A Day in The Life... of an Ogilvy Intern!

All of our Campus Ambassadors have such cool internships this summer and we wanted to know what their typical day looked like. What projects do they get to work on? What fun things happen in the office? Do they hang out with the other interns? Today we're featuring a day in the life of Kelly Hayes, our Campus Ambassador from Ohio University, who is interning at Ogilvy in Chicago!

6:45 AM Wake up, shower and get ready

7:45 AM Breakfast: Coffee with a piece of fruit, preferably a peach!

8:00 AM Leave my apartment for work – if it’s nice I’ll walk, but if it’s rainy or extremely hot I’ll take the L. 

8:30 AM Walk into the office past the beautifully decorated lobby with “Ogilvy-esq” details and head to the “intern conference room,” where six of us interns sit. 

8:45 AM Coffee #2 or a 25¢ Diet Coke from the vending machine. The coffee machines at work are similar to a Keurig so I make a latte with sugar if I don’t get a Diet Coke. Once my caffeine situation is all taken care of, I read emails and look at my calendar, preparing myself for any meetings that morning or client calls.

9:00 AM Before morning meetings, I’ll work on the summer intern project. Right now we are working on target analysis and at the end of the summer we will present five strategies to a panel of judges including all of the work we did leading up to our strategies. 

10:00 AM The beginning of the meetings – the most amount of meetings I’ve had in one day so far is seven, but usually this is when they start. From internal account meetings to client calls, I have my laptop charged and ready to go, taking notes and staying on top of emails. 

12:00 PM This is when I usually eat lunch. I’ll see what the other interns in the intern conference room are doing, or post on the GroupMe we all have. There are around 20 - 25 interns, so there’s always someone to eat lunch with. I usually pack myself a turkey sandwich on a pretzel bun with fruit and a cheese stick. Sometimes we also have Lunch-N-Learns for us to better understand the industry and the different areas of the agency. Lunch is always provided, which is a nice perk! 

12:30 PM Unless there is a Lunch-N-Learn, I only take a half an hour for lunch. If I don’t have a meeting at this time, I’ll work on any tasks that need to be completed for any clients that we are currently working with. This could range from research, sending emails, making copy decks, updating status reports or reviewing my notes to make sure everything is on schedule.

1:30 PM Meetings part 2! Being an account management intern, you learn that meetings are a large part of your day. It sometimes seems difficult to stay on top of side tasks or any work you have, but luckily everything usually revolves around the work you are doing. Some meetings I’ll be taking notes and updating status reports or constantly sending emails to check in on retouching or sending the client more work that needs approval. It takes a little while to get used to the constant multitasking, but after a few days I got the hang of it and learned to never forget my laptop charger. 

4:30 PM After a meeting-filled afternoon this is when things usually start to wind down. I will either answer emails during this time, or work some more on the intern project. If there are any proofs that need to be sent out to the client, I’ll review them with my boss to make sure the retouching matches what the client wants, and then if it’s good to go we’ll box it up and send it. 

5:15 PM Once 5:15 hits, if I’m not sending emails before I leave or finishing up some work I’ll enter in my time for the day. Time sheets are something you should ALWAYS be on top of when you have a paid internship. I keep track of everything in my Google Calendar to mark what I did that day, and keep job numbers typed up on a sticky note on my desktop. It makes things simpler and easier for me to keep track of.

5:30 PM Unless we have a deadline or a last minute meeting, this is when I will head out for the day. If it’s a Tuesday or Thursday, I head to a local pub called Shamrock’s with other interns for happy hour before heading home. Any other day, I usually just head home for dinner. 

7:30 PM If the weather is nice, I’ll walk home most days to save on transportation costs. I’ll make myself dinner, usually consisting of a salad (my favorite is a caprese salad) and pasta because I’m not the best cook in the world. 

8:30 PM I go on social media, call my mom and dad to say hi, or watch movies on iTunes around this time. I have limited Wifi and no TV this summer, so I mostly read or watch movies. I’m trying to get in the habit of working out after work, but sometimes I’d really just rather lie down and read a book or magazine. 

10:00 PM I used to be able to do all nighters when I was a freshman and sophomore, but now I need sleep. If I am not in bed by 10:00 or 10:30, I’ll be tired the next morning and just end up drinking more coffee. Working at Ogilvy is a lot of hard work and being exhausted at the end of the day is just part of it. But that’s the thing about being an Ogilvy intern – you may work your butt off all day long, but at the end of the day I can say I work with some amazing people and look forward to waking up and doing it all again.

“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” – David Ogilvy