Amanda Stowe was fortunate to hold two internships that covered 3 summers. The most recent internship was with Aerotek Staffing Agency. This leading staffing agency matches qualified candidates with top companies worldwide.
The internship with Aerotek was a typical ten-week internship during the summer between her sophomore and junior years, summer of 2015. Here’s what she wanted to share with you.
Q: The best part?
A: Sometimes the best part of the job is the unexpected knowledge you gain from working on the inside. The experience was incredibly valuable because I can use the knowledge I gained from being in an HR role myself to improve my own job application and interview skills. I feel like I have a huge advantage going into interviews now because I truly know the do’s and do-not’s as I listened to recruiters talk about them and use them to make decisions about job candidates all day long for ten weeks.
Q: The worst part?
A: The worst part about my internship with Aerotek was that I was staffing with the technical team, so I was trying to find job candidates for senior level embedded systems positions from all over the world. As a 19 year old who doesn’t have the slightest clue about engineering, computer programming, or the like, I felt a little panicked to say the least, but my team was very helpful in teaching me the technical jargon and giving me an understanding of the what the jobs entailed.
Q: What advice would you give to students about getting an internship?
A: Don’t stress if you don’t get your dream internship because the experience will still be incredibly valuable! Just having an internship teaches you A TON about the daily tasks you do and don’t enjoy performing, what sort of company culture suites your personality best, and the team dynamics you most prefer so when you start thinking about where you’d like to start your career you truly have a solid understanding of the types of companies you would best succeed at.
The photo attached is from my internship at Aerotek. The company regularly has competitions and contest days to stimulate productivity. In the picture we were grouped into teams and we had to dress in costumes and compete for productivity scores, the team with the best costume was allowed to leave for the day at noon and the team with the best productivity scores after lunch left for the day at 1. My team were the lions and we dressed as “the kings of the pit” (we called the office the pit).