By Isabella Falero
I will always remember the summer of 2023 as the summer when my NYC big-girl dreams were actualized. Even before I decided on advertising as my profession, it was always NYC. Legendary haute couture fashion designer equaled NYC. Top-notch, revered dermatologist equaled NYC. Even when I thought I was going to be the next best Christina Aguilera, it was always New York City. In May of 2023, three weeks before my official start date, I received an offer to intern in-person for Terri & Sandy, an award-winning, full-service independent advertising agency. I was ecstatic when I was invited to join the team of around 60 account people, creatives, and strategists in THE city. However, I wish I could also say that I was ready and confident to take on any challenge hurled my way, but that would be a massive lie.
You see the long road to an internship left me anything but confident. I had my eye set on New York City since I had started applying, which was probably already not a great idea. You know what they say: don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Struck with a tad bit of tunnel vision and a lot of bit of fervor and determination, I tread on applying strictly to NYC advertising and marketing internships in fashion, the industry I had always been curious about. The journey was one of lots of cold call LinkedIn easy applies and consequential ghostings, callbacks from recruiters saying they’re looking for graduating seniors only, and emails from HR sincerely apologizing for the misinformation, but that the position had already been filled. No one really tells you how difficult it is to land an internship in NYC, an entirely new terrain with absolutely no connections. I was taking every rejection a little more personally each time. It was like every “no” was a blow to the gut, a wrench in my master plan. I kid you not – I applied to around 40 internship programs. However, this is the point in my story where I tell you that this didn’t stop me. It only takes ONE employer to truly see how talented and curious you are, to take a chance on you, and to believe in you for your confidence to reach new heights.
This happened in May of 2023 for me and I will forever be grateful to the CJCxNYC program for connecting me with the folks at Terri & Sandy who took that leap of faith on a pre-med student turned ad lover with maybe three years of a fresh perspective on the communications world. With that whole paragraph of backstory, it now is warranted for me to say that my confidence was shaken upon starting in a new office with unfamiliar faces and an even more unfamiliar city. Any new place, but especially the mother-load of new places (New York City) is going to come with its own challenges. But despite all of these challenges I seemingly stacked up high in my brain, I overcame and I conquered – and I mean that with all of the dramatic effect in the world. I left New York City with three lessons in my back pocket that helped me find my inner self-confidence as an intern in a foreign territory.
1. Listening is just as valuable as speaking up
As an intern, your first guess would be that you need to make your presence known. You need to stand out in sometimes a sea of other interns. Although that may be true, what my experience taught me best was that one of the most powerful things you have as an intern is your ability to be an active listener. I can’t count the number of times I saved our account team from an extra round of edits from the production house simply by remembering what the client had said at that one meeting way back about wanting all product shots to be cleaned up, or a certain disclaimer to be displayed on the screen, or an RTB to be phrased this way. It’s the small details for the client that as an intern I knew I had the power to control by truly memorizing them and applying them at later times. Instead of being the loudest voice in the room during a brainstorm, I was the only voice in the room right before sending final deliverables to the client for approval. Active listening is a skill we take for granted that I take as an invaluable asset, whether that’s small work-related details or personal, showing that I can connect with people on a different level.
2. Trust Yourself
No matter how senior you are, you are no stranger to imposter syndrome. There probably won’t truly be a time where I wholeheartedly 100% know what I’m doing – and that’s ok. But being at Terri & Sandy has forced me to realize that if people trust me, then it’s about time I trust myself. I was honored to have been given the task of working on the biggest client account at the agency, Nature’s Bounty of which we are the AOR. On the very first day of my internship, I was thrown into a client meeting with the Vice President of Marketing of the brand. Oh just sitting in the corner of the conference room? NOPE. Front and center at the head of the table with the camera pointing straight at me. Talk about clammy palms and a rising heart rate. At the end of the day, my bosses wouldn’t have invited me to join if they didn’t see potential in me, so I just began doing the same. When they had me co-run awards submissions and lead the internal social media team of four people, it wasn’t a mere coincidence. Imposter syndrome still lingers, but I trust in myself and my skills to make the right decisions and be the best that I can be. This mentality will take me incredibly far.
3. Make Meaningful Connections
I’ve come to the conclusion that an internship is way more than what you learn in the office; it’s about the connections you make. It’s about networking, finding sponsors, mentors, people to look up to and act as role models in your professional career. Look elsewhere for connections as well – like the kind doorman who makes sure to greet you with a smile every morning, or the deli guy who remembers your order every single time, and even the homeless person on the corner of your apartment who is immensely grateful for the dollar you spare every morning. This is what my time in New York City can be amounted to: the new experiences I've had and the people that I've met that have helped me grow into a more confident version of myself both in and out of the office. NYC is the place to be if you want to get tossed around a bit but then come out stronger, more motivated, and even more ready to take on any challenge.
Although my time in the city was over in the blink of an eye, the lessons I learned will help me succeed in any future role I choose to undertake whether that’s on campus or post-grad. Working at T&S has been a dream come true and I am honored, humbled, and so grateful to have been given the opportunity to work and learn alongside exceptional leaders in the industry. I can now say that confidence can come from the most unexpected of places, but being unapologetically and sincerely myself is the most expected. I’ve learned that that is the golden rule of confidence as an intern: show them what makes me, me.
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