We’ve been involved in Pathways for seven years now and it continues to be a rich and fulfilling experience for us as a team and (we hope!) for the students we work with.

Members of the One Voice team become speakers and panel guests for the training weeks, and we also host an intern each year. At the heart of how we work is collaboration, so we aim to learn from the young people we work with as well as providing them with knowledge, skills and insight.

What stands out every year is the calibre, skills and enthusiasm of the students involved. Our industry is going to be in very safe hands in the future. The interns can take part in ‘real’ meaningful tasks and challenges while with us. While they gain skills and confidence, we learn from fresh eyes on tasks and often, a different approach to doing things. We live in a rapidly changing world and having input and energy from bright young people is fantastic.

We are fortunate to have a buzzing city centre office in Exeter stuffed full of passionate comms people, so we invite the interns to spend their time with us in the office environment for maximum learning. Things are friendly and supportive in our office, so interns are encouraged to be curious and ask questions, making the most of their time with people experienced in the industry. We have had lots of brilliant conversations over the years that extend far beyond the tasks given and hopefully help the interns get some real-world insights and tips for kickstarting their careers. Many of our senior team have 20 years + experience in comms so it’s a mine of information, tips and (hilarious) anecdotes just waiting to be tapped.

The internship is 35 hours so to ensure that the student gets maximum benefit the team here does preparation beforehand, so tasks and support are all lined up from the moment they arrive. We aim to provide a mix of experiences as what we do is so diverse and the days can look very different depending what projects the team are working on.

Importantly from an equity and social mobility perspective, the students are paid for the duration of the internship by the University. This very important to us as we know that unpaid internships can deepen social inequality by creating barriers for those unable to afford to work without payment.

We’d absolutely recommend being part of Pathways. The more everyone puts in, whether that’s thoughts, skills or time, the more everyone gains.