As founders, we’ve talked a lot about how pivotal and important our internship experience was. We both started interning in high school and eventually, it enabled both of us to get a foot in the door for life changing college internships at our dream news organization, which ultimately led to our full time jobs. We are forever grateful for the people that took a chance on us when we spilled their coffee, had no fashion sense, wore a backpack with both straps, and broke their copy machine. And who also gave us amazing opportunities.
Even now when we look back at assignments we were given as interns, we think “WHO THE F WOULD TRUST AN 18 YEAR OLD TO DO THAT?” But thank God someone did.
We’ve always made a promise to each other and to theSkimm that we would be as generous of mentors to people that we meet through theSkimm, as we were fortunate enough to have.
But sometimes, easier said than done.
In January, we got a very nice and way too long cover letter from a high school senior — who we’ll call Intern Y — who said he loved theSkimm and wanted to intern with us. We forwarded the letter to our community marketer and said “very young, but good enthusiasm, keep on file.” We told him the truth which was that we weren’t thinking of summer interns until later in April. But the reality was the thought of us hiring a high school student made us go HAHAH.
And then in March we got another letter:
“I’ve read your Tumblr and decided to take your advice: don’t beat around the bush and ask for what you want.
I want to work at theSkimm. It is the bright spot in my (and now all my friends) morning. I will come in at 6am or 6pm. I’ll stand in the Central Park heat holding a theSkimm sign and pass out flyers on those seemingly endless summer Shake Shack lines. I’ll make shameless Facebook statuses promoting theSkimm and help up Instagram game. I’ll make Excel spreadsheets as fast as I watched the second season of House of Cards and answer your phone calls as well as Joan Holloway. When it comes to juice, you’ll be covered and maybe I’ll even make my famous Nutella mug cake for those particularly long Wednesdays.
If I am being too forward, I apologize. I know it’s not April yet, it’s just that working at theSkimm seems SO much better than making sure a group of 6 year-olds put on their sunscreen for eight weeks. “
So we brought him in and when we met him, there was no way we couldn’t bring him onto our team. Intern Y has gone above and beyond finding ways to organically spread theSkimm, taken initiative on assignments that weren’t even for him, and, most importantly, he’s been a team player — just two weeks ago, every person on our team said he was their ‘high’ of the week.
NEW ENTREPRENEUR LESSON OF THE DAY: Prove people wrong.
Originally published at blog.theskimm.com.
