Junior Associate at Civitatis International February 13, 2012
Posted by Jeff Riley in : UCL Careers Service News, internships, think tanks , trackback
Matthew Allison has recently completed an MA in Politics, Security and Integration at UCL. He is now completing a ‘Junior Associateship’ internship with Civitatis International (www.civitatis.org.uk/) . We talked to him about his experience
Matthew how did you find out about the programme? Well because I have a fairly clear idea of where I am heading in my career – political consultancy – I knew internships where going to be an important source of experience. The key site I use is W4MP and that’s where I found the Civitatis International programme. I hadn’t heard of them before to be honest.
Was it competitive? Well they take on people for 3 month placements regularly and they told me that they had 100 applications for the three places they had available. It was competitive but I guess things can be even more competitive than that.
How did you prepare for the interview? Well they did provide a very clear and thorough ‘job description’ and I did come along for a practice interview with yourself, as you know. They had a lot of information about themselves on the web site as well which made it clear what their ethos and concerns were.
It was a voluntary programme. This is quite an issue at the moment. What did you feel about this? Well it was my first internship and I was a bit anxious about being taken for a ride. It was clear though from the job spec that they had put a lot of thought into making the internship a mutually rewarding one. There is a big emphasis on the programme on being trained in global governance and global thinking as well as assisting on the projects of Civitatis at the secretariat in the City of London. Even so you can’t help worrying that you were going to end up inputting data on behalf of an admin person who is on maternity leave.
What was the reality like? They were as good as their word. I got lots of training on things like ‘how to write briefing papers’ and even stuff on CVs as well as lots of opportunities to do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do just on an academic course. Things like going to conferences, representing Civitatis at high profile events and meeting some very senior people. You are able to claim expenses for things like conferences.
What were you working on? I was assisting with research on things like energy and resources. Especially resource depletion. One of things we are working on is mapping links between energy revolutions and societal change historically to see what lessons they have for us today and in the future. The other research work is focused on ‘European values’ and the extent to which the European Union can be used as a model for global governance. The research is though only part of what I have been doing. I have to contact other researchers in academia and industry to create links and gauge levels of interest in our work, I attend conferences – often writing up reports on the proceedings.
You haven’t completed the programme yet but what have you got from it? Well it has been very worthwhile. A lot of professional skills such as communications – how to liaise with internal and external networks including ‘high level stakeholders’. I have got a lot more evidence and experience of multi-tasking and it has boosted my confidence a lot. Even my research skills have improved. I was fairly confident about these being a masters level student but the internship has helped me see that outside of academia you need to be able to work to much tighter deadlines – two days rather than a month that you would typically get for an essay. Also learning about a briefing style that is less academic than university work. Authoritative but without ‘opinion’ and presenting facts in a concise way so it can be read quickly over a coffee, for example.
Has the programme changed your career ideas? Well it has more clearly confirmed for me that I’m heading in the right direction and given me some concrete evidence to present when I’m going for paid roles. Having said that it has also helped me land another internship with the ‘Vote For Ken’ campaign. I think having the evidence from Civitatis helped convince them I could be useful.
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