Acquire Online with Zane

Acquire Online is New Zealand’s largest and most experienced Programmatic trading desk team and Programmatic Director, Zane Furtado, took time out to talk to us about the company’s experience with interns from the Auckland ICT Graduate School Programme.

The company was looking to strengthen its data team and wanted to scope out the work required before setting up a data analysis team, which meant that the intern programme provided them with a valuable alternative to going to market. He particularly noted the University data course that produced students who ideally fitted the profile they were hoping to find.

Samil, one of the interns on-boarded through the programme for Acquire Online, was designated the role and responsibility of analysing bid streams and buying patterns across media buys for the company. His contributions came in a variety of aspects such as data visualisation, trend analysis and the establishment of a TARP/Impression calculator. Zane felt that Samil was well prepared for this internship through his impressive data visualisation and data mining capabilities that helped Acquire Online with their business needs.

Given his experience with Samil, Zane believes that the company would certainly consider taking future interns due to the opportunities they present to help the business solve their complex challenges through their diverse expertise and knowledge. Despite interns being able to bring these valuable skillsets to any business, Zane says that companies considering interns need to have a business case and attempt to find interns that have a basic understanding of their industry. This is so that precious time is not spent on the fundamentals, but instead productively to benefit both the business and the intern efficiently for the duration of the internship.

For students considering entering an Auckland ICT Graduate School Programme, he strongly recommends the best approach towards the internships is to establish a strong understanding of the business needs of the company, ask as many questions as you need, and develop strong ideas and solutions from this foundation.

If your company is looking at potential intern opportunities or you are a student looking to take the next step of your IT career, then contact Amanda Zieltjes (at The University of Auckland) or Alvin Yeo (at the University of Waikato) today.