Tag Archive for: intern

My Experience Having a Mentor

This summer, I was granted the fantastic opportunity to be paired with a formal mentor for the duration of my 10-week internship. To my surprise, my mentor was a UW-Madison alum (the college I currently attend) and had a bunch of things in common with me right off the bat. I was so excited to dive into our mentorship experience together and felt even more prepared as a result of prior research I had conducted on the meaning of a “mentor” and how to extract the most out of our time together. So, how did it turn out? Keep reading to find out…

Having a Formal Mentor…

  • Honest Communication: My favorite part about having a mentor was that it gave me a weekly opportunity to be completely open and honest about my experience, questions I had, or regarding projects or responsibilities that I did not feel were “important” enough to take to higher leadership. My mentor was a constant source of guidance, free from judgment, and a fantastic voice of wisdom for any and all inquiries. While I had a phenomenal overall experience, she absolutely provided me with meaningful advice regarding my future, my hesitations, and how to navigate my “likes and dislikes” about the role I was placed in.
  • Lessons of Other Internal Roles and Opportunities: While I was situated in the business risk office, my mentor was a member of the consumer insights team. Coincidentally, she had the role that I had always hoped to explore and was highly interested in! Through her, I was able to gauge what it would actually be like to possess consumer insights-related responsibilities on a daily basis, what career acceleration could look like from that standpoint, and how each of the 5 consumer insights roles complements and differs from one another. It was absolutely fantastic and all the more valuable to hear candidly from someone not so far from my age and career standpoint about her own experience. As an employee, she also had fantastic insight (no pun intended) into a plethora of different roles possessed by colleagues, past mentors, managers, or other alum.
  • Connections! Another awesome component of having a mentorship program is in its ability to set you up with a list of connections stemming from colleagues, other alum, friends, or even past mentors in different roles across the entire company. Having my mentor point out roles she thought I may be interested in ended up allowing me to explore entirely different responsibilities and positions that I had not previously been aware of!

Mentorship is an essential part of business and its evolution. So, having mentors in various roles, of all ages, and all backgrounds will allow you to learn from a variety of perspectives about your self, your interests, and future opportunities. However, not all companies provide interns with direct, formal mentors. So, how do you go about finding an informal role model? Check back in Thursday to find out!

Searching for a new position? Check out our open jobs list!

Interested in my experience? Keep reading to find out about my role as an intern here!

Benefits of Accepting a Second Internship

In the heat of career fair season, we understand that many of you are faced with the decision to either return to the company you worked for this summer or pursue a new opportunity. Today, as part 1 of our 2 part saga, we’re hoping to teach you about some of the benefits of following a second-year internship at the same company.

Benefits of Returning . . .

  1. Sense of Role-ownership: One great aspect of returning to the same company you’ve worked at before is the relationships you’ve already built. Utilizing those connections, especially with hiring managers or internal recruiters, may allow you to gain some freedom in choosing which role you pursue in your second year. Whether this means transitioning to another team, project, or an entirely new subset of a company, taking advantage of internal resources will prove highly valuable.
  2. New Mentors: Another way to make use of your experience is by beginning to envision the type of mentor, or mentors you can pursue upon your return. Building additional connections to expand your internal, and potentially external, network is a great way to continue to gauge your own career interests and desires.
  3. Even Larger Network: While you have likely already built a sturdy network within the company you worked for, returning will allow you to build an even larger number of connections by surrounding yourself with employees of all different backgrounds, job functions, and teams. While this is especially useful for interns or graduates returning to larger companies which offer a greater and larger variety of employees, deepening connections will always prove useful. You never know if the connection you built may find themselves in a leadership role and in need of a new employee on their team. Better yet, mentors often transition into higher roles where they may then recommend you to take their previous spot!
  4. Opportunity to Relocate: If you work for an organization which houses several locations across the United States, returning to your previous position as an intern may allow you to internally “build your roots” within the company and, later on, have a greater say in where you are placed permanently. This is a huge component of your future and definitely important to continue to keep in mind! If you are happy where you live, you are much more likely to enjoy what you do!

Now that you’ve seen some leading factors in the benefits of returning to a company for a second-year internship, we’ll introduce you to a few reasons that may lead you to decide to explore elsewhere. While we don’t have the right answer for you, we’re hoping that you can lead feeling educated, well-versed, and with multiple different perspectives!

Missed our last blog? Check out what to look for before accepting a position here!

Searching for a new position? Check out our open jobs!

Top 4 Differences Between Large and Small Companies

As I mentioned in our most recent article (if you missed it… go check it out from Monday!), I worked for an extremely large corporate office this summer. In reflecting on my experience, I recognized that there truly is a large difference between working for a large company versus a smaller one. While I am not here to tell you which is better (because that is truly up to your own personality type and preferences) I am excited to share and offer a few perspectives to assist you in your own future job search.

