Marketing Internship

 Should I do an Internship?

 Am I eligible?

 How do I sign up?

 SignUp Form 

 How will I be graded?

 What is the project report?




Should I do an Internship?

All Marketing majors are encouraged to do a Marketing internship. You are encouraged to think of the internship opportunity as a "strategic" career choice. What industry do you want to explore? What marketing job function interests you the most? What type of company interests you (large or small, manufacturing or service, etc.)? As an intern, you are easy for a company to "hire" because the commitment is low. Therefore, you can partially influence what you do and where you go. The internship experience will make your on-campus course work more meaningful, will help you to fine-tune your career objectives, and will provide you with resume "experience" and a basis upon which to evaluate job opportunities upon graduation.

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Am I eligible?

To be eligible for a Marketing internship, you must have declared Marketing as a major, taken or be concurrently enrolled in either the Market Research course or the Buyer Behavior course, and have junior or senior standing. The internship may be taken in any quarter, including summer. Students are discouraged from taking more than one internship.

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How do I sign up?

In the quarter prior to taking and internship, go to the placement center and look over the marketing (and related) internship opportunities. Some internships are also posted on the bulletin board outside Rm. 102, St. Joseph's Hall. Contact the employer (a resume is recommended) and see whether there is a match between your expectations and their needs. Alternatively, set up an internship through your own search or contacts. Once an employer is willing to sponsor you, develop a one-page proposal describing the responsibilities you will have as an intern and contact the marketing internship coordinator. This faculty member will decide whether your internship project will qualify for credit, and if so, for how many units. The internship coordinator can advise you in your search for an internship.

In order to register for the internship, you must go to the Registrar's office and pick up a PETITION TO TAKE AN INTERNSHIP. This needs to be filled out by you and then approved by the internship coordinator (McIntyre), the Marketing Department Chairman (Tyebjee), and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies (Whalen). If the internship will cause you to go over 18 units in the quarter that you are registering, then you will need to get a "course overload" waiver from the Dean of Undergraduate Studies (Whalen). [Note: If your overall GPA is above 3.0, you can overlaod without permission].

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How will I be graded?

Your grade will be determined primarily by your project report. Your ability to apply classroom concepts to your job will have to be demonstrated. The instructor will also evaluate your ability to "manage" the internship in terms of meeting deadlines, etc. Finally, a favorable evaluation by your employer is expected. Anything less than that will detract from your grade. It is your responsibility to get the employer evaluation from the faculty coordinator and give it to you supervisor along with an envelope addressed to the faculty coordinator.

It is also your responsibility to meet with the faculty coordinator as required, seek direction in writing the report on you project and deliver the completed report to the internship coordinator on the last day of scheduled classes for that quarter. Sometimes internships span more than one quarter. In that case, you actually enroll in the internship (with the University registrar) in the final quarter of the internship, in the case that your internship will continue over more than one quarter.

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Will the marketing internship count towards a Marketing major?

Yes, as long as the faculty coordinator approves five credit units. Internships of 3 units are also possible and these do not require the internship paper. However, students are discouraged from doing two different internships.

• Note: If you are a Retail Studies Program student (as well as a Marketing Major), then you can take the Marketing Internship for 5.0 units, but your Senior Seminar (MKTG168) will count only as 3.0 units. If you opt to take the Marketing Internship for 3.0 units, then your Senior Seminar will count as 5.0 units.

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What is the project report?

You should view your internship paper as a chance to reflect on your experience as an intern. You are to write an internship report that is ten pages long (double-spaced, typed) plus any additional exhibits following one of three alternative options:

Option 1: A Strategic Report

Option 2: An "Experiential" Report

Option 3: A Research Report

The grade you receive will be influenced by the "degree of difficulty of the Option you select for your internship paper. The first two options are the easiest to write and tend to be graded in the "B" range. The research report will require more work on your part and is somewhat more likely to receive an "A" grade. The research project (Option 3) will require you to investigate a "special topic" that is appropriate because of your work environment. More details on eacn of these report options isprovided in later sections of this document.

