Hello, my name is Martijn; I am a Dutch international business and management student at the Rotterdam Business School. For the past six months, I have been working as a market research intern at Captec. Now marks the end of my time here, but in this blog I will draw on my experiences at Captec and explain what you can expect from an internship at the company.
Since my interests lie with computers and technology next to my business bachelor’s degree, I began to search for a company that was able to combine these two interests. Enter Captec. This renowned computer hardware specialist was looking for a market researcher, and I felt like this was a great opportunity, so I took it with both hands. After a few interviews over Skype, the decision was made and I was going to be spending my time in the UK from August until the end of January. Contact with the company was great, all paperwork was sent quickly to me to be signed and returned, and they went out of their way to help me get settled in the UK. From an international student’s perspective, this was more than I could have hoped for.
Captec is sure to introduce its new employees to the company extensively with inductions from every department, which, especially for students, give a great insight into how the company operates. Everyone helped me to get settled into the company and the job as much as they could. After these inductions and training from the people in the product management team, it was time to start doing the job I came here to do.
The week starts with going over the activities planned for that week, reflecting on how much time was spent previously on the different projects and estimating how much time is left for maximum efficiency. Once all these activities were mapped, I was free to fill in my week how I liked, of course taking deadlines and planned meetings into account. Therefore, time management and being able to plan are skills you pick up during this placement, if you don’t possess these already.
The market research job is such a broad term, that it would be impossible for me to incorporate everything that comes with this job into this blog. In essence, I got to be involved in almost every aspect from the idea of a new product, to the launch of it. One day I could be on the phone with a product manager of an American hardware manufacturer, and the other day I would be gaining market knowledge, sizing a new potential market to fit Captec’s capabilities. I got to grips with all of the company’s products and market sectors including rugged server racks used by the military and on battleships, and gaming and wagering with new sports betting terminals. With so many people that have their heart and soul in computer hardware, it is hard not to pick up information about many different topics. From the basics of computers to quantum computing, from RISC and CISC to AI and IoT, I can definitely say that my knowledge has been broadened by this placement.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and in less than a week I will be flying back to The Netherlands to finish my last one and a half years of studying. During my time at Captec, I have picked up many skills that I will be able to use in the remainder of my studies and the rest of my life. Monthly reviews helped me to set goals and work on personal points of improvement, which I am more than thankful for. I fully recommend other students to follow this same journey, and do their placement at Captec.
