5th August 2024 Hooked on Learning: Tech Interns share their experiences

Two Year 13 students, Rahnel and Earlgi, have just started their paid summer internships with the technology company, Hook. As a start-up on the cutting edge of developing new AI tools for businesses, Hook is an exciting place for an intern to step into the world of work and gain experience.

Since 2021, The Talent Foundry has partnered with Hook to help recruit its summer interns. This year, we received more applications than ever – making it incredibly hard for Hook to select just two people.

Over the next two months, Earlgi, the Commercial Intern, will get hands-on experience working with the marketing, customer, sales and operations teams. She will learn to create high-quality social media posts, using data to develop strategies and helping organise customer events.

At the same time, Rahnel will be Hook’s Technical Intern, working alongside the software engineering, data science and product development teams. He will discover more about AI and machine learning, answer customer questions and help come up with new product ideas.

To learn even more about what Hook’s newest team members can expect from the next two months, we spoke to Merilin and Selma – two previous summer interns to hear about their experiences.

Merilin

It was the summer just after restrictions were easing after Covid and I saw an opportunity from The Talent Foundry to join a tech B2B SAAS company as their Operations Intern, which I thought was interesting. It was an exciting opportunity to gain relevant experience in marketing and a way of developing core skills by learning along the way.

I had several motivations for applying. I saw it was a small start-up company and I wanted to be their first intern to help each other grow and strive for excellence. I was also excited to shadow different people in different areas of the business, and I was eager to have a project of my own that I could work my hardest to deliver a well-thought-out plan at the end of my internship.

During the internship, I worked in a range of different areas and shadowed all aspects of the company (Engineering, UX/UI), including working closely with Firaas, Hook’s CEO. I worked with recruitment to source potential candidates for open roles across three hiring platforms, which resulted in follow-up interviews. When I worked with General Operations, I managed the team meeting agenda, office deliveries and organised office space. In Marketing, I boosted LinkedIn traffic through strategic content posts – including a metrics slideshow, internship blogpost and a paid survey campaign.

I also got to run my own project. I created and managed our first ‘Metrics for Customer Success’ survey, which was distributed to 108 respondents across four marketing channels and analysed results on excel and presented to an internal team of 9 people in the last week of the internship.

The internship with Hook really boosted my confidence to deliver presentations and enhanced my transferable skills – like how to communicate my ideas cohesively. It also improved my knowledge of the specific tools/platforms Hook uses in their marketing.

My time at Hook has helped me be able to demonstrate situations where I have utilised particular platforms or skills. For example, having researched competitors at Hook has enabled me to carry out research for my university assignments in depth and detail.

I have also become a more confident person by fully diving into Hook’s culture and making mistakes and learning along the way.

When I interned at Hook, each person made time to help me understand the business and enjoy my time – I appreciated everyone at Hook. Their social events are always so much fun! Across the years since interning there, I have been invited back to many socials: Christmas party, summer party, new office opening party etc.

I want to say thank you to both Amelia and Firaas for being amazing mentors and for answering the thousands of questions I bombarded them with.

Salma

I discovered the internship opportunity in the summer of Year 13, when my sixth form Careers Advisor forwarded me the opportunity from The Talent Foundry. I was immediately drawn to the idea of working for an innovative start-up company working with AI to create tools for businesses. Since I planned on taking a gap year, spending my summer at Hook was the perfect opportunity for me to get a clearer insight into what future subject I might want to study.

I spent time with different teams at Hook, making an incredibly varied and exciting two months. From getting an introduction to Figma with the Product Team, to learning how machine learning works with the Data Team, each week brought something new and I loved learning about how everyone’s work came together to create Hook’s product.

Working with Operations during their office move was my gym replacement! And I loved the variety of new tasks I could help out with. I got to work on my research skills and write up an article, which taught me about the ethical dilemmas of AI art.

My time at Hook has helped me realise that I want to learn more about artificial intelligence and how we can use it to improve lives. The team were all wonderful and incredibly welcoming, and I want to especially thank Amelia and Robyn who supported me throughout the entire internship!

With so much to look forward to, we wish Rahnel and Earlgi the best of luck in their new roles. We look forward to hearing about their successes and achievements. We will check-in with them in the coming months to share their experience.

To find out more about any of our programmes, click here.