Whichever report option you chose, it is due on the last day of classes in the Winter and Spring quarters. This is a strict deadline and late papers will be graded more harshly. Earlier reports are definitely encouraged. In the case of internships wherein the field work is done over the summer and you are registering for the internship in the Fall quarter, the report is due by the last Thursday of October. This keeps the internship paper from encroaching as severely on the rest of your work for that quarter.

Also, in the Fall Quarter, on the last Thursday in October (approximately), there will be a meeting of all majors who have completed an internship since the previous October (except those who have graduated). This meeting will be to share your internship experience as will be explained at the meeting. There will be postings announcing this meeting on the bulletin boards in the Marketing Department. Make sure you come to this meeting.

This section is designed to help you write the internship report. Your report must demonstrate that you are able to apply concepts you have learned from other marketing classes to your internship experience. I am providing below suggested outlines of a report. Of course, this structure is just a starting point and depending on the nature of your company, the functional area in which you are working and the kinds of tasks you are performing, your report may need to be appropriately tailored.

There are several options for your report, each described separately below. The first option allows you to do a report from a strategic perspective and gets you thinking about the big picture. If you choose this option, you will probably have to get information from outside the immediate area in which you are doing the internship. The second report option is more experiential in nature and deals with tactical marketing issues. The third, and favored option, is a research report that allows you to investigate a special topic.

What You Can Do To Stay On Track?

1) Meet with your supervisor and discuss your report.

2) Meet with your supervisor and kibitz with him/her.

3) Start thinking about your report right away so that you can use your on the job experience to gather information, conduct interviews etc.

Know how you will be graded:

• 1) Your employer's evaluation counts for a small part of the grade (less than 10%).
• 2) Effective management of your project in terms of deadlines etc. counts for something.
• 3) Your report counts over 80% because this is the only real "deliverable" from your work. You will be evaluated in terms of demonstrated application of concepts, nature and analysis of information used and organization and presentation of the report.
  • Do be organized in your presentation
  • Do be specific -- the worst internship papers are the one that discuss topics in vague generalities
  • Do have flawless grammar and spelling, etc. (after all, there are spell checkers and even grammar checkers).
  • Use a business writing style and avoid the first person. Do not refer to a company as "they" or "we", but rather as "the company" or "it."
  • Do use exhibits and refer to them in order in your paper. However, use good judgement: don't put in a big exhibit when one sample page would have done just as well. Your paper has to fit easily into a backpack.

What Are The Deadlines?

All Marketing interns meet in the last week of the October. At that meeting each intern will describe his/her internship experience. Summer interns who do their field during the summer (but complete the report and register the course during the Fall quarter must turn their papers in by the 4th Thursday of October (in order not to interfere with your other Fall quarter classes).

I Executive Summary

II The Context

III Company Analysis

• Describe here the strategy that your company is pursuing of the products and services it sells and the customers / markets it targets. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the company? What are the historical performance trends of the company's strategy.

IV Competitor Analysis (see Chapters 2 and 4 of the Lehmann & Winer Book)

• This section describes the competitive set. What strategies are competitors pursuing? What is the impact of this competition on your company?

V Industry Analysis (see Chapter 3 of the Lehmann & Winer Book)

• This section describes the major trends in the industry (size, growth, life cycle, profits, political, regulatory, social, economic, technological).

VI Customer Analysis (see Chapter 5 of the Lehmann & Winer book)

• This section is probably the most important. Here you demonstrate your understanding of the customers and their needs. You also recognize that customer groups may differ by applying segmentation. to your markets Which competitors are serving which segments? Which segments are under-served and can be viewed as potential opportunities?

