Quote EndQuote Cross-Cultural Strategy

Parting Words from Our QEQ Interns: Masa and Hunter

Posted by Vanessa Vachet | 01.30.15

We  are always pleasantly amazed when our international student interns, newcomers to Canada, are effectively and efficiently integrated into our workplace, but retain their unique viewpoint and unique cultural insights.

One way new team members can contribute so quickly is through the use of Google Translate. Yes, Google Translate!

After a very short 4-week internship, two of our interns from Japan were able to learn our systems, contribute ideas and share in the workload, as well as train their replacements. Here are their parting words…

“We, Masa and Hunter, will be finishing our one month internship today. We have done lots of tasks with the QEQ team. We learned not only about marketing, but also how to communicate in business. We learned how to greet customers, have meetings and so on. We are proud of having our internships here and we are glad that we could meet all of you, including those people we came in contact with during our time at QEQ.”

Hunter: “Alisa gave me a lot of work related to IT, such as working on our SEO, which was great, because my major in university was computer science. That is why working at QEQ was a really good opportunity for me. While at university, I studied many subjects related to computers, such as working in the back-end part of software systems. I could put the knowledge I gathered as a student into real-life work at QEQ. I coded  front-end programming for them, and though I never previously worked on SEO, I taught myself through my own research and also from what I learned through our co-workers, suppliers and clients. I want to say thank you to all of them. I very much appreciate your kindness.”

Masa: “For me, Masa, my tasks were more related to the marketing side of things. I worked on a lot of advertising initiatives for our clients. Weekly, I would track the number of people who viewed the advertisements. It was good for me, to think about these numbers, to analyse them and to ask why that number was increasing or decreasing. If I work for other companies in Japan, the experience which I got at QEQ will certainly be of help.”

From both Masa and Hunter: “We are amazed at how fast the time goes by! If it were possible to stay here, we would, especially before we go back to Japan. Alisa has guided us nicely and kindly. At times, she might have been strict. But, we know that she did it to help us improve and we did grow a lot. We don’t want to leave you, but unfortunately, it’s time.Thank you for everything! Keep in touch, everyone!”

Last Monday, Jan 26, we welcomed two new interns: Haruka and Yusuke from Japan!

They will take over Masa’s tasks and some of Hunter’s as well. We are certain that they will find really good opportunities for growth and development, here at QEQ.