Interpreting Intern Review

Language Connect is a great company to work for; the staff are friendly and welcoming and you do feel valued in the role. This internship just wasn't quite what I was expecting in terms of the day-to-day tasks. It was interesting to see how the Interpreting & Translation industry works, but I didn't find it very challenging or stimulating. It was mostly administrative tasks. I did appreciate the opportunity it gives you to then go into interpreting or translation as a freelancer afterwards though.

Very much so. The management is great and very encouraging. They are open to new ideas and suggestions to improve the current system/procedures. I couldn't fault my colleagues, they were lovely people and always thanked me for the work I did and any extra effort I put in. It made the Interpreting Team a great place to work.

To a great extent. My mentor was always on hand to help and gave me great advice. I enjoyed working with her and all the rest of the team too. I didn't have a lot of contact with anyone else in the management, but people were generally friendly and happy to help if you needed it.

It varied quite a lot. Some days could be incredibly busy and you felt you barely had time to breathe, while others you could have hardly any bookings to deal with. On the quieter days I usually ended up helping my colleagues with their bookings. Generally there was a steady stream of work, it just depended on how urgent the bookings we got were as to how stressful and busy you were!

I was given quite a lot of responsibility; to be honest I didn't really feel like an intern most of the time. I was in charge of booking interpreters for several NHS trusts and only deferred to my manager when I had any queries or problems. It was quite overwhelming to begin with as there was a lot to learn, but you pick it up quickly. It was great to be trusted straight away with "proper" work, rather than getting tea! (Although we did still have to do post office duty and get milk for the office).

I certainly developed a lot of skills during my time at Language Connect, such as time management, working under pressure, prioritising projects, working as part of a team etc. These will definitely be useful in whatever I end up doing in the future, especially just having an understanding of office life. I would have liked to develop my language skills more, but there was not really scope for this within the role.

It was quite cheerful on our floor, but when I went upstairs where the translation and marketing teams are based I found it to be too quiet. I wouldn't like to work in that kind of environment. People just Skype each other rather than talking. But in the Interpreting team it was much nicer and everyone was friendly and chatty, when we had time.

The set up is pretty good as they have been doing this for years now and have new interns ever 4-6 months in each team. The training in the Interpreting team was very fast, but it had to be as the bookings didn't stop coming in. I think maybe they need a few more full time staff rather than relying quite so much on interns though. It's great to give students/grads opportunities but there are certainly drawbacks.

I was trained in what I needed to be, but then my manager did offer me opportunities to shadow other members of staff to understand their roles/teams. I did a skills swap with an intern in the marketing department but unfortunately that was on a busy day and there weren't many simple tasks that I could help with. Overall I'm not sure that I felt "invested in".

There are certainly opportunities, as most of the current staff are ex-interns. If you don't want a full-time role within the company, there is the option of going freelance. For me the latter was definitely an appealing prospect. It's great that interns can swap into different departments after their internships too, but that didn't interest me particularly. I will be registered as a freelance translator with the company when I leave.

The interns sometimes organised events, but with such a big turnover of staff it was difficult to bond with anyone really. We had one team event and the Christmas party was good, but other than that there wasn't much on.

It was in London, so astronomical. Living anywhere near work was very expensive, and going out was pricey too. But it's to be expected. It's just a shame the company don't pay London Living Wage, since the roles that their interns fill are full-time with lots of responsibility, not your standard internship.

Bermondsey is a nice area with lots of bars and restaurants to go to after work. It's quite busy as there are lots of offices nearby.

There was the Christmas Party and the interns organised a dinner once or twice but other than that there weren't really any activities that were organised. It is difficult to make friends there when we don't get much opportunity to talk, and the turnover of staff is very high due to them mostly being interns, as I have said previously.