Where are they now: Alumni from the Hodges Internship Program

Every semester, bright-eyed, eager, ready to take on the world students join the ranks of the Hodges Partnership’s internship program. Over the last decade, we’ve seen dozens of interns come and go, and while we only spend a few short months with them, we still feel like proud parents whenever we get a new notification on Linkedin of one getting a new job. We may be biased, but we think our interns get a lot out of our agency internship and we’re always looking for candidates for our program.

To get the feel for what our former interns are doing now, we’ve caught up with a handful of them and we asked about internships and general and their intern experience at Hodges.

Brandon Singletary
Communications Specialist, MGM National Harbor

“Some of my greatest accomplishments have come as a result of pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and positioning myself for experiences, even when they didn’t exist at the time. I’m so thankful for my numerous internship and networking opportunities. Somewhere between the loads of academic coursework, maintaining a social life and working multiple jobs you can lose sight of the goals that you’ve set for yourself. I would encourage any young professional to take every opportunity, whether that be through shadowing professionals, taking internships or even taking leadership roles within their community.”

Danika Kain
Principal Marketing Associate, Capital One

“Hodges’ internship program gave me hands-on experience I couldn’t get in the classroom and ultimately helped shape my career in marketing.”

Kiara Powell
Public Relations Specialist, Virginia Union University

“The Hodges Partnership internship gave me real world experience of agency work and balancing a lot of different clients at one time, and making sure the quality of my work is the best for everyone. I also still keep in contact with people from Hodges and it’s good to know that even four years after being an intern, I’m still able to receive help from Hodges.”

Jon Glomb
The Martin Agency, Account Executive

“Internships are your first “taste” of what the day-to-day might be like in a given industry. I ultimately ended up at The Martin Agency, an advertising agency here in town, which is much different than traditional public relations…BUT, during my internship at Hodges, I realized that creating and fostering meaningful relationships was something that I enjoyed and wanted to build a career doing.”

 Duncan Phillips
National Geographic, Director, Internal Communications

“There wasn’t a better place to have received a crash course in public relations. Before I started at Hodges, I didn’t really know what PR was or that it was even a viable career option for me. I left with a great appreciation of the work undertaken at Hodges and how valuable outside PR counsel can be for almost any organization.”

Casey Prentice + Kelsey Leavey
Account Managers, The Hodges Partnership

I think an internship is the only way to test-drive your future career. When I interned here, it was the validation I needed to affirm I was heading down the right path. In addition to being a validator, there is also a limitless amount of value that can come from an internship. Just ask Kelsey:

“In my mind, internships typically are what you make it. Interns should take initiative to not only reach out to see what projects they can help on, but also make clear to their manager what kinds of things they’d like to learn. If you really want to hone your media pitching skills, tell your manager. Or if you want to learn about social media, ask to sit down with an account manager that works on developing social strategy for his or her clients. The more effort you put into making the internship valuable to you – the higher the likelihood that you’ll leave with tangible examples you can share during your next job interview.”

If you want to join the intern alumni ranks, give us a shout! We’re currently accepting internships applications for spring 2018 – all we need is a cover, your resume and a writing sample.

Casey Prentice

A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.

Read more by Casey

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up to receive our blog posts by email