Introduction
One thing I have learned over the past few months is that graduating might feel freeing at the time, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. It was exciting leaving university with the whole world of work and business to explore until I realised just how big that world is: it doesn’t care if you’ve been studying for the last decade, you also should have gained experience in the field of work you want to enter before you enter it. As it has been described to me time and time again – it’s a catch-22 situation!
Enter Accuracy Matters. I was given Rachel’s contact details by a colleague I volunteer with and after a meeting to confirm it was the right fit for both of us, a start date was set, the details were finalised and I was an intern with Accuracy Matters.
What I’ve been doing
Luckily for me, I wasn’t introduced to the team as an extra pair of hands to complete all the boring jobs they didn’t want to do. Instead, I have been welcomed to the team, taught the ropes and included in the day-to-day life of the business.
As someone who eventually wants to end up in the publishing industry, copy-editing and proofreading are skills I have been eager to master. I was introduced to Sarah, the Editorial Lead at Accuracy Matters, on my first day and she sat with me and explained the differences between these two distinct types of editing and how they can make a piece of writing clearer and more professional. Since then, I have shadowed and worked alongside others on recent live proofreading and copy-editing projects and expanded my understanding from the theory to the practical.
I have also had the opportunity to shadow live projects from the start of their process to the very end, giving me the chance to see a full overview of how a company is run. Additionally, I have shadowed meetings, an internal handover and a training session, all of which have expanded my knowledge of a professional work environment and helped me learn where I eventually want to end up within one.
Unsurprisingly, most of the tasks I have been set since beginning my internship have been admin-related but, perhaps unexpectedly, these have been the jobs that have taught me the most. Through administration assignments, I have learned the layout of Asana and SharePoint, the importance of customer and client relationships, and the organisation of availability and managing suppliers’ time accordingly.
My current project – the one which is promising to keep me busy for the rest of my time with Accuracy Matters – is helping to manage blog and social media content. Like many of us, I am chronically online, but I have never had the opportunity to work behind the scenes with the sort of content I consume every day. As the world’s screentime and reliance on the database of information we carry around in our pockets increases, so does the importance of understanding how it all works. Planning and scheduling blog and social media posts, and the ability to write blogs myself, are transferable skills I am excited to learn more about, chances I am very grateful to have been given.
What I’ve learned
Before I started my role with Accuracy Matters, I had only a little experience in the editing world, and none so acute and detailed as I have encountered during my internship. I have had the chance to learn through experience and the patience of the team as I try to navigate a world which I’m newly entering.
The transferable skills I am now using every day – such as working in a team, time management and adaptability – are all talents I will keep with me when I am applying for positions in the future.
Furthermore, the team around me are helping me to build my repertoire of hard skills. Where most of the editing knowledge I had before I started was self-taught, now I have more confidence that the work I do is professional and to a high standard. Not only have I learned the basics of copy-editing and proofreading, but I have been taught them to an extent where I would feel confident in bringing my experience to an interview. Even if I changed my mind one day and decided to go into a different profession altogether, I would still have the skill to edit my own work and produce a better piece of writing than I would have been able to a couple of months ago.
How AM has helped me
One of the hardest things about applying for any new and unexplored position is building up the confidence to do it in the first place. We have all had the terrifying pleasure of being the new kid on the block, whether it be starting a new school in year seven or moving house from one town to another, but moving into the world of work is a different anxiety all together. You have morphed from a student to an employee, a child to an adult, the oldest and most experienced age group to the youngest and least.
Accuracy Matters has helped me face my fear of starting somewhere new by welcoming me with open arms: not as someone expected to know everything immediately, but as I am – new and ready to learn.
Despite my inexperience compared with the rest of the team, I have not been made to feel any less important. I have constantly been given the chance to try new things and I’ve always had something to do and be getting on with. An experience such as this is comforting, ensuring me that the working world isn’t such a new and scary place, but a continuation of the world I have been a part of for the last 21 years.
Conclusion
So, in a few decades when I am the most experienced and sought-after professional in my field, I am sure I will look back on my internship with Accuracy Matters and feel incredibly thankful for the opportunity I was given and the support I was shown at the beginning of my career. This experience hasn’t only given me an impressive-looking section on my CV, but also a head start in the industry of my choice.
