Vacation time has come around again, but even as you’re screaming “FREEDOM!” and preparing to embark on a party lifestyle, there might be a niggling voice of responsibility lurking at the back of your mind. And that little voice isn’t wrong: as all Singaporean students would know, the summer holidays are the best time for us to get some work experience and put what little knowledge we have to practice.
But while you may be looking for an internship for practical purposes, that doesn’t mean you need to condemn yourself to a few weeks of drudgery and saikang. There’re internships out there where “going to the office” means heading to an exotic island paradise, and “doing work” means hunting for delicious food all day. As they say, work hard and play hard — rest assured that while the eight internships below will teach you a lot, they won’t be skimping on the ‘play’ portion.
1. Fashion Editorial Intern, SalesGossip
London. Fashion. Writing. Any takers yet?
An internship is the perfect time to broaden your horizons, and landing one via jobs site Jobbatical can help you do that in more ways than one. Jobbatical, for the uninitiated, is an up-and-coming jobs portal with the specific aim of helping jobseekers find jobs — while seeing the world at the same time. The platform currently offers hundreds of jobs in countries as diverse as Estonia and France, meaning that if you’ve ever daydreamed about working in another country, here’s your chance.
This particular internship that we spotted will take place in London, UK, with digital marketing startup SalesGossip. According to the job description, the SalesGossip team is seeking a “cheeky, chatty, fun” intern to flick through magazines and write about fashion and beauty for three months. If coding is more your thing, SalesGossip is also looking for web development and back-end development interns.
It’s a regular 9am-6pm, 5-days-a-week job, which should leave you with plenty of time for sightseeing around the iconic capital on weekends.
For more information, visit: Jobbatical
2. Marketing/Community Management/Project Management Interns, Sculpteo
Again, here’s something from Jobbatical for those of us with incurable wanderlust: 3D printing startup Sculpteo is offering internships on its France-based team. If you pride yourself on being a wordsmith and people person, you might like to check out their marketing-cum-community management opening. The job scope for this role covers everything from copywriting to social media management, and offers negotiable renumeration.
On the other hand, if you’re more of a techie, the Project Management internship might be the one for you. For this role, you’ll need to have a basic understanding of web languages like HTML to accompany Sculpteo’s technical team in things like market analysis and project coordination.
As mentioned, you’ll be working in France, the land of art, romance and wine: while the office’s situation in Villejuif (a suburb of Paris) means you’ll be able to visit the Eiffel Tower anytime, it also means you’ll need to have a better command of French than just bonjour and comment allez-vous.
For more information, visit: Jobbatical
3. Intern to MACH, Microsoft
Microsoft’s Intern to MACH (Microsoft Academy for College Hires) programme for Southeast Asia is an internship that runs between two to three months. One duh advantage to clinching the internship is the prestige factor — having Microsoft on your résumé will get you anywhere, not to mention the fact that the internship acts as a possible pathway to full-time employment with the company.
But what takes an internship at Microsoft to the next level, according to the experiences of past interns in Microsoft’s Singapore office, is the “work hard, play hard” culture.
There’re open-concept offices with window seats and plush sofas, opportunities for socialising with interns from all around Southeast Asia, an in-house cafe… the list goes on. And whether they’re working in retail, marketing or IT development, the flatter hierarchy at Microsoft gives all employees the freedom they need to work on initiatives that have huge impact — lowly intern or not.
For more information, visit: Microsoft
4. Intern2Play, Seeties
The name itself gives it away: this internship is far from a run-of-the-mill one. Seeties is an app which allows users to discover local places of interest in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, and it’s looking for interns to seek out these gems in their hometown. This means traversing Singapore for the best food places, clubbing spots, Instagram-worthy scenery and so forth — as the job description puts it, you’ll get to “go out, eat and have fun 5 days a week”.
Since you were probably planning a few expeditions around Singapore anyway, why not get paid while doing so? This internship is the perfect excuse to visit as many durian places and chicken rice stalls as possible, and then spread the joy to others by writing about these spots.
For more information, visit: Seeties
5. Game Design Intern, Ixora Studios
For some of us, traipsing all over Singapore is not our thing — we’d rather kick back and relax by immersing ourselves in a game or ten. If that description fits you to a tee, then here’s the perfect internship for you.
It’s rare that an internship for game design opens up, but local indie game studios Ixora Studios is now looking for one. As every good job description for an internship would promise, you will “not [be] making coffee” in this position — instead, you’ll be working with the engineers who created the SG50 mobile game My Singapore City to design game levels, create game maps and find software bugs. So you won’t just have permission to fill your days with video games — you’ll actually have a hand in developing them.
For more information, visit: Ixora Studios
6. Club Med Singapore
Just the thought of French resort corporation Club Méditerranée, better known as Club Med, conjures up pleasant images of exotic villas and tropical beaches. While you won’t quite be able to laze about all day, no one’s spirits can fail to be brightened when your internship takes place on the sunny island of Mauritius. Just listen to how a previous intern describes her experience there:
“This internship was nothing short of an amazing adventure… Being a Club Med employee entails performing in shows every week meaning that no matter how bad a dancer you are, you still learn how to dance anyway. Being a Club Med employee means eating with guests at every meal and learning how to carry a conversation about anything and everything in English, Chinese or French regardless of what you are comfortable with.”
(Source: Kimberlee Lim, Temasek Polytechnic Newsletter January 2015)
While it isn’t quite guaranteed that you’ll get to intern at Mauritius, or even at one of Club Med’s resorts — interns are placed in their country and regional offices as well — you’ll never know until you try. It’s worth fighting tooth and nail for an internship of surf, sand, and sun.
For more information, visit: Club Med Jobs
7. Googler, Google
Of course, there’s no way Google wouldn’t have made this list — the search giant was named 2014’s best workplace in the world for the third year in a row. Techie or not, no one watching this amazing video of Google’s Singapore office can possibly feel like not wanting to work there:
From solo business trips to Tokyo and Bangkok to the legendarily fun and open culture, Singapore interns at Google certainly won’t feel let down by either the friendly work environment or the responsibility entrusted to them. In a nod to local culture, the Singapore office even features a cafeteria styled as a Goopitiam — yes, that’s an adorable wordplay on Google + kopitiam. Of course, the sheer prestige of an internship at Google makes it insanely difficult to land one, but we can always dream.
For more information, visit: Google Careers
8. Adventure Trip Evaluator, Alien Adventure
While not an internship per se — the duration of this job only lasts as long as your typical adventure trip — all you’ll have to do, according to travel startup Alien Adventures, is to evaluate travel guides throughout Southeast Asia.
Whether it’s a kite-surfing course, hiking trip, or kayaking holiday that takes your fancy, it’ll be fully funded by Alien Adventures in order for you to evaluate the travel operator and share your reports on social media — in other words, what everyone does after going on a holiday anyway. If you’re looking for the ultimate way to combine vacation with work, this job will be a hard one to beat.
For more information, visit: Jobbatical
