March 29, 2022, by aeyam24

My Virtual Internship Experience With Bright Network

By Anna McConachie, English student blogger  

Something I’ve been told countless times on my career journey is the value of internships, placements and work experience. However, the uncertainty of the pandemic means finding and securing internships seems more daunting than ever. Luckily, the Bright Network offers a range of online internship experiences to help you start.  

After attending a careers appointment where I admitted I didn’t know where to even begin when searching for internships and placements, my careers adviser suggested I take a look at the Bright Network website. Bright Network offer lots of virtual internship experiences to give you a flavour of a career sector you may be interested in.

My experience:

I applied and was accepted onto the three-day Public Sector, Policy and Charity internship experience. The first day introduced a few key companies from the sector, such as the Civil Service Fast Stream, Bookmark, TeachFirst and Ofcom. These sector specific sessions were helpful for revealing the huge variety of roles available within these sectors, as well as giving insight into how to boost our CVs and applications. Moreover, the networking sessions allowed us to ask questions and converse with the key speakers, making it an invaluable experience that you could tailor specifically to your interests.

The work sample was a great way of engaging in the tasks that would be expected of an intern within the public policy sector. The tasks were interesting, gave me real practical knowledge and only further confirmed my interest in this area. The work sample provided opportunities to network with fellow peers and I definitely connected with a fair few people on LinkedIn afterwards!  

The final day provided us with advice on boosting our CVs, as well as talks on key skills such as resilience and negotiation. They even gave us examples of how to include our experiences at the Bright Network Internship on our CVs. 

Overall thoughts:  

1. The virtual internship experience was a great way of introducing myself to the format of an online internship, something I’m sure we will need to get more used to in the coming months.  

2. It was a great opportunity to network with like-minded students and companies, to begin building those important connections. 

3. The internship highlighted the multitude of roles and pathways available within a sector that I am really interested in, giving me more direction on my career journey.  

4. It contained lots of helpful sector-specific hints and tips to make my applications stand out.  

Discover ways to build your skills and get work experience by exploring the careers online internships and work experience webpages. You can also find out more about Bright Network’s upcoming internship experiences through their website.  

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