Indiana INTERNnet celebrated internship excellence on February 26, 2019 at the 13th Annual IMPACT Awards Luncheon. Though the event is over, and the winners have been announced, we are continuing to celebrate the nomineesâ successes.
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These are their stories.
Zack Chambers graduates from Indiana University in May 2019 with a degree in Marketing and Professional Sales. He completed an internship with Business Improvement Group.
Indiana INTERNnet: What made you interested in pursuing a Business Management degree?
Zack Chambers: I will be graduating from Indiana University this May with a Bachelorâs in Marketing and Professional Sales. I always say that I have come to marketing backwards. I started out with a love of writing that brought me to media and editing. However, I realized my lifelong passion for business could be married with this in the field of marketing, particularly in digital marketing and content creation
IIN: Describe your internship experience with Business Improvement Group (BIG). What were your favorite aspects?
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ZC: Interning with BIG has been quite the experience. I have had the opportunity to take a small company with little to no marketing activity and help turn it into a major content marketing firm. Not only that, but we help other businesses plan and optimize their own marketing strategies.
IIN: What was the most challenging project you were assigned?
ZC: My most challenging project was creating a series of marketing flyers for a new client. I had to completely learn his marketing and messaging strategies. After that I had to leverage my minimal graphic design skills in order to create a professional product out of the Adobe Suite for him.
IIN: Did you encountered any obstacles while working for BIG?
ZC: We were stretching into a new market, so the organization didnât necessarily have the institutional knowledge or processes developed for graphic design. Right before we were about to hand the flyers over to the client for printing, we realized the templates we had been working off of were European, so the dimensions were wrong! We had to scramble at the last minute to find a workable solution to this
IIN: Â How many internships have you completed? Could you describe the benefits youâve gained from these experiences?
ZC: Â BIG has been the longest and largest internship that I have had, but I have also worked with a recruitment company back in Carmel that hires SLPs, PTs, OTs, etc. for school districts. The main benefit anyone will get from an internship is experience. Of course, you get experience in the field you are working in, but more than this you get experience going to work every day and clocking in hours within a professional environment.
IIN: What are your future plans and career goals?
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ZC: I plan on continuing on with BIG after I graduate as a full-time marketing analyst. I hope one day to own my own company or have significant equity in the company that I work with.
IIN: Has your nomination for IMPACT Awards impacted your life?
ZC: Yes! Anthony made a very nice Facebook post for me that got quite a bit of attention. Attending the banquet allowed me to see the many ways that internships affect individuals and the companies they work with.
IIN: Why are internships important?
ZC: Internships match talent with companies that need talent. Rather than filling your free time with nonproductive things or work in fields you are not interested in, internships allow you to develop with an organization that is interested in you.
Zack has also made blog series that he has been writing over the course of his internship that can be accessed here. Â He produced a major content piece meant to help small business owners called the Small Business Ownerâs Handbook. The entire website is a product of BIGâs work this summer, redoing it to make it more user friendly and optimized for the buyerâs journey.
