. There are several the skills that are important to an employer that an intern is required to show. These are communication, interpersonal skills, collaboration, time management, adaptability, critical thinking, research and analysis, initiative, receptiveness, and technical proficiency (WayUp, 2022). Throughout my studies I have been able to gain industry skills such as marketing and social media skills which will be relevant to my internship. In preparation for the internship interview I had with Sportslink Travel. I had completed significant research about the business to gain an understanding on what they do and what type of business they are. I had met Paul the founder of Sportslink Travel previously in my Sports Event Tourism class in Semester One where he gave us at talk about his tourism and event experience and some of his favourite events he has been to around the world.

In preparing for the internship, I had been in contact with Paul through emails about starting the internship and an induction day. I had looked up the location of the office and made sure that I gave myself time to get to the office in the morning on time and not to be late. To prepare for the internship it was important to have an induction day at the office which would give me an understanding of the values and the culture of the organisation. During the induction day I was told the values that the company believes in and some of the important things the company likes to do, this includes trying to have an act of community service on each of their sports trips. Organisation culture is often considered as the precondition of teamwork in the organisation. It is defined as the shared values, beliefs, or perceptions held by employees within an organisation and "is the social glue holding an organisation together" (Körner et al. 2015). It is important for me to align with the culture that Sportslink Travel have been able to develop through the years of running the business. Aligning with the values through the marketing and social media content produced is an important step to take the allows me to fit into the culture at Sportslink Travel.

References:

Körner, M., Wirtz, M. A., Bengel, J., & Göritz, A. S. (2015). Relationship of organizational culture, teamwork and job satisfaction in interprofessional teams. BMC Health Services Research, 15(1), 243–243. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-015-0888-y

WayUp. (2022). Top 10 skills employers want in an intern. https://www.wayup.com/guide/top-10-skills-employers-want-intern/