Time flies by

After a summer full of parties, good food and a tropical holiday to the South of Spain I start my internship full of fresh energy. I am a practical person, and therefore I am eager to apply my knowledge about the communication profession in practice. After two years of theory, where I spent most of the time with my nose in the books, I look forward to start at Decom Technology People in Venray. Besides, It seems lovely to go by bike to my internship for the coming months. Public transport in the morning is not very good for a night owl like me.

''Decom has replaced the reception desk with a kitchen island.''

Now the real work starts. I take my bike and get on my way to the first day of my internship. I can get used to this. No more overcrowded trains or screaming kids for me. Before I know it, my wake-up-moment-on-the-bike is over and I am in the office where I will work full-time for the coming months. Decom is not a business where you just walk in and see an employee behind a reception desk. No, Decom has replaced the reception desk by a kitchen island. Immediately this gives a warm and cozy atmosphere and it ensures that I instantly feel at ease on my first day. Also, the young and energetic team makes me feel comfortable. Tom, my supervisor, offers me a cup of coffee. ”Yes, please”, I say determined. Because I know that this cup of coffee will give me the necessary energy for an intense day full of explanations, new faces and first impressions.

After an intensive morning full of explanations about the identity, vision and mission of Decom and the activities that I will carry out the coming period, it’s time for the usual trip to the supermarket at lunchtime. During this stroll Tom and I are talking about the things that I can expect the upcoming period. ”We are involved with so many different and innovative things, so you will experience that time will fly by.” said Tom. Immediately after the lunch it’s time for the real work. Under the guidance of Tom I arrange and plan the content. This means I influence all social media channels Decom manages, even the accounts of some of Decom’s recruiters. Yes, all those people which I introduced myself to this morning and I have already been forgotten the names of all those employees. I think this is a big responsibility for a first day, right? During my MBO internships I mainly was in charge of the dirty dishes. So this first day looked all rosy, on to the rest of the week!

The second day of my internship I start with a fresh cup of coffee. Next I start on a new day of scheduling content. The content I schedule varies from job content, recruitment news, technology news and all the other news that apply to the industry which Decom is located in. The content is being scheduled with a program called HootSuite, which I worked with before at school. Moreover, some messages have to be posted in English, which I found quite exciting because my English is terrible! But fortunately, we have good translators on the internet nowadays. Thank God!

"Some messages have to be posted in English, which I found quite exciting because my English is terrible."

As if this was not challenging enough for me, I have to check English CV’s for spelling faults, and sometimes even translate text from Dutch into English. Yes, I am being well-tested here. But I still love to take this challenge to complete one of my personal internship goals, improve my English. Fortunately, there is still hope!

Furthermore, I checked a Dutch blog text and where necessary I even made improvements. ”You immediately dare to come forward with proposals for improvement, well done!”, I heard from Tom. I structured the blog with the program WordPress. Fortunate I had already worked with this program before. Then Tom and I checked the blog for the last time and we made some final adjustments. Then we published this blog on Decom’s website and social media pages. We also spoke about the future. In the coming period I will also focus on reacting on social media comments, making vacancy images via Photoshop and stay up-to-date with the latest communication developments.

''Begin internal, win external.''

Decom is a company that stands for conviviality and they show this to the outside world. As I have learned at school: ”Begin internal, win external”, they understood this very well at Decom. During my second internship week I made a culinary masterpiece with one of my colleagues, Natascha. We prepared a super healthy zucchini soup together. This way the Decom team could continue their work with healthy energy after lunch. Of course, this great moment had to be captured in a photograph. Furthermore, I made a nice post about this healthy lunch and spread it on the Facebook and Instagram of Decom.

The first two weeks of my internship I have mainly listened and discovered new things. I really enjoy working here at Decom. While writing this blog, I’m thinking back at what Tom told me during the lunch break. The days do fly by here. And I feel satisfied after a long day at the office. After this internship I hope to know what disciplines and aspects I really like within the communication field and where my strenghts and weaknesses lie.