In this “Internship Experience” blog post series, we will be featuring the profile and thoughts of our students from Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management as they return from summer internships.
Name: Courtney Terr
Graduation Year: 2021
Majors: Marketing / Advertising
Hometown: Bucks County, PA
Intern Company/Title: NBCUniversal – NBC News Audience Development Intern
Describe your position and some of your daily tasks?
As an audience development intern for the NBC News group, I helped to increase the audience for NBCNews.com, Today.com and MSNBC.com through search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. I provided SEO recommendations for headlines, descriptions and keywords to the TODAY.com editorial team, as well as tagging online newsletters and paid Facebook campaigns with campaign IDs to track the performance of commerce articles. I tracked search referrals to NBCNews.com, and suggested new SEO headlines and descriptions for old COVID-19 blogs in order to decrease their search performance and increase the performance of newer articles. I prepared email spreadsheets for Sailthru digestion and wrote copy for Morning Rundown, Stuff We Love and THINK; both welcome and reengagement emails.
How did you land your internship?
I applied through Handshake and the NBCUniversal Careers Dashboard. I was fortunate to be able to interview with a campus recruiter while she was at Syracuse University. During my interview, we discussed what opportunities were available at NBCUniversal and which were the best fit for me. After my interview, I stayed in touch and was persistent about my interest in working at NBCUniversal. I believe that the relationship I fostered with her allowed me the opportunity to intern at NBCUniversal.
What did you learn from your internship experience?
I had prior experience working with paid media campaigns from a previous internship but had never worked with SEO in a professional setting. My responsibilities gave me the opportunity to learn skills on the job such as analyzing Google trends and how to write effective headlines resulting in better ranks on the search engine ranking page (SERP).
Has your experience changed your plans or career choice when you leave college?
As a Whitman/Newhouse dual major, I initially felt that my path after college would lead me to work at an advertising agency. After this experience at NBCUniversal, I am seriously considering roles in corporate environments, especially in the areas of marketing, both SEO and search engine marketing (SEM) and paid media. These were areas of marketing that I was unaware of before I took part in my internship experiences.
How will your internship experience help you after graduation?
The networking opportunities as well as the skills I have developed at the internships will be beneficial to my career post-graduation. Because this was a virtual experience, it has also taught me how to work efficiently in a work-from-home setting. It has taught me to reach out to my co-workers for assistance and guidance when I lost the convenience of simply turning to my peers in a physical office space.
How has the Whitman School prepared you for your internship?
My experience as a Whitman/Newhouse dual has been beneficial in my internship experience. The data analysis skills as well as the soft skills I have gained from my coursework and the Goodman IMPRESS program have helped me not only complete my tasks effectively, but also helped me to leave a positive impression on my co-workers.
What did you enjoy most about your experience?
I have really enjoyed working with the audience development team. They have been so helpful in assisting me in my tasks, as well as providing valuable insight and advice about their own career journeys.
Do you have any advice to students who are looking for an internship?
My advice would be to keep in contact with the human resources representatives and recruiters you meet with. They interact with many students and effective follow-up is critical in keeping your name in consideration for opportunities.
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