Small Town Life Magazine Internship Opportunities
Our magazine is often contacted by college students looking for an internship opportunity. What we tell students is that we do not offer a paid internship program. We encourage students to look around at other companies for paid internships. However, if the student really wants to get the chance to work with us, we will consider bringing them in as an intern. The first step is to send in a resume and a letter telling us why they want to intern with us.
Small Town Life Magazine has an office in Canterbury Offices on Philadelphia Street in Indiana, PA. We do not pay our interns an hourly wage; but interns are invited to work in our advertising sales department if they wish and earn the standard 20% commission that we pay all of our advertising reps on anything that they sell.
The first day of the internship, the student is given the company scrapbook which shows the history of the magazine since it started in 2000. They are also given a copy of each of the 30 issues that we have published since then. The scrapbook shows photos and bios of all of the 50+ freelancers who work on the magazine. By seeing the photos and reading the bios, the student is more prepared to work at the front desk during their internship and greet the freelancers that come in. Inside the scrapbook is also a photo and an essay from each of the past interns about their experience at the magazine.
During that first day, the intern will create their work schedule for the internship. We allow the student to be very flexible in when they work to schedule around classes, other jobs, and trips; however, once a schedule exists, we expect the student to live by it.
The next several days at the magazine, the student will learn to: answer the phone and take quality messages, greet visitors at the door and interact with them professionally, work the copy machine, and learn to operate all of the computers and printers in the office.
The intern will type in ad copy and articles in Microsoft Word. They will scan and edit photos in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. They will learn basic layout in QuarkXpress. By the end of the internship, the student will have written and done the layout work for an article for the next issue of the magazine.
If the intern has any interest in advertising sales, they will be given the chance to design an advertising page in the magazine and sell the ads to fit the theme of their page.
The internship at Small Town Life is flexible. If a student has an interest in editing, they can spend more of their time working with our editor. If they have an interest in advertising, they can spend more of their time with our advertising sales manager. If they have an interest in web design, they can work with our web master. If they have an interest in database design, they can work with our publisher.
All of our interns will leave this internship with an understanding of how a small business works, how a magazine works, how much time goes into creating one issue of a magazine, and how a team of people with different expertise works together on a big project. Small Town Life Magazine has over 50 freelancers who contribute to each issue of the magazine. Add to that, the 50+ advertisers who run ads in the magazine and you will see that our interns get a wide variety of experiences just interacting with our "circle" of contacts.
If you have more questions about an internship at Small Town Life Magazine, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
Jennifer Forrest
Publisher
Small Town Life Magazine
2277 Philadelphia Street
Indiana PA 15701
724-349-7366
724-349-3290 Fax
www.smalltownlifemagazine.com
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