THE Internship

Hello people reading my blog on Blogger, my name is Sarah and today dear readers, I have no words. Yep you read well. No words to describe how I feel right now, while I am writing this blog post. Amazing, ecstatic, glorious, would not even start to cover it. And for those of you who know me IRL (IRL = In Real Life, here you go with internet slang), you know this never happens.

In my previous post, I was telling you how hard it is to land an internship, let alone THE internship. But today, I am here to tell you that it happens. It is possible. It exists. And to my very surprise, I managed to find and get the holy grail (for me anyway): a 6 months internship at Total in Qatar as a Communication and Events trainee. I am not going to talk about how much I am going to be paid or what advantages I am going to get, but just so you know, it is unbelievable, it is like opening the cavern of Ali Baba, although I don't remember saying "Open, Sesame!", just sending my resume and cover letter, hopelessly. A bottle in the ocean if I may say. Anyway, this was at the beginning of August. 

This month, I received an e-mail on Sunday 6th, telling me that I had been shortlisted for this position and that if I still wanted to work with them, an interview would be conducted the same week via Skype. Btw, dear Skype people, thank you for making communication throughout the world so easy. I can honestly say here that I thought there had been a mistake. That they had mixed up resumes and that they were expecting to see someone else or something like that. It was all too good to be true. I went on with it, after thoroughly googling on the name of the HR executive who sent me that golden ticket, just to make sure it was not a scam or a joke of poor taste. I sent a short message back saying that yes of course I was still interested and that I would love to have that interview soon. The time and date were set pretty quickly, leaving me time to do some research on the company and the events I would have to organize if I got the job. Thursday, 11 a.m Doha time, so 10 a.m here in France. I spent two days not worrying too much about it, then came Wednesday.

Again, if you know me well, the fact that I tend to leave things to the last minute won't surprise you (but that is not something I like to tell recruiters though, for obvious reasons). So I didn't start researching before late in the afternoon. Then I had to Skype my mom to talk about what I was going to say regarding some aspects of my professional talent (ahem ... right). And this took me more time than I had expected. Way more time. So I ended up going to bed without rewriting my notes properly or blow-drying my hair. It was that or I would have been a complete zombie in the morning: not very advisable when you have an important interview.

So, the next morning, on Thursday 10th, I woke up at 8 a.m so I would have time to work on my "hairstyle". I didn't eat my breakfast, too nervous for that. I just prepared a cup of good ol' tea  that my grand parents brought me back from Ireland (Barry's tea please, I will be eternally grateful for that red box) and drank it while working on my curly head. Took me more time than expected, so I decided to not rewrite my notes, just read them and put make up on during my last 20 minutes, because the camera is never nice with you. You need to look damn good IRL to look good on the screen.

Freaking out two minutes before 10. Good at not showing it, am I not ?

I was on time as always. Ok, maybe not always, but for important things I am. They were 3 minutes late. Yeah I know, not a lot but when you're dying out of stress in front of your computer, three minutes seem like eternity. The whole thing went pretty smoothly I think. Well clearly, because at the end, the HR executive told me, without taking time to consult with the two other persons present, that he thought that unanimously they would agree to pick ME. They apparently interviewed a lot of people prior to me, but without taking too much time they just picked me. I could not believe it at first, still. I mean I have not studied in one of the top five business schools, same goes to the High School where I spent two years preparing for the competitive exam, it was not one of the best. So I hope you understand where I am coming from when I tell you that I could not wrap my head around what he just told me. Such a big company, for such a position, with such advantages. All of that for me.

When I finally closed my computer, I can shamelessly say that I had a tear rolling down my cheek because this school year was a shitty year by the end (not including Erasmus here obviously ;)). A lot of stress, a lot of struggles, again a lot of stress and finally this. So maybe, just maybe it wasn't all that bad after all. If it all ended happily (not ever after, yet), I guess I can try and forget what happened and just remember that I made it. I got out of this terrible situation and transformed it in an amazing one instead of a "meh I can do with that" one. Sending your resume like a bottle in the ocean can sometime pay off.