Tag: summer internship

Various Olin students contributed to this post.

Earlier this summer, we shared the stories of six MBA ’22 students and how their Olin education set up them up for success. Today, we’re back with three MBA ’22 students and one BSBA ’22 student. Whether they’re working in marketing, finance or logistics, the foundational skills they learned at Olin have prepared them for the job ahead.

How did your Olin education prepare you for your internship?

“At Schnucks, I work with the Communications team. Our team has a hand in every single department and the dissemination of information both internally and externally. Coming from a background in journalism, Olin offers me many brand-new learning opportunities. Within my internship, I’m enjoying building on the solid foundation of the FTMBA program. Having the first-year core classes at Olin has prepared me to communicate and strategize more effectively with departments such as Accounting, Finance, Merchandising and Operations at Schnucks and become a more well-rounded businesswoman.”

-Lucy Reis, MBA ’22, communications intern at Schnuck Markets

“I use Olin’s’ value-based and data-driven approaches every day of my internship. At Amazon I’m encouraged to dig deep into data sets to gather insights and invent new creative solutions to solve customers’ problems. Olin’s education prepared me for my internship at Amazon by teaching me qualitative and quantitative analysis frameworks that allow me to deconstruct and analyze business problems in an organized manner. In my current role, I’m using the managerial insights I mainly learned in my operations and strategy courses. [They] allow me to complete my work and to communicate effectively with high-ranking, experienced technical and nontechnical professionals with over 20 years of experience that are even outside of my own area of expertise.”

-Antonio Rivera-Martínez, MBA ’22, senior manager program intern at Amazon

How/what are you taking what you learned at Olin and applying it to your current role?

“The most valuable thing I have applied from my time at Olin to my current role is communication and teamwork. Olin’s curriculum emphasizes team projects, which simulate real work environments that cultivate problem solving and concise communication. Throughout my time at Olin, I’ve had the opportunity to work with different teams, either in extracurriculars or classes. I come out of each team project learning more about working with different people with diverse backgrounds to achieve the best outcome.”

-Daphne Liu, BSBA ’22, business analyst intern at McKinsey & Company

“Building a competitive and marketing strategy with a unique value proposition for a product, building relationships with different stakeholders, and understanding customer problems first and then providing them a solution are some of the things which I learned and apply in my current role.”

-Vaibhav Dabas, MBA ’22, product manager intern at VMWare

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There are many appealing aspects about the Olin experience: The world class faculty, small class size, supportive students, and intellectually stimulating curriculum. But one area where Olin truly excels is at its job placement rate, where 96% of its Full-Time MBA graduates receive job offers within 3 months after graduation with a median salary of $100,000. However, the caveat to this is that the onus is on the student to put himself or herself in a position to take advantage of these opportunities.

Personally, from outset of the fall semester, I was actively searching for internship opportunities.

I got my resume and LinkedIn profiles proofread from the WCC as soon as possible, and immediately was looking for opportunities on MBAFocus. I also reached out to those from whom I received business cards from at MBA networking events. These information sessions I scheduled were incredibly informative. In addition, I prepared well in advance for the MBA Veterans Career Conference in October in Chicago, which proved to be an embarrassment of riches as far as internship/job opportunities were concerned.

With regards to translating my military experience into my resume and interviews, there are some keys to remember. First, it is imperative to jettison military jargon and use civilian-speak when talking about your experiences. That will make the company you are targeting more keen on hiring you. Second, emphasize the leadership and managerial responsibilities you had while on active duty. This is what gives you a competitive advantage over many of your civilian peers. Finally, emphasize any awards and decorations you received, as employers want to know examples of when you stood out from your peers.

If I could do something differently, I would have started preparing for case interviews much sooner.

Regardless of the platform you may choose, many firms in all areas will have a case interview in addition to a behavioral interview. In both of these, you need to come across as polished and prepared if you expect to receive an offer.

The book “Case in Point” is a great way to prepare. Also, utilize your peer network and the great resources at the WCC, as they will be more than willing to put you in a position to succeed. Read up on your desired company’s history, its financial statements, and leadership changes, if any, at the company. This will be a great indication of how much you want to work at said company. But at the end of the day, BE YOURSELF. Companies are seeking corporate fit in addition to qualifications annotated on the resume, and if you’re not a fit for the company, it’s not going to be beneficial to either party for you to work there.

