My name is Jaime and i did an internship at a teacher recruiting company in Vancouver, Canada where I worked in the Advertising & Marketing Department in order to get my bachelors degree in Business Administration back home in Germany. The company that I worked for was founded by two English teachers. They recruit ESL instructors from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States and then place these university graduates in teaching positions in safe, reputable English institutes and government programs worldwide.

During my internship I worked as an intern in the marketing/advertising department and briefly was introduced to the placement and recruiting department. The principal duty of the marketing department is to make national and international advertising campaigns that are placed within universities, schools and online websites in order to attract the attention of job seekers who are interested in teaching ESL overseas in particularly in South Korea. Their target populations are generally English native speakers from the countries which I previously mentioned.

During my practicum I was proactive and set up a marketing survey which asked our alumnus what our company could improve in order to provide them with a better service and general information. Furthermore I had to call teachers and request the missing documents and also to ask them if they are still interested in teaching overseas. This was a big chance for me to improve my English skills while talking with customers on the phone. Also, I had to create a Media-Kit about our company which has been requested by a local newspaper “The Vancouver Sun” in order to promote our company.

In addition to this work, an intern from Ecuador and I had the task of setting up an entirely new marketing strategy for our main project “Enggo” (Teaching English Overseas). The main idea was to create a web 2.0 platform like Facebook, Orkut or StudiVZ where students and schools can create their own profiles and share their experiences overseas with friends and other students who are interested in going abroad to teach ESL.

My internship was one of the best experiences I have ever had. Most of my expectations have been fulfilled in terms of improving my English skills and gaining some international work experience. Already at the beginning of my internship I felt comfortable and enjoyed a nice work atmosphere where everyone tried to do his/her best to integrate me into the staff in order to ultimately become a part of the family which I really appreciated and I will truly never forget such a warm welcome.

I had a lot of responsibilities so after a few weeks I knew how to do a lot of things and I did not have any real problems understanding the business process. Therefore, I was able to be quite proactive in the company and make suggestions on how the company may improve some of its inner workings, particularly in terms of their marketing strategies. The work atmosphere was most of the time very good and we kept a good company with each other. Especially because it is a small company I liked the fact that we had a weekly meeting where everyone got the chance to talk about their work and any kind of trouble they had so that I could quickly get a lot of information. Of course we had also some issues in the office that I did not have the same opinion but important for me was to see and to learn from my co-workers and accept and tolerate different culture and traditions.

I appreciate the had work INTERNeX is doing in order to provide international students a comfortable stay in Canada particularly the weekly PuB NiGHT's and other weekly and monthly (Whistler trip, the host venue of the Olympics) events that are recommended to anyone who would like to learn English during or after their schooling. At the end I just would like to thank the Co-owners for giving me the opportunity to work at their company and of course INTERNeX for offering me this unique chance. The internship is a big step in my career and I will never forget where everything began. I had a great time in Vancouver…Thank You!