Tudu Intern Employee Spotlight – Michelle Marketing Intern Summer 2020

Interested in doing a Summer Internship at Tudu or SpeakFluent?

We interviewed one of the past Summer Interns – Michelle Kwan, about her experiences so that you could learn more.

Note: www.whatstudu.com and speakfluent.ca are founded and managed by the same founder – Michael Wong

Employee: Michelle Kwan (Marketing Intern, Summer 2020)

When applying to the internship, what year / program were you in?

I was a first-year Business Management student. I was actively searching for internship opportunities for Summer 2020.

How did you come across this job opportunity?
After connecting with Ryan Ing at the Breakthrough Program, he was able to connect me with someone in his network who was looking for summer 2020 interns through email. From there, I had a phone call and a virtual interview for the position which led to an offer.

What was the interview process like?

After being introduced by Ryan, I had a 30 minute phone call interview followed by a 30 minute zoom interview. After the phone interview, I was introduced to the platform and asked to explore and give any feedback.

What technical skills did you need for this internship?

I used Google Office Suite, Discord Chat, Canva, Later, Trello. I learned most of these on the job and were not necessary to to know prior.

What were you expectations of what this internship would be like and how did that change?

Being the only first year, I expected to struggle with the workload and learning curves with the job. I also anticipated it would be hard to connect with my co workers and that there would be little to no work environment since it would be remote and we would be working over Discord. I was pleasantly surprised to find that although I was not familiar with some of the software, I was able to quickly adapt with practice.

My boss was also very active with check ins and available for any help or questions. As everyone is adapting to the new online work environment, I was also pleasantly surprised with the seamless transition into discord and the openness of my co-workers who I am now close friends with.

I quickly learned I was able to branch out and learned/worked on; social media marketing, website design, product development, user experience, and sales.

Could you tell the story of a specific project you worked on?

Social Media Marketing Project

When I first began this internship I only used Instagram for personal use, but by the end of the internship I realized how powerful Instagram can be in building a business. I grew the Instagram page from 600 to 2700 followers over the course of my 4 months here. I experimented with copy, graphics, time of day of posts for my promotions, which factored into creating the highest engagement. It was great to see my own marketing ideas be put into action. One of my got posts 209 likes 🙂

The Tudu page in 2021!

Influencers Project

One interesting project I worked on was working with Food Influencers. These Instagram Influencers had upwards of 1000-2000 followers, and it was incredible to connect with them over the phone and be able to add value to them by inviting them to Food Tasting events to support local businesses. It was very revealing to get to know them on a human level and see that a lot of them are not just “doing it for the gram” to get more followers, but many were very gracious to get involved just to support the community and local businesses

Platform Design Project

I can walk away from this internship feeling proud that I have helped make an impact on the design and functionality of the platform since I was first introduced to the platform at the start of the internship. I feel very fulfilled that I am able to log onto the platform today and onwards and be able to recognize some of the specific changes that I helped implement like the new rewards program, content creation process, and many of the Experience Packages available for purchase.

How does this internship fit into your greater career plan?

This job gave me hands-on experience working in a corporate environment so that the next internship I pursue I will already know a lot about how the day-to-day operations work, like team meeting, status updates, and handling multiple projects. I also have some great stories of projects I worked on that will make me stand out at my next job interview.

What type of students would you say this opportunity is a great fit for? What type of students might this not be a great fit for?

I think this opportunity would be great for any student who has not worked in a startup before as you get to work on so many different aspects of a business in comparison to a corporate job. I would also recommend this for any student who has not worked any internships before, but is excited and ready to learn as it has helped prepare me for the next step in my career which is to work in a corporate environment.   

What did my average work week look like?

This was a 4 month full time internship where I worked from 9:30am – 5:30 pm Monday to Friday. My work week consisted of daily touch point meetings at 9:30am where we discussed daily tasks/projects needed to be completed. We also have weekly demo meetings on Friday where we discuss what we have worked on with the development team and what next week/new projects will be worked on.

My typical workload would vary depending on the day. If there was a new project, feature that needed to be implemented, or urgent task needed to be completed, I would temporarily shift focus to that project. My general focus was influencer outreach, content creation, and quality control for the platform. I was also working with the development team to actively identify any bugs/glitches that were on the platform to be fixed. 

< End of interview >

The year after, Michelle was able to land an internship at CIBC as a Marketing Intern, in their Communications department.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at ryan.ing@ryerson.ca and I can put you in touch with Michelle 🙂

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