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joeyacademia111096 · 4 years ago

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Paalam at Maraming Salamat! (Thank You letter to immediate supervisors)

Dear Yana, Iya, Rene, and Trish,

Hi, everyone! Hope you’re all doing well. I miss all of you and I wish I were still there with you at work!

I would like to thank again each and every one of you for my wonderful journey here in AdSpark! Although my stay was short (as expected) I still managed to learn a lot from AdSpark and this industry as a whole. I have to talk turkey and admit that at first I was a bit apprehensive to join this organization mostly because of the fact that as you know I have almost zero experience working in this type of industry. However, each and every one of you gave me a chance to prove myself. You could have easily chosen another intern who was more equipped than me but you all gave me the benefit of the doubt and decided to go with an inexperienced intern who still needed to get his feet wet in the world of digital advertising and marketing.

The journey was very fun and meaningful. I managed to make new friends in all of you and I was able to pick up a few skills in helping me function in this kind of working environment. Moreover, you guys actually added substance and depth to my resume by hiring me as your intern. Because of your decision to allow me to be your intern, my resume/CV actually gained more credentials and broadened my field of knowledge and expertise. Of course I’m still a hospitality person but any knowledge to boost one’s resume/CV will always benefit one in the long run.

I couldn’t have asked for a better team and I thank God that he introduced me to each and every one of you. Thanks again and Godspeed!

Sincerely,

Jose Enrique T. Academia

AdSpark Enterprise Group-Growth Intern (January 11, 2021 - March 15, 2021)

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joeyacademia111096 · 4 years ago

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Personal letter to future AdSpark Intern/s

Dear new AdSpark Intern,

Greetings!

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on making it to AdSpark, Inc.! I’m pretty sure you’ve done your research and are already aware that AdSpark is a very successful company in the digital advertising and marketing firm. It has a lot of clients to serve and to level with you, it’s an Ayala company. A lot of Filipinos especially today would kill to work for an Ayala company whether to be as a regular employee or intern as long as they get that name on their resume!

Now you may be wondering what exactly did I do during my 10 weeks here in AdSpark? First of all, I have to tell you that I am a post-grad student taking up a certificate in hotel operations. Although AdSpark’s industry does not really cater anything in my field, I still pretty much learned a lot from it. I was able to get a taste of what it was like to work with 3rd party clients by making and editing decks for pitch presentations, doing background research for them and their competitors etc. After all, I did work for the client services department and that was my job. To help our clients in their business by seeing both their strengths and weaknesses.

While my internship with AdSpark was overall good, there are some things where I have to be quite frank with you. I hope that this not happen to you as well but during my days, there was a lot of idle time. A lot of times I would have to “make kulit” to my supervisors just to give me more tasks to do. In short, I didn’t really have a lot on my plate. But don’t worry, that usually gets addressed because there are times when lots of reports come in and you’ll be busy encoding, typing up MOMs (Minutes of the Meeting), making and creating decks, and doing background research. However, don’t let any of these setbacks I faced discourage you from having a good time!

My advise to you is to be comfortable and patient. Sometimes it can get frustrating because there may be times where you have too much to do and other times you have very little or even none to do. It all depends on how much workload your supervisors can assign to you without breaching company confidentiality. Other than that, the people are fun to work with. They’re very patient with you and will guide you all the way. Just make the most of your time in AdSpark and live in the moment!

Again congratulations and Godspeed on your internship journey with AdSpark!

Sincerely,

Jose Enrique T. Academia

20190309

AdSpark Enterprise Group-Growth Intern (January 11, 2021 - March 15, 2021)

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joeyacademia111096 · 4 years ago

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My thoughts and reflections during my AdSpark days (1,000+ word blog)

Before starting my blog, I was already advised ahead of time by Enderun’s Office of Career Services, OCS for short, that the internship that I chose to work for had virtually almost nothing to do with my course which is a certificate in Hotel Operations. However, now was not the time to be choosy. Because of the current pandemic and limited options, I pretty much had no choice but to embrace the career openings available to me. I was quite nervous at first because looking at the available options, there were indeed no Hospitality openings for interns. However, I did not want to delay my studies any further and just hoped for the best. I did remember though that back in my college days, my course focused on communications and I decided to cash-in on that. Low and Behold, I was able to find an Internship suitable for me, AdSpark. Even though AdSpark had basically nothing to do with the Hospitality Industry being it is a digital advertising firm, I still managed to make the most out of my internship there by making new friends, gaining experience from another industry, and increasing my knowledge in other fields.

Upon joining AdSpark, I had applied for two (2) openings: Client Services & Marketing. After being interviewed, I ultimately chose to go for Client Services because I felt that I was more qualified there. Since I was a former hotelier as a front desk receptionist, I have had experience dealing with various guest services. Therefore, I felt that this department was still in essence similar to what I have been trained for in my course. Of course, a new playing field meant new things to learn.

