Valentina Arrieta is a former International and Business student originally from Russia. She got her work placement from Bloom Consulting, operating in Madrid. Bloom Consulting offers all kind of services related to country, region, city or place branding, from the situation analysis stage up to development, implementation and monitoring of the branding strategy. We got to talk with Valentina and she told us her internship story:

“I worked as a Project Manager and my main responsibilities included managing multiple projects simultaneously, leading complex internal and external projects (with team sizes ranging from 1-15 people), facilitating project meetings, and communicating the ongoing project’s status to the CEO and the managing partners. Furthermore, I had to manage and plan deadlines and tasks for the other team members, while providing purpose, direction and motivation. And finally, I was in charge with maintaining a positive environment meant to promote individual development, and to ensure high quality standards for all the projects.

I found this position through Tuubi. I have always been checking internship opportunities throughout my studies, so it’s difficult to say how long it took me to find the internship. Team working skills and multicultural experience gained at Metropolia were extremely helpful during my internship. The skills gained through the communication course were very helpful during the application period (especially the interview simulation). The working life was definitely very different from the student one. In my case, it was much more demanding and I had to handle a huge responsibility.

The biggest challenge for me during the internship was keeping my team motivated. As a Project Manager, I was responsible for the success of most of the company’s projects, and a motivated team was an essential aspect of this. Sometimes projects required the team to work longer hours, to put some extra effort or redo a job from scratch. These situations can easily lower the team spirit. It was my responsibility to maintain this, which was not easy for me. However, this challenge helped me improve my leadership, team-working and communication skills.

Internationalization also plays an extremely important role in Bloom Consulting, because the client base is very international. For example, Bloom Consulting, worked with Sweden, Latvia, Poland, Malta, Brazil, Seychelles, Aruba, Spain etc. This aspect makes it important to have an international team to understand the specifics of different cultures and take a diverse look at certain issues. During my stay in Bloom Consulting, I worked with people from countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Finland, South Africa, France, Italy, Portugal and others. Such an international team is not very common for Spain, nor Finland, and it often depends on a company’s field of operations and many other characteristics.

During my internship I discovered my passion for data analysis, therefore I would like to work in this area in the future. It was a very important and challenging experience for me, and I think that it could help me get a job that I would enjoy. I would advise the current MBS students to learn as much as you can and try to figure out what you like doing, on what are you ready to spend your hours on, and what gets you excited. Once you’ve found something that you would like to do all your life, then just try to get as much experience and knowledge as possible, try to meet people who can help you learn more, and try to teach others what you know, then I am sure that success will be waiting for you.”

Olivia Nastase (with Valentina Arrieta), Edited by Helena Ikonen