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Liner Notes
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How
to Be a Good Music Industry Intern
Your first internship in the music
business is an exciting milestone. But what looked cool from the outside is often
intimidating once you're in. Here are some techniques to help you survive and thrive in a
music industry office.
- A positive attitude plus excellent skills
and a lot of determination will get you very far.
- Don't complain about the less-exciting
tasks. Everyone has something in their job that isn't "fun," and tasks that may
seem meaningless to you are still very important to the organization. Example: the person
who converts my "to file" pile into easy-to-find files is like gold to me,
because she's saved so much time and relieved so much stress.
- Be a sponge; you're there to learn.
- If you work with celebrities, don't try to
get autographs or pictures. The celebrity is working, and we want them to be relaxed and
happy so they'll want to work with us again. Signing autographs and taking pictures isn't
relaxing. (Neither is the sight of someone fainting at your feet.)
- Take the initiative, but don't try to take
over. One intern didn't last long with us because she refused to follow instructions and
said dismissively, "I'll just do it this way." My first thought was, "No,
you won't, because you're out of here." (Had she asked if it would be OK to try a
different method, she might have stayed; It was the attitude that did her in.)
- Back up your back-ups, and make friends
with the photocopier. Busy people who are on the run lose a lot of documents, and you may
have to CYA (Cover Your...).
- Bad answer: "I don't know." Good
answer:"I don't have the answer off the top of my head, but I'll find out right
away."
- Go the extra mile when you do a task. The
music industry is very competitive, and most successful executives in it are
perfectionists who want to work with other perfectionists.
- That said, pursuit of perfection shouldn't
make the project take forever. Your boss probably wants it done yesterday, so it's a
delicate balance.
- Use care when handling confidential
information, and know and adhere to the company's procedures for disposal of confidential
documents.
- Don't badmouth other people in the
industry. Murphy's Law says they're probably best friends with or significant others or
relatives of the boss.
- Reason #2 to never badmouth other people
in the industry: if you think you'll never see or work with them again, you will--closely,
at the next company you work for.
- It's the music business, not the music
party. Working hard just doesn't get as much media attention.
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