On my first day, I have to come clean and admit that I was very anxious because for the next 10 weeks, I would be working for a company that was part of an industry that I almost have zero experience working in. I didn’t really do much though on the first day because my supervisor and mentors were busy accomplishing their daily tasks, and at the same time figuring out which tasks to assign to me without compromising confidentiality. Later on within the day, I finally had a get-to-meet session with my department. They were very welcoming and they made me perform my special talent for them by singing and playing my guitar just to break the ice. Everything went okay during the first day although it was still a bit underwhelming because I basically had no tasks to do but to just meet my department that day but it was all good.

Finally as the weeks progressed, I was given more tasks to do. I have to be quite frank and admit that as a client services intern, I was expecting to have roles of actually talking to the various clients of AdSpark doing whatever such as possibly talking to their own client representatives etc. That was not the case because for the most part I was actually mostly just assigned to attend internal briefings for clients where my supervisors and heads of other departments would discuss ideas and pitch promos on how to go about for the new/ongoing campaigns of the various clients AdSpark is working on. After the meetings, I would be assigned to do the MOM (Minutes of the Meeting) and send it later on within the day for the other AdSpark personnel to see. That’s not all though because there were times I’d be assigned to make decks and make google slide presentations for future meetings, and input data during reports season. I was basically doing a lot of admin and secretary work. I’m not trying to bash my department because again I was already told ahead of time by the OCS of what to expect and I had my mind set on it. Therefore, I already knew what to expect but the workload assigned to me was at times very underwhelming. There was even a time where my department was not giving me any tasks because they were busy with various other duties to the point where work became so dull and boring to say the least. Because of this, I kindly asked my direct supervisor if I can be temporarily placed in the Marketing department while I wasn’t doing anything. I was told during my onboarding orientation day along with the other interns that if there were any bland moments, to just approach Ms. Janine (the one assigned to the interns) and she would do something about it. Good thing though Ms. Yana (my Client Services head) was okay with it and I worked for the marketing department for 1.5 weeks. I was also basically doing the essentially the same work as my client services work but more focus on research but at that point I was just desperate to do some work just so that I could log-in my internship hours. Finally, I returned to my client services department and the usual tasks were just being assigned to me until the end of my internship. If one were to ask me what were my top challenge/challenges during my internship, I would say trying to find a way to stay busy and get more engaged in my work for the rest of my AdSpark stay. Being bored is not easy at all. With so much time to pass and nothing to do, it can get very difficult and ironically stressful of not having to do anything at all. Unfortunately, I had to deal with this challenge for 10 weeks. Thank God I was able to manage.

Finally on the last day of work, it was quite nice. Aside from my same old routine I was able to bid farewell to my team. I was actually quite flattered and touched because they told me that I did more than what was expected of me given that there were times I felt that I was heavily underutilized. I think my supervisors knew that they could have done more for me and because of that they thanked me for always exerting effort and enthusiasm to work even though they had nothing prepared for me to work on.That was a good pat on the shoulder. I gifted each of my teammates Php 200.00 each worth of GrabFood coupons and we went our separate ways.

After my days in AdSpark, it made me realize that I’m most likely not cut out for digital advertising and any other data-driven companies though I wouldn’t entirely rule out a possibility of ever returning to this industry since I already acquired some experience. It was a refreshing take for once because I was doing something that was not in my field of knowledge. I even entertained the idea that I could possibly work in this industry. However, I firmly believe that fate has a different course for me and it made me realize that I truly belong in the hospitality field. Please don’t get me wrong. AdSpark is a very reputable company and it indeed has its merits. However, at least for my department, they should really revamp the recruitment and job description of what the client services intern would do. What I found lacking during my tenure was that most of the time I always had to keep asking my supervisors if they had any tasks for me. There were no tasks automatically prepared on-hand for me. I had too much free time. But hey, nothing’s perfect. In the end, I was still able to learn a thing or two from this entirely new industry I was working in.

Now the question is would I recommend AdSpark to future interns? Absolutely! Without a shadow of a doubt I would definitely recommend AdSpark to any person who aspires to work for marketing, advertising, communications, client services etc. In short, if you’re a person who’s into data-driven stuff, AdSpark is the place for you! Just look at the company’s achievements and let that do the talking. AdSpark is a very awesome and reputable company and working here is indeed a privilege for anyone given that it is a Globe company therefore making it an Ayala company. A lot of people would kill just to work for Ayala and working for AdSpark means setting your foot in Ayala’s kngdom. As I said before, my only recommendation is that AdSpark should really revamp their internship system (at least for my department). In some weird way, AdSpark helped me realize that I indeed want to work for the hospitality industry and that AdSpark’s industry isn’t for me (at least maybe for now). But that’s the beauty of trying out different things. You see where you excel and where you fail. Other than that, once again AdSpark is a great company and I cannot express it enough. If it is your dream to work at such a reputable Globe (Ayala) company such as this then I say go for it. When the opportunity presents itself to you, strike while the iron is hot!

Once again, I thank AdSpark for the opportunity it has given me. I thank my supervisor, Yana Dalisay and my mentors Rene Cajoles, Iya Duenas, and Trish Menchaca. It may have been just 10 weeks, but in this short amount of time I was exposed to a whole new world!

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