All of my preparation culminated in me receiving an Corporate Finance internship offer at Intel in Portland, Oregon. I look forward to applying all I learned at Olin at Intel. And while I’m there, I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions as you start your internship search. Feel free to drop me a line.

Guest Blogger: Ravi Balu, MBA ’18

Photo, above: Stephanie Chen and fellow interns at a baseball game!

This summer, I interned at Hill’s Pet Nutrition with the Global Marketing and Innovation team, and I had a wonderful experience! Hill’s Pet Nutrition is a global division of Colgate-Palmolive, and the mission of the company is to help enrich and strengthen the special relationships between people and their pets. As a pet-lover and a dog parent, I was extremely passionate about the business!

Stephanie and her dog, Riley.

The program was very well-organized and has extremely high visibility within the organization. The 10-week internship started with a warm welcome by the entire marketing team, including the marketing leadership team. We also got to have one-on-one sessions with the senior leaders in the organization— including the Global CEO! In addition to all the meetings, we were also exposed to cross-functional teams and visits to the factory, a visit to the creative agency, a tour in the Pet Nutrition Center, and a volunteer opportunity with the local Humane Society, where Hill’s Pet Nutrition has shelter programs. All the activities not only helped us to understand the business and the company much better, but also helped us to meet new people and bond better with the Hill’s family.

My two projects included therapeutic portfolio simplification and delivering recommendation to drive share on the non-core categories, which I truly enjoyed. In addition to market research and data analysis, I had a lot of interaction with a cross-functional team: from regional marketing teams in Canada, Europe, and the Far East, the customer development team in the U.S., and finance, supply chain, and vet affairs, I enjoyed meeting different people and learning from them! I also got to do a field visit with one of the territory managers, which helped a lot in understanding our customers and the business. By the end of the ten-week program, we all had the opportunity to deliver the final presentation to the senior management team, including the Global CEO and all the functional leaders.

Last but not least, what I enjoyed most was the culture and the friendly colleagues. We all had great managers and mentors to work with and to learn from. What’s more, you would be surprised by the number of nationalities represented in Hill’s corporate head office in Topeka (10!), especially in the global marketing team. Everyone was extremely friendly and supportive of one another!

Guest blogger: Stephanie Chen, MBA ’17

Intel literally puts the silicon in “Silicon Valley” and is the world’s largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker based on revenue. In 1978, Intel engineers invented the x86 architecture, which has been adopted as the industry standard for manufacturing microprocessors. Intel architecture provides stability for hardware and software solutions throughout the value chain. Intel sells processors to computer system manufacturers like Dell, HP, Lenova, Apple, and Samsung. As a result, Intel processors are found in most personal computers and other computing form factors. The engineers at Intel are the premier experts in their field and often have as many as 20 patents to their names.

Innovation is not a buzz word at Intel to be thrown around lightly.

Intel business leaders and engineer architectures developed processors for the Saturn V rocket that put man on the moon, and they continue to develop solutions that will eventually power smart cities and machine learning in the near future. If you stream Netflix, you are witnessing the power of an Intel Xeon processor in an Amazon server farm.

For my internship, I was assigned to the Client Computing Group (CCG). CCG is Intel’s largest group by revenue and sells Pentium, Celeron, and Core processors to large enterprises and consumers. My project was to find specific new use cases or markets for a technology called Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT). Intel AMT provides out-of-band manageability, or manageability even when the system is turned off or when the Operating System is failing, for enterprises to manage their IT systems more effectively. Intel AMT has been around for 10 years, and commands the highest product margin in the enterprise desktop and notebook space.  For business clients, Intel’s strategy has always been to drive sell-up to AMT Core i5/i7. This sell-up provides millions in incremental revenue each year for Intel’s Client Computing Group.

To discover new use cases, I first developed a business framework to filter and test new ideas. The first part of the framework addresses if there is a need for remote out-of-band manageability. Often times, most problems can be resolved in-band, or when the power is turned on. AMT is only value-added if the customer needs manageability out-of-band or when the system is in an off-state. Then I looked at the specific capabilities of Intel AMT (power control, remediation, virtual boot) and decided which use cases would require these specific capabilities. The most important criteria in this part of the framework was the probability of system failure. If a system has a very low probability of failure, there is not really a compelling reason to have out-of-band manageability because in the very rare event of failure, there is no financially compelling reason to invest in Intel AMT. Finally, I conducted market sizing to determine the total addressable markets and market segment shares for use cases that were selected from the framework. After I developed a market model, I was able to provide net present value ranges for my project recommendations by analyzing the amount of upsell and market segment share gain my recommendation would receive.

