Lessons learned: My path from intern to full-time
Jr. Paid Social Manager, Saadet Aysal, shares her journey from intern to full-time employee. Read about her growth and the lessons she learned along the way.
Not the typical internship experience
I first joined as a performance marketing intern in September 2019. If I had to describe my internship in one word, I would have to say, “Unusual.”
The recruitment process
When I first interviewed with Taxfix I was applying for multiple internships at the time. Being a recent graduate, it can be so frustrating waiting for an answer. So many companies don’t even get back to you if it’s negative, they just keep you waiting. That was one thing about Taxfix that stood out to me, how seamless the recruitment process was.
Also, the role was very intriguing. Performance marketing works a lot with data, which was interesting to me. I’m into consumer behavior topics and I knew this was an area where I could force myself to think about consumer psychology. This combination of qualitative and quantitative aspects was very cool to me.
Learning the ropes
From the beginning, my onboarding was very organized. The team started by giving me all the terminology and tools to understand the channels we were working with. I also had a lot of one-on-one coachings with different colleagues. It felt like every other day a different person would come to my desk and say, “Hey Saadet, I’m going to teach you this, when do you have time?”
They gave me a lot of space to practice as well. I started by comparing different campaigns to understand how we rate performance. Pretty soon I was taking on smaller channels and gradually got more and more responsibility as I went along. This surprised me, just how much trust I was given early on.
Finding a community
I was lucky to join such a great team. We got along well from day one and this hasn’t changed as we grew over time. Some of my best Taxfix memories are from when we were all in the office together. Someone would start laughing about something and for a moment we would just start talking and making fun of each other. Especially now that we’re all working from home because of social distancing, I miss those moments. We’re managing the change pretty well — all things considered — and still finding ways to stay connected.
What I learned along the way
After six months I made the transition to full-time as a junior paid social manager in the Marketing Team. Here are a few important lessons I picked up along the way:
Keep Calm
Keep calm. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you grow in a matter of months if you stay motivated. Don’t be frustrated about a lack of knowledge because that will always come in time. Learning is never-ending, it doesn’t matter if you’re junior, senior, or head of a department.
Failure isn’t fatal
In the beginning, I was so afraid to make even small adjustments on the channels. I had this fear that I would touch something and everything would break. Michael, our head of marketing, was always very supportive. He would always say, “Fail fast and learn from it.” And that’s what I did, I tried to fail fast. That’s how I overcame my insecurities, I allowed myself to try things out. The team knew I wouldn’t do anything too wrong, I was probably just underestimating myself.
There are no stupid questions
Be eager to learn and show motivation that you want to improve. Here, one thing we truly care about is seeing that people want to improve. We are so willing to invest time to contribute to your development. The main point is staying motivated. Ask for the things you want to learn instead of waiting for it. Everyone should ask as many questions as possible. There are no stupid questions and sometimes even random questions are leading to bigger learnings.
Teaching is the best way to learn
I’ve learned how useful it is to teach what you do. Teaching is one of the best ways to understand what you do and don’t know. It’s a great way to test yourself.
My team has recently started a marketing academy initiative. Every week a different member gives an interactive training session to teach each other what we know; anything from hard to soft skills. I think it’s so important to learn about the things we personally want to improve in.
The journey continues
I knew I wanted to stay with Taxfix for a few different reasons. First of all, our company values actually mean something. We’re building everything upon these values. They give us a guide to understand whether what we are doing is right, whether it’s on track with our goals. The values also create this team spirit. It’s a great foundation for starting interpersonal relationships.
Additionally, I believe that if I was doing this job somewhere else, I couldn’t have grown this much. All the opportunities and responsibilities I got were incredible. There is so much space to grow here and my team is super supportive of that. This was the main driver for me to stay with the company.
New challenges
When I first started, it was about learning and implementing basics and now my challenges are quite different. It’s no longer just about hitting the forecasts, it’s about understanding the concept of scaling and having that growth mindset. Before I was just reacting to things but now I’m at that level where I expect myself to be more strategic. I’m not just looking at basic metrics, I’m working on gathering customer insights from our data.
Looking back, I’m very proud and happy of where I’m standing today. Managing some of our biggest marketing channels is a huge but exciting challenge. There’s still have a lot to learn, of course, that’s never-ending. I’m at the start of my career and have a long way to go.
Interested in joining the team? Check out our open roles or join our Talent Pool.
