Andrea Schulz, 28, is in the final week of a two-month marketing internship at the Netigate office in Stockholm. Andrea joined Netigate during the summer break of her Graphic Design studies at the Faber Castell Academy in Nuremberg, Germany. Previously, Andrea worked in marketing within tourism but recently decided to follow her passion and retrain as a graphic designer. As intern at Netigate this was her first time working in her new profession.

‘I wasn’t sure how I would fare in my new role,’ Andrea says, ‘I knew I could do marketing and sales, but I didn’t know how I would feel as a designer. It took a lot of courage – I quit my job and moved to another city to retrain. I was ready for a change – I think it’s necessary to let things go in order to create something new.’

During the internship, Andrea worked on a number of projects including sales material and the new brand guidelines. She took an interest in UX design and products, too.

‘It can be hard to come into an internship at 28,’ she explains. ‘Previously, I’d had fairly senior roles within marketing and sales. But from the first day at Netigate, I never had the feeling like I was ‘just an intern’. In the end, I feel like working here has given me the missing link to my personality – I got the confirmation to know I’m on the right path.’

‘I was searching for the right position in my previous roles. When I got to Netigate, I sat and looked around me – at the sales team, the customer services team, the marketing team – and I thought: I’ve been in a lot of different roles before, but now as a designer, this was really where I wanted to be. I was really happy – I could finally focus on the things I wanted to focus on.’

Helping each other to succeed

Andrea’s energy and positivity shine through – she’s inquisitive and enjoys understanding the logic behind the people and projects she’s working with, constantly looking for inspiration or information. ‘I’m always questioning – if I hear about something, I really want to understand it. This is my attitude towards everything in life, and it’s the same spirit as they have here. Everyone is ambitious and focused – we are all working together, helping each other succeed.’

‘In some offices, employees and teams can tend to work within their own silos – but not here at Netigate, as Andrea explains; ‘collaboration is one of Netigate’s USPs,’. Having a broad range of skills, Andrea fits into Netigate life seamlessly – bringing both her marketing expertise and her graphic design knowledge together to help work with designing marketing tools, UX elements and more.

Intern Andrea fully embraced her role as a designer at Netigate

Contributes with knowledge and impact

The impact of Andrea’s work during her short time here has not gone unnoticed: ‘I feel seen here. Everyone I worked with has been so generous with sharing their knowledge and insights, which is a valuable thing to give someone. And not only that – they were interested in my opinion and took my suggestions on board. They see the value of my experience and training, and that’s an amazing feeling.’

On the first morning of her final week, Andrea was given ‘the card of impact’ – standing for one of Netigate’s five core values – passion, impact, progress, courage and responsibility. It’s a small gesture with a lasting effect. The card is gifted to employees when they’re seen to have made an important contribution that demonstrated the values. To let them know the company appreciated their work, and to encourage them to continue.

Andrea will be continuing to collaborate with Netigate once she’s back in Germany. Working on some of the projects she started during the internship as well as new ones.

‘Everyone here is very open and has interest in learning, which I think is the sign of a great company. Within this fast-paced try-and-fail environment, it felt like a win-win situation for both sides. I’m sure Netigate would agree when I say: It was a great match!’

Netigate

Netigate is one of the leading European providers of cloud based services for online surveys that are primarily used for customer feedback, employee feedback and market research. We help organisations gain valuable insights, make better business decisions and improve processes. Our clients range from small organisations to global companies in all industries, including many leading companies around the world such as Electrolux, Ericsson, Vodafone and E.ON.