How Do You Approach Companies For Work Experience

How Do You Approach Companies For Work Experience Here at Bubble were always banging on about how important work experience is because it gives you some great commercial hands-on experience and it gives you the chance to get an insight into what your industry is all about. Now, weve blogged before about how you can get work experience in the digital sector   but weve never actually blogged before about how you can actually approach companies regarding possible work experience placements at their business so today I thought Id change that. You see, approaching companies for work experience can be tricky particularly if youre not overly confident and you dont really have many contacts within your chosen industry. So what do you do? 1. Research: OK, so I thought Id start with an obvious one research. Before you approach any company, its worth doing your research. Look into how large the company is, which departments they have within their business, their location and if they have any content on work experience placements or internships on their website. Its also a good idea to familiarise yourself with the companys social media presence and do a bit of stalking on LinkedIn to see who the key employees are within the business. You can then use all this info in step two: 2. Create A Contact Plan: Just like a full-time job application, the best applications for work experience are innovative and super-relevant. Look at all the information youve gathered about the company and ask yourself which method you think theyd prefer you contacting them on. Are they heavily into social media? Do they have a contact form on their website? Is their phone number listed? Most companies will probably have at least three different ways you can contact them so Id urge you to pick two and create a two-step plan for instance, you could choose to reach out to them first via social media, and then choose to follow up with an  email. Remember to keep your emails/tweets polite and professional and be sure to personalise them eg. with the social media managers name if youve already got that info. 3. Create An Application:   OK, so youre only enquiring about work experience but you still need to create some kind of application which you can send over to act as a kind of back-up for your enquiry. In addition to considering what the company could do for you if they gave you a placement, think about what you could bring to them. Do you have great existing knowledge of one of their key clients? Are you skilled in one of the key areas of their business eg. graphic design? Be sure to include these points in your cover letter and if you feel it would help, send over examples of your work with your enquiry remember, you dont want to give them a reason to say no! 4. Take A Chance: Just like with job applications, sometimes its worth taking a bit of a chance when it comes to contacting companies about work experience because it really is all about standing out from the crowd. Put yourself in the companys position, and think about what youd like to see from someone applying for work experience. Would it be a CV which was mocked to mimic the design of your site? Or a cover letter made up of 140 character tweets? Its all about thinking outside the box and this is the point at which you really can be the most creative as long as its relevant to the industry that is! For example, a creative application might not go down too well in the financial industry! 5. Chase Up: If you dont hear back from the company youve contacted, its important to chase up. It could be that they never received your enquiry or they did and forgot to apply (remember, some companies are extremely busy!) after a few weeks, if youve not heard back, feel free to send another email or give them a call. At this point, Id say its best not to mention anything publicly on Twitter because the company could see it as your attempt into shaming them into a response but Chasing up should show the company that youre serious and committed to a placement at their company and it should help to demonstrate that  you didnt just contact them for the sake of it! 6. Get Feedback: Just like a job application, its important to try and get some feedback if you do get the dreaded no. Try and find out why they said no in this instance and if theres anything you could have done differently. Also be sure to ask if theres anything you could do to make them reconsider you in the future eg. if theres anything you need to add to your CV. Even if you dont get this particular company to change their mind, the feedback they give should help with future enquiries.