Stripping down to raise it up

Imagine walking to your car on a Tuesday morning. You stop in front and start to look for your keys. You cannot find them - they’re not in your jeans pocket, not in your coat. Where on Earth are they? Did someone steal them? You start getting frustrated when a member of your family comes running out of the house asking you what you are doing. “I’m looking for my car keys, who has them?” She tells you that this isn’t your car. That you haven’t driven a car for three years now. She must be lying, you think. She pulls you back into the house to show you your driver’s licence - it’s been voided three years ago. Feelings of shame rush through you. How could you have forgotten?

Patients living with Alzheimer’s disease experience these kind of situations on a daily basis. They are struggling not just with forgetfulness but also with feelings of shame, confusion, worry, anxiety, anger.

Which is why we could not be prouder to have one of our team members organise an event to raise money and awareness to battle this devastating disease. Alex Spencer and two of his friends - Zander and James Whitehurst - will be running through Jordan’s Wadi Rum Desert for five days covering 300km in an average heat of 30 degrees Celsius.

To raise awareness for their event, the boys are going on a Naked Mile run this Monday throughout central London! Starting point is the Jam Factory in SE1, after that they are going to run all across south London’s pier, passing Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Tate Modern, Southbank and the London Eye. Next point is Westminster and the Big Ben, along St James’s Park until they eventually reach the finish line at Buckingham Palace.

So come along, watch the boys run naked through London (okay, almost naked) and help us raise it up for fighting Alzheimer’s! Share your thoughts, snaps and videos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #nakedmilerun

When can I see naked boys run through London? THIS Monday, 29th May at 12pm (noon).

And where? Starting point is the Jam Factory in SE1, then along south London’s pier over the Big Ben with the finish line being Buckingham Palace.

How can I help raise it up? Donate whatever you can on Ultra Vulture’s Just Giving page. And don’t forget to take photos and videos and share them with the social media world using the hashtag #nakedmilerun.

We here at FlatClub could not be prouder of our team member and are happy to double however much the boys raise on the day of the Naked Mile Run for this important cause.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ultravultures

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10 tips to turn your internship into a rockstar career

With more interns working in London every day, it’s always a good idea to start thinking about how to outshine your competition and show your best talents. Here are some of our tips on how to turn your internship into a job offer.

Having discussed their experiences, achievements and challenges with hundreds of interns worldwide, here are 10 life-learned tricks for securing a position at your company.

Is it really that competitive?

Yes, at bigger companies the number of interns currently active can reach the mid-hundreds while only a handful of them will be hired for full time positions afterwards. The “internship funnel” has famously become the only defacto route to getting a job at a major company, and most offices are far more likely to hire previous interns than risk experimenting with a new person.

10 tips for turning your internship into a job:

• Do your best. This may seem absolutely obvious, but the truth is when you’re moving to a buzzing new city perhaps the first time away from home, you can be easily distracted by all your new friends and the many things to try. Don’t think of your internship as just a context for your fun, do make an effort to stand out with your competence.
• Examine the structure of your company. Knowing how different departments are related to each other and who does exactly what around you will not only help you understand the ultimate goal of your company’s work, but also your own place within the system. That way you will be doing an even more accurate -and useful- job.
• Impress as many people as possible. Cast your net wide: your line manager may not be in a position to hire you after your internship, but someone else might be. Don’t forget to treat everyone with kindness and respect- if not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s smart to leave a good impression with everybody.
• Get to know HR to find out which parts of the company are likely to have an opportunity available when you finish your internship.
• Attach yourself to “key” projects so the company will want to keep you around past the end of your internship. If you are tasked with a “one-off” project, be sure to make it really memorable and try to connect it to an ongoing project as well.
• Make yourself indispensable. Take work off of other people’s shoulders and make attempts at managing projects, but ease up on managing people as that may be considered punching above your pay grade. Prove that you are more worth keeping than the company having to train someone new up to your level again.
• Make yourself in demand. Line up other opportunities (preferably with competitors) to give yourself a stronger negotiating position at the end of your internship.
• Show genuine interest in the work of others. If you are at all interested in the day-to-day operations of someone else at the company, express that! Ask lots of questions and show engagement - if you’re shy, an email is a good way to break the ice with co-workers.
• Ask for projects that reduce work for management. Think of it this way: what can you do to help your manager go home earlier? Ask for projects that will make their life easier - the easier their life is with you in it, the more they will push for you to become a permanent hire. This can go hand-in-hand with showing interest. “I see you do a lot of work with KISSmetrics - can you show me how you do that, and maybe I can take some of that off your hands?”
• Find out what you like and excel at, and own it. The more you engage with your co-workers and find out what they do, and the more projects you take on that used to belong to others, the more easily you will find out what you are particularly good at - and what you enjoy! When you’ve found it, own it. Give an update once a week on your progress in a project that you’ve created. This makes you seem like you’re already a member of the team!

Wait, should I be making tea?

Depends on where you’re interning! In some places it’s tea, elsewhere coffee. In all honesty though, it’s not just about making drinks for people, it’s about showing a willingness to help and blend in with the work culture in a pleasant way. Follow the lead of others in the company, and if they’re kind and do little things for each other like making tea or offering sweets, then you should do the same. If it’s not that sort of office - perhaps it’s best to not begin your career there, anyway.

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