Great rehearsal for professional life

A Griffith University internship proved the perfect platform to launch Paola Becerra's marketing career.
A Griffith University internship proved the perfect platform to launch Paola Becerra's marketing career in Australia.

After graduating with a Master of Marketing from Griffith Business School, Paola Becerra leaped at the chance to do an internship with Griffith’s Department of Marketing.

“Project managing the Give Me 5 program for Social Marketing @ Griffith was a valuable experience for me on a number of fronts, not least in securing a great job,” she says.

Paola now works as marketing manager for independent financial planning practice, Tupicoffs, in Brisbane’s CBD. This also incorporates a similar role for Financial Rescue, a related business which helps people recover investment losses caused by bad financial advice.

“It can be hard to get industry experience and Give Me 5 helped me to build that up,” Paola says.

“It also gave me an excellent platform to promote my professional profile and show potential employers my work ethic and my desire to progress my career.”

Give Me 5 was a 5-week pilot program aimed at helping people to get more active by addressing and removing obstacles to the change of behaviour required.

As project manager, Paola had to recruit participants and establish partnerships with commercial, retail and health and fitness organisations. She also had to seek out opportunities to promote the project and its impact.

“I learned some new skills and sharpened some other skills like time management and working to a budget.

“It was a great rehearsal for professional life in Australia and I felt confident moving into the work environment when the opportunity arose. I was immediately comfortable with taking on responsibility.”

Among the key skills gained during the completion of a Master of Marketing, Paola highlights her ability to write marketing content and present to industry groups.

“These are very important components of the marketing profession. As a marketing manager for Tupicoffs and Financial Rescue, the content I produce varies significantly given the very different target markets involved.

“I also gained a breadth of industry knowledge from my postgraduate studies that I am now applying across the job from content management to social media, and from graphic design and public relations.”