Finding an MRX Internship During a Global Pandemic

Are you an undergrad or grad student planning for a market research career? Or are you interested in pivoting an existing career towards market research & insights? In either case, internships have often been an effective option for getting a foot in the door by gaining real experience and networking with potential future employers.

Unfortunately, the world is a different place then it was six months ago—and this has implications for the internship option. Is it even a good time to consider an internship? Whether in-person or virtual, there are fewer internships available. Some employers have put their internship programs on hold, others are revamping for remote work. Thus, there is a lot of competition for fewer opportunities.

Should you put your internship quest on hold? No. If you are planning for a career in market research & insights, we do recommend buckling up for what will be a challenging ride as you seek out these leads. But landing an internship will be worth the hard work. There are many advantages to getting an internship, including:

• You can “test drive” a job in the research and insights industry, to make sure it really is the right career path for you.
• You get an opportunity to determine whether you’d like to pursue a client-side role or a supply-side role.
• You will figure out what kind of working environment is best for you. A large company? Small company? Working alone or on a team? Mostly in an office or mostly in the field?
• You will be better able to gauge what potential specialties you would most enjoy (qualitative or quantitative, primary or secondary, consumer or B2B, and so on).
• You will learn new skills that will make your resume shine.
• You will likely connect with mentors and potential future employers.

Companies with internship programs have them for a reason: they use these programs to find and nurture potential future employees. Ryan Barry, Chief Revenue Officer at Zappi, recently shared his thoughts on internship programs: “The best internships are in environments that give the intern real work to do, but also access to stakeholders in a business that can give you context on how things work beyond the tasks at hand. This will enable you to learn about your craft, and also yourself. Specifically, about what you do and don’t like doing at work. In our case, we have had incredible success with interns, many of whom have become integral members of our team across our marketing, customer success, and product teams.” Ryan has kindly offered his contact information to anyone wanting help exploring internship options. He can be reached here.  

On-site or Virtual Internships

In light of the current health crisis, you may be feeling apprehensive about starting a new job. The good news: there are virtual internships available! Even some that are listed with locations may have changed to remote, so it is always worth asking.

To help get you started, we’ve identified some current internship opportunities (see table below). Some of these opportunities are from our network and some are from job sites such as Indeed and Internships.com. And yup, we even have one of our own on the list! Good luck, and happy hunting!