Top 4 Differences…

  1. Daily Interactions: If you work for a small company, it is almost guaranteed that you will be able to build strong, deep-rooted connections with each of the employees that you interact with each day and in every project. You’ll come to quickly understand “who does what” and where to go to reach out for help in any instance. However, working for a large company means that you will be working alongside many people who specialize in an array of different roles. For that reason, you will likely find yourself reaching out to many different people for each different need. Doing so will help you to immerse yourself in different types of positions and establish a collective understanding of how your company operates and achieves success.
  2. Lateral Movements: Are you ready to settle down in a position and dig your roots deep? If so, I would encourage you to check out a smaller organization. Doing so will help you to solidify your role and gain deep, intellectual knowledge in your newfound specialty. However, if you are someone who is still unsure of what you want to do in the end game (which is also totally okay – and is more like me!), then you may want to think about working for a larger corporation that will provide you with the ability to make lateral movements often, sometimes even yearly. Lateral movement will help you to explore new opportunities without having to conduct a whole new job search.
  3. Relationship Building: As it relates to daily interactions, communicating to a smaller group of people will allow you to cultivate meaningful relationships, potentially helping you to see a “home” in your role for many years to come. On the other hand, as working for a large organization will require many hands on deck across several teams, meeting many people will assist you in creating a larger network and building various connections that you never know when you may need!
  4. Mentorship Opportunities: If you work in an office that requires people to work in all types of roles in order to continue to operate (ie: Google, Apple, Sephora, etc.), your mentorship opportunities will range across several different “sub-industries” of business. However, if you are someone who is confident that you want to stay in your position and become a specialist, working for a small company may help you to find that person to act as a mention and vision of who you hope to be farther on in your career. In my personal experience, not knowing exactly what I want to do, I enjoyed finding a mentor in a Marketing role while I was housed in Risk, as it helped me envision a future outside of the office I was currently a team member within.

 

Hopefully, this helped you to visualize yourself in a bunch of different offices! So… which was your favorite? Keep trying to weigh your values and desires as you begin your full-time job or internship search in these upcoming months.

Stay tuned for our upcoming article on “What to Look Out For” when you’re evaluating your position! Missed our article on Monday? Check it out here!

Looking for a new position? Check out our open jobs!

My Summer Experience as an Intern

Hello everyone – I am so excited to announce that I will be returning to Esquire Recruiting as their Social Media and Marketing Intern (and also blog-creator) for the fall semester! For those of you who may not know me, my name is Hannah McDermott and I am an incoming junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am majoring in Business, specifically in Marketing and Risk Management, and for that reason had pursued my first internship in a corporate setting this summer. Keep reading to find out more about my experience…

Life as an Intern…

So, is life as an intern in a corporate office all it’s cracked up to be? My answer in short for you is… yes! I am elated to be able to recount the incredible experience I had during my internship in Risk Management for you all. In all honesty, walking into my first day came with nerves, jitters, and moments of intimidation. However, walking out on my last day, I felt rejoiced and confident both in my newfound knowledge gained from my responsibilities and also as a business professional. I thought the best way I could convey my experience for you was by taking note of some of my favorite components of this summer!

  • Intern Events: Working as one of about 150 interns hired came with some major perks. One to keep in mind when weighing your own interest in working for a large company is the advantage of coordinated events that many organizations put on for their intern groups. Due to the magnitude of our group, I was able to attend a Chicago boat cruise, networking events, an ice cream social, and even an off-campus volunteering event! I truly looked forward to these special days, as they not only helped me to feel immersed in the company’s culture but amongst each of my intern peers who quickly became some of my great friends.
  • Mentorship Opportunities: Working around hundreds of other employees also posed the opportunity for one to pursue mentors, both formal and informal, across several, differing job functions. I’ll combine mentorship with networking, as the two were super intertwined and each intern was not only supported but encouraged to explore each area of the company and identify our own interests outside of our immediate job functions. In doing so, I was able to identify certain areas of Marketing and job roles that I would love to pursue in the future!
  • Autonomy and Freedom: One thing that I hadn’t expected of an internship prior to this summer was the true freedom I was granted in leading each project I was assigned, and achieving the goals I had set for myself during the first week of my summer. I was astonished and felt incredibly valued in the idea that even at such a large organization, my thoughts and actions were heard at such a high level; I was truly treated as a regular full-time member of our team.

Keep tuning in throughout this week and month to hear more about what I loved about my summer, what I would have changed, and what types of thoughts and ideas to look out for as you start applying to your next internship! Thanks for listening 🙂