Who are you?
I’m Ana; I’m 19, and I’m doing a bachelor’s degree in management. This is my second year of three, and I have been with Customs Support on a five month marketing internship from 27th March to the 25th August.
How did you come about Customs Support?
Although my bachelor's degree is in management, I am looking to specialise in marketing. Therefore, I wanted to find an internship in this field this year to support this goal.
A friend of mine did her internship with Customs Support last year and really enjoyed it. It just so happened that they were looking for someone to help the marketing team in the French market, so I applied and joined them for my placement in April.
What have your responsibilities been as an intern?
One of my main responsibilities here has been working with French content.
Most of the content we publish is in English, but we have a large audience in France. Because my English is good and I am a French native, I can take an automated translation and tidy it up, then check the context against the original to ensure it holds the same meaning.
As well as working with our content, I have also worked with landing pages and other parts of our campaigns.
What have you enjoyed most about your internship with Customs Support?
Marketing is such a broad subject and we cover a lot of topics in an educational setting, so it’s been nice to really dig into it and get some experience putting things into practice.
Apart from this, though, I have really enjoyed working with the team here.
When I first started, I didn’t have any real experience working within a marketing team, so I had big guidelines – it needs to look like this, etc.
Over time, I felt like my colleagues started to trust and value my work as the guidelines got smaller. I still work to our brand guidelines, but I could see that my teammates were happy to trust me with taking the lead. Like “You do what you do”.
As an intern working in my first marketing role, it’s nice to feel appreciated and supported.
This is your first time working with customs. What has surprised you about the industry?
I thought that it would be all rigid and full of complicated forms, but that’s not the case at all. It’s been nice to see how much of a variety there is behind the scenes with IT and processes, and how people work to help businesses’ supply chains instead of customs being an obstacle.
What do you like to do outside of work and studying, and how do you feel this compliments your ambitions?
I love travelling, which is another reason I was attracted to this internship with Customs Support. I’ve been able to travel during this placement and still get my work done as a remote intern, and the way the team is set up means that they are used to supporting one another virtually.
Apart from my travelling obsession, I am also a big nerd at heart. I love books, and my room at home is filled with them. I try to read in English as well as French, as it’s very good for expanding my vocabulary.
One of my goals is to become a true polyglot, which will definitely help my ambitions to travel and connect with people. I did a five-month internship in Portugal last year so I learnt some conversational Portuguese, and I also know Spanish as I am from Biarrotte in Southwest France – close to the Spanish border. I am currently learning Italian with some friends as well.
What are your favourite books?
I’ve read all the Harry Potters in both English and French, and love them as stories, but one of my favourite things to read from a vocabulary point of view is the Bridgerton books. There are a lot of words that aren’t used in everyday English, and it’s been fascinating to learn them.
What’s next?
I will be going back to my university in Rennes in September. I will be there for the first semester and then going to Finland for an Erasmus exchange. Once my bachelor’s is done, I would like to complete my master’s.
My dream is to open a publishing house once everything is done, where I can market books of all kinds in several languages.
*As of October 2023 Ana works for Customs Support in a part-time role, combining her studies with working for Customs Support!*
