There may be no “u” in Qorvis, but there is certainly room for you. If Qorvis said something that corny, you probably wouldn’t want to work for them. Since Qorvis is a communications and public relations firm, they’re smart enough not to use slogans like the one I just came up with. Instead they rely on a nice looking Careers site and a hard to pronounce name to recruit interns.
To be honest, we have no idea how to pronounce Qorvis’ name. A Google search was unsuccessful, and we don’t know where else to look. Still, we recommend that you figure it out before you set up a phone interview (assuming you get one). It’s pretty awkward to say the name wrong a dozen times before the interviewer finally says it with a completely different pronunciation. Qorvis (however you’re saying it inside your head) is a communications firm based out of McLean, VA, and they’re looking for interns who have a strong interest in public relations and communications.
Qorvis’ internships page is pretty basic, and there aren’t any actual internship listings; however, they do say that they offer internships in the spring, summer, and fall. Students should have a 3.0 or higher GPA and strong writing and editing skills. They prefer Communications, Public Relations, Journalism, Business and Marketing majors, but students from any major are welcome to apply.
Interns will “work with our experienced staff on planning and executing special events, and on how to formulate and enact crisis communication plans.” They’ll also have access to Qorvis University, which is an employee development program that focuses on topics in the field of communications. They’ve brought in guest speakers like Malcolm Gladwell and George Stephanopoulos, so this isn’t some low budget affair.
The Qorvis Internships page, and Careers site as a whole, is simple and uncluttered. It’s easy to navigate, which puts them ahead of most companies; however, the site is also a little light on content. We’d love to get a more in-depth look at their internship program. We’d also like if they told candidates how to apply. Whoops. We’ll assume that they expect applicants to send a resume and cover letter to opportunities@qorvis.com, but we think this might be a perfect opportunity to standout by being remarkable.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Know how to pronounce Qorvis? Be generous and share that competitive advantage in the recruiting process by leaving a comment.
Do I Know Anyone at Qorvis? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
Tags: advertising, communications, Internships, pr, writing
I am a co-founder of Qorvis and hope to provide some information that may be helpdful.
First of all, it is pronounced as if it was “Corvis.”
Our internship program is basically three months, albeit we have renewed internships (rarely) up to a total of nine months. Interns are paid.
If you take a look at our web page you will see that we have a unique business model. Unlike virtually all our competitors, we do not keep timesheets — we do not believe we are in the business of selling time, but selling value, which, by definition, is directly related to the quality of the people providing the value. As we want to earn high fees from well-known clients, that means we need great people working in an environ,ment that encourages them to do great work.
We see our mission as helping clients achieve specific goals by getting messages that resonate to the audiences that will help the clients meet those goals — and we use any and all distirbution channels, from paid adevrtising to earned media, interactive, public affairs, etc. We do not define our firm by the distribution channel (i.e., we are not an “ad agency” or a “pr firm”), but as a communications firm, more akin to a consulting firm than anything else, albeit in addition to providing strategic advice etc., we execute at extremely high level. Therefore, it is perfectly consistent that we would try to recruit the best people possible to join Qorvis. We list (most) all our employees and their bios at our web page — take a look and you will see what I mean. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we want the best and the brightest as our interns as well. If you aren’t really the best with a very strong commitment to be even better and work with the best, save your time.
As we do not have time sheets, we also do not have silos or “practice groups” — we work in very collegial teams that are assembled to include all the areas of expertise we need to help the client. As a result, collegiality is a very important part of our culture — that and a very strong commitment to do a very high level of work.
Most of our interns are already college grads, most in some major relating to communications (advertising or pr or some collateral area), public affairs, interactive or political science. We do hire some liberal arts majors (bias to philosophy majors), but not usually. We do take “QU” very seriously and give classes on everything from conversational Italian, to how to pick wines and how to think about financial planning to how to pitch a story, how to pitch new business, trends in interactive communications, etc. … along with great outside speakers that take advantage of our DC location and our high quality contents.
Hope that helps. For a sense of our (or, at least my) thinking on our business model and basic premises, you can see my blog, http://www.deathoftime.com.
Doug, thanks for the awesome comment. It’s great to see someone like you take the time to tell potential interns a little bit more about your company.