Finding a suitable internship during COVID-19 is not easy. I invested a lot of time in contacting organizations that might be interesting to me. Ten job applications later, I finally found an organization that matched my preferences. Unfortunately, this was not for a long time. This company canceled my internship, and I was right back where I started.
Finding a suitable internship during COVID-19 was not easy. I invested a lot of time in contacting organizations that might be interesting to me. Ten job applications later, I finally found an organization that matched my preferences. Unfortunately, this was not for a long time. This company canceled my internship, and I was right back where I started.
The search continued, and again I sent tens of job applications. Unfortunately, it was not successful. In the end, I decided to delay my internship and turn my school route. I followed my last lessons and continued my search. In the meantime, Baseflow crossed my path. Martijn (co-founder) had seen my LinkedIn post and invited me for a job interview. At the interview, I realized that Baseflow was the company I was looking for! I came to work in a great team, and I got a challenging assignment. In the end, it turned out well that I turned my school route because the extra theoretical knowledge turned out to be useful.
Culture
Once I started working, I was looking for structure. I was used to a hierarchical culture where they told you what and how to do your work. Baseflow offers a lot of freedom and flexibility. It took some time to get used to it. Right now, I am used to the Baseflow culture, and I realized that this way of working is rare. I never want to go back to a hierarchical culture.
Binsend
My internship was devoted to Binsend. As a subsidiary of Baseflow, Binsend is a platform that allows you to send documents to different people, easy and securely. At the start of my internship, Binsend was still a young company. It was my job to put a product on the market out of nothing. In the beginning, I researched a lot because this kind of project was new to me, and nobody else was working on it yet.
Based on the target group and competitor's research, it became clear which direction we wanted to go with Binsend. We concluded a few things: we did not speak the language of our target group, we did not know what aspects they would find important in a product like Binsend, whether the platform is clearly to understand, how their workflow would look like, and also how they usually come in touch with a new product. To receive all this knowledge, I went with my colleagues to various accountancy and administration offices to talk with them. Many interesting things came out of these conversations: including an event focused on accountants, the Accountancy Expo.
The Accountancy Expo was important to us because it gave us a deadline l to set things up. Many things needed to be completed, and we finished the tasks very well with the Binsend team. We can be very proud of ourselves.
Throwback
When I look back on my internship, I got an opportunity to discover what my strengths and interests are. I am someone who likes to do many different tasks. During my internship, I started to see myself more as a generalist. For this reason, the Binsend assignment suited me so well. I got to do so many different things, which is super cool during an internship.
In the meantime, I got a job offer as a working student, and I will also graduate at Baseflow. My graduation assignment already looks super cool. More about this will follow later :)
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