Around 800 million people worldwide spend an average of 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, sharing up to 30 billion pieces of content through this popular social network. Impressive figures from a company that in just eight years has revolutionized the way we consume media, said Jordi Fornies, Manager of Advertising Operations for Facebook offices in Dublin, during the company’s second visit to IESE's Barcelona campus.
This year marks the organization’s second year of recruiting MBA students for Facebook's internship program, a strategic move it has made to better fill management positions, said Maggie McPartlin, Facebook University Programs Manager. McPartlin and Fornies addressed their presentation to an auditorium filled to maximum capacity with first and second-year IESE MBA students, the majority of which are Facebook users themselves.
Fornies, who previously worked in traditional advertising, made the case for user-centered media, claiming that this personalized treatment is what the future holds for the internet. If the 1990s revolved around page-browsing and the 2000s around search engines, the present and future of the web lies in social media, he said.
One example of such future possibilities is the option of "attending" music concerts online, via live streaming, a feature Facebook is currently developing, as McPartlin pointed out. “Our journey is only 1 percent finished,” she said, summarizing the company’s pioneering philosophy, one that clearly values creativity and entrepreneurship.
These qualities translate into an attractive internship opportunity for students looking to work on the forefront of media and technology. Summer internships for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) take place in Dublin, which houses the largest offices outside of the global headquarters in the United States, as well as smaller offices in London, Paris, and Milan.
Facebook’s “start-up culture”, said McPartlin, allows interns to “hit the ground running,” giving them the freedom not only to propose ideas but to be heard as well. Interns can also rest assured they will make more than a few new Facebook friends, since “being social” is not only part of the job, in McPartlin’s words, but also part of employees’ DNA.
