InternViews: Kennady Hale & Paola Magallanes

InternViews is a series where we ask Grady College students to describe their internship experience.

Kennady Hale is a public relations major, and Paola Magallanes is an advertising and marketing major. Both fourth-year students are currently interning at Invio Automation. Magallanes works as a hybrid intern at the Atlanta office and Hale is fully remote. They are interning in digital marketing and communications. Read more about their internship experience below.

Provide a brief overview of your role and its associated responsibilities.

Kennady: My role title is marketing and communications intern. I get to do a little bit of everything related to our internal employee communication as well as work on our external content calendar. Right now, my main responsibilities are developing activations for our safety campaign that we rolled out this summer, doing outreach for our “Life @ Invio” storytelling series and putting together the copy for the posts, assisting with employee engagement events such as our summer lunch series and holiday contests and helping brainstorm posts for our LinkedIn.

Paola: I am a digital marketing and communications intern at Invio Automation, and I support internal and external communications for the company. My responsibilities include email marketing, LinkedIn advertising, SEO research and analytics, graphic design, event coordination, and campaign execution. I contributed to strategic projects directly supporting the CMO and CEO.

What opportunities have you had during your internship?

Kennady: Throughout my internship, I had numerous opportunities, which is what made the experience so valuable. I got to work on internal communications and employee engagement, email marketing campaigns, LinkedIn content and analytics, crisis communication and customer case studies, among other projects. Whenever I showed interest in something, I was given the chance to contribute, which taught me the importance of speaking up and asking to be involved. The best opportunity I had, though, was building a company-wide safety campaign from the ground up. When I was first given this task, I knew next to nothing about safety in the manufacturing industry, let alone what a safety campaign should look like. But through research, trial and error, and guidance from mentors like Maureen Clayton, I developed a 12-month safety campaign that I presented to our senior executives. It taught me that the only way to get better at something is to do it, even when it’s uncomfortable at first.

What is one piece of work you are proud of creating in this role?

Kennady: I am most proud of my work on our employee storytelling series called “Life @ Invio,” A bi-weekly mostly internal series that spotlights employees from multiple departments, highlighting their unique personality and role at Invio. The main goal being to educate employees about other departments that they don’t get a chance to interact with, and to recognize employees for who they are, not just what they do. I actually had the chance to lead the implementation of this series, guiding the idea from ideation to activation. It was fascinating to see how much the original idea we had shifted once I started interviewing employees and getting further into concept development. I am excited to see how it continues to grow, especially by incorporating more external-facing content.

Paola: I’m particularly proud of my work on a pitch deck for a high-value client. The deck combined the new offerings of the company post-merger. I tailored our offerings to the client’s needs in a creative, visual way. Shortly after, the executives came for a site visit. I worked on branding a visitor experience guide for the clients to use.

Did you receive any mentorship or guidance? How did it impact your experience?

Kennady: I did! The two mentors I received guidance from throughout my internship actually helped me realize the importance of having mentors in the first place. One mentor, Erina Lambeth, works at Invio, but I had actually met her prior to the internship when I was part of her UGA mentorship circle. When she invited me to apply for an internship at the company, I was enthusiastic to finally put my knowledge into action. She is amazing at generating dynamic ideas and identifying key audiences. Throughout my internship, she has pushed me to be better by calling out my mistakes and helping me become a stronger communicator overall. My second mentor, Jessica Shoemaker, was assigned to me as a leader when I started the internship. She taught me much of what I know about crafting LinkedIn posts, email marketing campaigns and writing case studies. I admire that she consistently produces high-quality work while always staying eager to learn more. Throughout our numerous Microsoft Teams meetings, I also received mentorship on topics outside of the internship, whether that be investing, health insurance, career journeys or buying a house. We joke that I leave every call with a new life lesson, and I always do!

Paola: The mentorship I received from Elizabeth Conrad, Strategic Market Development Analyst, and Erina Lambeth, Marketing and Communications Manager, enriched my internship experience. I reported to Elizabeth on a day-to-day basis. She provided mentorship and guidance while teaching me how to navigate corporate marketing and communications at a high level. Additionally, the guidance I received from Erina Lambeth, whom I met at Grady’s Circle of Success program, shaped who I am as a business professional.

How has the Grady curriculum prepared you for this internship?

Paola: Grady’s curriculum played a large role in preparing me for this opportunity. My Media Strategy and Activation class prepared me for the technical portions of advertising. Being a member of UGA’s Talking Dog Agency gave me confidence in executing a company-wide campaign ultimately presented to the CEO.

What is the most valuable piece of advice you gained from your experience?

Kennady: The best advice I took away from my internship comes down to two things that go hand in hand. First, push yourself to improve on a concept even when you think it’s the final version, or as far as it can go. This means not getting so married to an idea that you’re unwilling to scrap it and try something new, but it also means not getting discouraged when you run into obstacles. Second, ideas can’t exist in a vacuum. For example, you might have a pitch you think will land well with your audience, but if you don’t actively engage with that audience, it could fall flat or be misunderstood.

What challenges have you overcome in this role?

Paola: Having faith in my preparation and experience helped me shake the initial jitters of stepping into a new role. I learned to overcome this by facing new projects with confidence. Throughout the summer, my mentors helped me shift my perspective and view roadblocks in work not as obstacles, but puzzles that provide opportunities to learn. My role at Invio strengthened my faith in my abilities and provided opportunities to contribute to a variety of meaningful and rewarding projects. I’m grateful for the position and excited to continue growing in this role through the fall!

How has this internship influenced your future career?

Kennady: This internship has taught me which aspects of public relations I enjoy, which I do not and where my strengths and weaknesses lie. In my opinion, that is the purpose of an internship: to gain experience while learning more about yourself and how you work in different environments. Moving forward, I realized I want a career that includes a feedback loop where I can engage in a two-way dialogue with my audience, rather than simply sending out a message without being involved in analyzing the response.

Editor: Sarah Kate Maher, skm01341@uga.edu