The Apex internship program was established over 4 years ago, and every intern we have had has made great contributions and left a lasting impression on the entire company. The end of each internship always comes up way too fast, and before we knew it we were saying goodbye to yet another intern as she heads back to Canada to complete her Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Victoria.
Over the past 3 months Madison has worked on a variety of projects from supporting our recruitment consultants, managing multiple marketing projects, and more. With all these projects, she has been juggling her time like a time management professional. Let’s take a look at how specifically she manages all her projects and break down a day in the life of an Apex intern:
DAY BREAKDOWN
8:00 am
“I usually leave at around 8am to get to the office. It’s actually not too bad of a transit considering how busy Tokyo is.”
9:00am
“I tend to start off my day making a list of priorities for myself so I can get an idea of what my day will look like. There’s always a lot of projects going on so I organize based on what is most important to help support my manager.”
9:15am
“As we have quite a big database, it is really important to make sure the data is consistently updated and organized. I worked on making sure the data is standardized and that all the information was inputted correctly. This task was interesting in the sense that it was closely related to some of the coursework I had done at my University, making it nice to apply the knowledge.”
11:00am
“I was fortunate enough to be able to work fairly closely with the Marketing team throughout my internship. I enjoyed being able to help write the Job Satisfaction in Japan’s Healthcare Industry report, which analyses the data from the job satisfaction survey conducted in late 2017. I also worked on part 2 of this report and a few smaller reports and blogs. I didn’t have much of a background writing marketing reports based on real market data, but I really enjoyed learning the process and was given a lot of hands on experience.”
12:00pm
“I usually get lunch with some of my co-workers here at Apex. Ebisu has such a great variety of restaurants to choose from, I definitely didn't run out of new places to try.”
1:00pm
“In the afternoon, I would study and research the industries and the positions that we specialize in. As I was working on this, I was also able to gain deeper understanding and knowledge about the requirements and type of roles we are working on, so I can make sure the qualifications match the job requirements. "
3:00pm
“Part of my internship also includes formatting resumes in the Apex standard format. As I mentioned previously, I was able to work closely with Apex Marketing throughout my internship, and learned a lot about the importance of consistency. We always want to send out consistently formatted resumes with proper branding, so part of my job included formatting resumes to meet the Apex standard.”
4:00pm
“I would sometimes join meetings where team members explained their industry expertise and specializing. Each team member specializes in a different specific area, so in these meetings we are able to share knowledge and really understand each specialty area. I was very surprised at how much I was able to learn about the industry in such a short period of time!”
5:00pm
“We have our weekly company meeting on Fridays. It’s great because we announce all the accomplishments for the week and congratulate our coworkers. It’s also a lot of fun because the meeting is pretty casual and we get to de-stress from the work week.”
5:30pm
“After the meeting I finish up formatting any resumes and emails from the day. I am able to work quite closely with management, so am always able to get help or ask questions as they come up.”
6:00pm
“Around 6pm, I am done for the day and sometimes will go out for a drink or food with colleagues. The culture at Apex is really great! There is a mix of people from all over the world, and actually some alumni from my school. I was a bit scared when I first started that I would have trouble making friends in Tokyo, but everyone was very welcoming. On Fridays after the company meeting, there are always people going out for food and drinks in Ebisu.”
FINAL THOUGHTS
Biggest Challenge
“My greatest challenge since starting at Apex was just trying to get to know the Japanese Pharmaceutical industry. It’s not something I had any prior knowledge of, and can be a fairly technical space. It really helped to get a lot of support from my team and managers, otherwise I would not have been successful in certain parts of my job like matching candidate backgrounds to positions."
Favorite Part
"My favorite aspect of my internship was being able to work cross-functionally and collaborate with so many different areas of the company. Between marketing, IT, and consulting I got a very well rounded experience here. As well, I was really able to develop my project and time management skills, which are definitely competencies I will use in the future. Most of all, I can’t say enough how much I have loved getting to know everyone that works at Apex. As a company, we went to Yoyogi Park for Hanami at the end of March, and it was a great way to spend the day near the end of my time with Apex!”
Now at the end of April, Madison is heading back to Canada to finish her degree at the University of Victoria.