The finance intern coordinators in Oregon did a great job of planning and executing extracurricular activities for the interns. In addition to a host of happy hours and social events, the coordinators took the interns zip lining, hiking, and white water rafting. There were plenty of opportunities provided to interact and network with operations partners and finance leaders from each of the business units, including iCap, Intel’s venture capital firm.

Intel finance roles require developing business acumen and becoming a strategic thinker.

Finance supports the various business units in a way that is similar to how combat arms branches support maneuver units in the Army. As a field artillery officer I was always supporting an infantry commander two or three levels above my own grade. It was my job to understand their intent and provide recommendations based on my indirect fires capabilities.

This relationship and organization is nearly identical to how Intel finance supports their business partners. A finance manager or controller often supports a general manager or vice president that is much senior. The operations partners depend on finance leaders to provide unbiased financial analysis that represents the shareholder’s best interests.

Guest blogger: Army veteran and 2^nd year Olin MBA student Joe Langella

Photo courtesy of Flickr/summerfairy

There is often more emphasis placed on getting the internship of your dreams than is placed on actually doing the internship. You know what I mean? People always get worked up in the actual application process.

Applicants like to talk about their past without having to talk about what they will do in the future–it’s easier. And even then, talk is just talk . Results are what really matters. Don’t get me wrong; getting an internship is hard. But it is what you do after you get an internship that counts.

So when I entered my internship this summer, I came in with really clear goals and an actionable plan for achieving those goals. I did not want to be a forgettable intern; I want to be the intern that the company cannot afford to lose after the summer.

In the very beginning of my internship this summer, I sat with the person “overseeing” my work and we went over goals (OKRs: Objective and Key Results). Every week I review those goals and make sure that every single thing I am doing is, in one way or another, helping me work toward those goals. These OKRs are not just for professional development, but also for personal development — things that will help me grow on all scales. Here are some of the general themes that you can take from my objectives. These are overarching ideas that best describe my goals.

Add as much value to the company as is possible for an intern

What that means to me is to do literally whatever it takes to help the company–even if that means learning new things that I am not exactly comfortable with or doing things that seem stupid .  If it will help the company, I am there for them. I wake up earlier. I get to the office early. I stay late. I skip lunches. Whatever it takes to do my job and more is what I will do.

Why would I do such a thing? It may seem a bit irrational to do all of this extra work. After all, I am just an intern. Here is the key insight you need to have as an intern:

This is the one opportunity you may have in your life to gain allies while only spending 2 or 3 months, with little risk involved. You may never again have a supportive environment in which to ‘mess up’; you may never again be rewarded for trying.

The truth is that hard work does not go unnoticed. And as an intern, you want to be noticed. You want to be remembered (hopefully for something good). You literally want to do anything and everything you can to stick in someone’s mind.

Which brings me to my second point…

Go out of your way to meet people during your internship

I want to meet as many people as I can. And hopefully, with enough hard work, meet people that will vouch for me in the future.

So I made it one of my objectives to get lunch with at least one new person a week from within the company. This will be a great way to engage in conversation and learn more about people’s pasts and what they are looking for in the future. Also, it will help me work better and improve my team communication skills!

Be a curious and enthusiastic intern

I do not want to leave the summer only having completed my work — AKA the barebones.

I want to learn so, so much. And to do that I have to be methodical. To do that I have to be extremely straightforward with upper management and extremely transparent with my goals.

Because other employees are not sitting around brainstorming ways for me to learn. They are busy running a company! So it is on me and my personal initiative to set up extra meetings, talk to people in other departments, and work at the skills I need to grow.

That is how you optimize for learning — pushing your number of “asks” to the limit and always looking to challenge yourself.

I really hope people take these ideas seriously and apply them to your work in an internship or whatever capacity. Go out and do something big and people will not forget! (And, forward this to someone with an internship).

This post was originally featured on Medium and was republished with permission from the author.