Between the weekly intern workshops and the relevant work mentors give you, you are guaranteed a great learning experience (and probably a fun one too) at Hill. They also encourage you to meet with employees to network and learn more about what they do - take advantage of this!
As a PR major, it was great to do corp. comm. at Hill because I got the best of both worlds - I did in-house work in an agency environment. At the same time, the contacts I made were less useful for me personally because everyone there (including all the other interns) were in the ad industry, but I've been happy to set some friends up with informational interviews (which is one of the few ways to get your resume noticed).
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Cover letters are important to the HR people, so make sure your write a good, concise (3 paragraphs) cover letter that describes assets not listed in your resume. Make sure you put two L's in Holliday, or they'll trash your application.
If you get invited to interview, it's important to be upbeat and show you're motivated and independent. You won't interview with a prospective mentor, just a random person from HR probably, so don't be nervous!
Interns all sit in one room on the 41st floor. The computers/monitors are pretty outdated, which is frustrating, but you get used to it. It's fun to be with all the other interns, though it can be distracting when you have a lot on your plate. Also, there's not much room to work with, as it's one long table with 10 computers on it - no desk space. Overall, these are minor inconveniences.
I began with Senior Manager Greg Winter as my mentor. He left midway through my internship, and I was paired with the only other person in the department - Senior VP of Corp. Comm. Will Keyser. Thanks to the important work and quality advice Greg gave me before he left, Will trusted me with assignments that he might not have otherwise. Will challenged me to be more independent, take risks and make decisions without confirmation from him - all valuable lessons. He also had me produce all the media relations materials for an outside project for the Retailers Association of Mass. and brought me along to their award ceremony, where I met reporters from the Herald and other connections.
As of March 2007, Greg is back at Hill, and any intern would be lucky to work with him.
We went over parts of my resume, and I was asked to elaborate on previous experiences. It's important to explain how they make you an asset to Hill. I don't remember being asked the stereotypical interview questions (thankfully), but there are multiple interviewers, so styles may be different. Mine was friendly and made me feel comfortable immediately.
An important point to remember for both interviews and cover letters is that you're convincing them why you want to work at /Hill/ - not a top ad agency. I scoured their Web site the night before (and before writing my cover letter), gathered what they projected as the most important part of their environment, and emphasized those qualities in myself in my interview and cover letter. Make sure they know you want Hill Hill Hill because it's absolutely perfect for you. You should probably do that in every interview you ever have anyway.
That's one down side to a PR internship at Hill. Since it's an ad agency, there's no real entry-level PR position. Some fellow interns stayed on for the spring semester as well and will probably be offered positions. It's difficult to get an entry-level position at Hill, Arnold, etc., without having connections, so an internship is one of your best bets.
Fall 2006
for Credit
Boston, MA
Reviewed on 02/12/2008