Remote study, remote working… for the past year it’s often felt like the world has turned remote. But remote internships? Could they be a viable option for our students? And what are their unique challenges compared with a ‘traditional’ internship?
To find out, we asked three fearless Bachelor students who’ve all undertaken their second internship remotely, thanks to a little help from our Careers team, plus plenty of initiative and adaptability of their own. We’re publishing each of their stories over the next three days – first up is Rhett Cai…
Rhett Cai
Nationality: American
Internship: The Hotels Network
Remote working wasn’t something I had in mind for my internship, but when Spain went into lockdown, my employer, The Hotels Network, put the team into remote working and so that’s what I did from the start. I’ve not actually met my Marketing colleagues face-to-face, although we’ve spent too many hours to count on Zoom calls and Google Hangouts!
I was interested in the technology sector of the industry and so The Hotels Network was a perfect option. It’s a hotel tech company that was founded in 2015 and it’s grown like crazy ever since. Even during the past year there have been new jobs created in areas like Marketing, Product Development and Client Success, so I saw the team grow around me.
The company’s products and services are designed to help hotels optimize and boost their direct booking channels, in turn helping them become less reliant on the OTAs (online travel agents) for bookings. This whole aspect of integrating technology into hotels is something that’s going to move the industry forward, so it really appeals to me.
Working in the marketing department I’ve been able to get involved in a lot of different activities. I focus on lead generation and translating those leads to our sales teams. I also worked much on content creation, such as researching and writing articles, case studies, as well as preparing webinar materials – that’s been a cool part of the job and I’ve learned a lot through that, even if it was a bit scary to see my words out there in the world!
What have I learned from the experience, and what would be my advice to others? My main tip is to make sure you manage your work properly and stay very organized. Your colleagues are not around you like in a normal office setting; they will be caught up in their own things, but they will still expect you to complete your tasks even if they’re not checking up on you regularly.
You’ll also need to balance your time well, because it’s definitely easier to lose track of it and work longer hours remotely than you would in an office. Lucky for me when Les Roches went to remote learning I was at home in the States, so I got used to managing my time. That translated to how I worked during my internship.
Overall I’ve grown a lot in the company and learned a lot about the industry, which was what I set out to do. One thing I know for sure is that I want to work in hotels or hotel-related companies, but focused specifically on the ‘back end’ jobs like sales and marketing. The Hotels Network has given me great experience in these fields and it was also an excellent company to work for – I’m very thankful to my team for helping me to integrate so easily.