VII Marketing Plan

• This is where you identify what your company must do to address the opportunity or threat which may be facing it (based on the above analyses). Lay out the marketing plan in terms of product strategy, promotion strategy, pricing and distribution. Are their any implementation issues to be considered? IX Appendices (as needed)

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I Executive Summary

II The Context

• Describe here what business your company is in and what scope of responsibilities were covered by your internship activities.

III Company Background

• Describe here the strategy that your company is pursuing of the products and services it sells and the customer markets it targets. What are the historical performance trends of the company? What are some of the major marketing concerns or issues facing the organization?

IV The Marketing Organization

• How is the marketing function organized in your company? Who does what and why? How is coordination achieve?

V Marketing Strategy

• Describe the marketing strategy of your organization in terms of the 4 P's and the target markets. Who are the competitors, how is their strategy different?

VI Marketing Effectiveness Assessment

• Is the organization implementing the marketing concept. How or how not? What is it doing to stay in touch with the market? Are their any gaps in its understanding of the market and its customer? What is being done to deliver customer satisfaction? How does it know whether its customers are satisfies or not?

VII Recommendations

• Based upon your observations above, what recommendations would you make to improve the marketing effectiveness of this company. How would you implement these recommendations?

VIII Appendices (as needed)

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• The research report format will have you look into a "special topic" that is appropriate to your interests and the work environment of your internship. For instance, if you were to intern at an advertising agency, your topic might be "Issues Related to Reach and Frequency in an Advertising Campaign". You are then to do some research on the topic of "reach and frequency" and to discuss in detail how this issue is being handled in a specific instance by your ad agency. The basic idea of the whole exercise is to get you to think broadly about the issues surrounding a given type of marketing decision or area, to research this topic, and then to detail how the problem is being dealt with by your organization in a specific instance.
• The topic and name of your report will be arrived at in conjunction with the internship Faculty administrator. You should be "teaching" the faculty advisor something about this topic area since you will be an expert on the subject (certainly as it is being applied in that organization).
• The key to the research report is to be as detailed as possible. This can sometimes be done well through the use of exhibits to your internship report (which do not count into the 10 page report limit). Try to include actual documents, printouts, or reports that are used by the company. However, do keep the internship report as short as possible -- excess material can detract. If there is a long document you are considering as an appendix, maybe just include one page, etc. (use your judgment).

I The Context (short)

• Describe here what business your company is in and what scope of responsibilities were covered by your internship activities.

II Research Problem

• Describe here the decision problem that your company is facing. What are the issues that the company faces? What are they doing about these issues?

III Recommendations

• Based upon your observations above, what recommendations would you make to improve the marketing effectiveness of this company in this decision area.

IV Appendices (as needed)

• I want to stress again that it is the selected use of details that are the basis of a good report. The poor ones tend to err by "flying over the territory at 40,000 feet." Also, the individual internships will differ in their perspectives and the report should remain flexible to these differences. The above outlines should be used as a place to start rather than a rigid requirement which stifles your creativity.

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EMPLOYER EVALUATION FORM

Thank you for having sponsored a Santa Clara University student as and intern in you organization. We would like to have some feedback regarding the performance and abilities of the intern and your opinions about the internship program. Please take a few moments to fill out this form and return it directly to:

Dr. Shelby McIntyre, Marketing Department, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053 Tel: 408-554-6833 Fax: 408-554-5056

Your comments will be treated confidentially. We do encourage you, however, to give the student some frank feedback directly so that the learning experience can be maximized. Thank you once again.

NAME OF INTERN: ___________________________________________________

What was the intern's greatest accomplishment for your organization?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the student?

Were there clear tasks or objectives given to the intern, and to what extent was the intern able to define their own tasks and objectives? 

What is your opinion about our internship program? Can you make any suggestions for improvement?

Signature: ______________________________________ Date: _____________

Your name: __________________________________________

Title: _______________________________________________
Organization: ________________________________________

Tel. No. ___________________________________________

Contact Prof. Shelby McIntyre

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