Regarding securing an internship or full-time job, I am familiar with many experiences that can guide and align individuals into their goals. I believe that my journey to a full-time job began in preparation for my Freshman year of college. Due to having a wonderful, driven older sister that also went to Indiana University with an Informatics major, I always had someone guiding me through class scheduling, job recruiting, and resume building; if you do not have an experienced older sibling as I did, I would highly recommend searching for a mentor at IU! Fall semester of my freshman year of college, my sister pushed me to attend the career fair. I had no experience on my resume other than high school clubs, lifeguarding jobs, and extracurricular activities but she pushed me anyways to attend again and again. I attended every School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering career fair at Indiana University up until my senior year. This gave me the confidence to understand the lay of the land, how to shake hands, perfect my elevator pitch, find my professional business casual clothing style, and most importantly network with professionals for amazing opportunities. Working within The Center of Excellence for Women & Technology on the Women Who Code Team allowed me to further refine my professional presentation, teaching, and technical skills throughout my sophomore, junior, and senior years of college as well.
Throughout my college career, I have worked through two separate internships for two different companies. By my sophomore year, my goal going into job recruiting was to secure an internship in the IT field for the summer of 2019. After completing many rounds of interviews, I secured an internship with Liberty Mutual Insurance as a Techstart Intern of Agent & Partner Technology Division on the Salesforce Solutions team. Had I ever worked with Salesforce internal systems before? Nope! Did I know anything about insurance? Nope! But what I did communicate to the Liberty Mutual recruiters was that I was passionate about technology, wanted to learn, and could supply value to their company. That was what got me that internship as one of the two Sophomores within that large intern class of Juniors and Seniors. Regarding the internship, I learned so much from the wonderful people I worked with, my manager, the other interns, and a lot about myself that summer. I found that you can learn something from every individual you come into contact with, that you benefit so much from sitting in on different team’s meetings, keeping a document of contact information from all employees you connect with is so valuable, and reaching out to someone new every day in the company. I completed the summer internship with high praise from my manager, my IU Capstone Credit finished, and an offer to return to the company.
Furthermore, In fall 2019 I entered the recruitment process confident, prepared, and goal-oriented after completing my previous internship. The internship offers I received during my Junior year included McDonald’s, PwC, United Airlines, Target, Lowes, and Liberty Mutual Insurance. The recruitment process during my Junior year of college was much more intense than the year prior; candidates were more competitive, elevator pitches were sharpened, and a year of experience was added to everyone’s resume. In regard to the internship I decided to accept, the recruitment process was definitely unique. I found the McDonald’s internship as I was attending the Kelley School of Business’s career fair to talk to Salesforce. Next to Salesforce was the McDonald’s career fair booth. After chatting with Salesforce, I looked up McDonald’s internships available on my phone, found an IT internship, and walked to the line, and began talking to Emily, a McDonald’s recruiter. I received a Hirevue interview due 3 days later; after completing this interview and not hearing back from McDonald’s for weeks, I decided to make my next move. I began reaching out to every McDonald’s recruiter on LinkedIn explaining my incredible interest in this opportunity. Finally, one responded saying he would do what he could. The next day I received a second-round interview link and the recruiter I contacted on LinkedIn was the man interviewing me! The video interview call went swimmingly with a focus on behavioral questions.
Weeks later, I received an email requesting that I attend a super-day of interviews in Chicago, IL at the newly renovated McDonald’s Corporate Global headquarters! They flew me out and placed me in a hotel close to the office for 3 days. The super days consisted of group interviews where we were observed, individual interviews, technical problem questions, plus tours, lunches, information sessions, and lots of time to network. Yet, out of all of my interviewing skills, I believe I was offered the internship due to creating a product redesign of the McDonald’s self-service kiosks! Before flying to Chicago, I spent time looking into problems with McDonald’s customer-facing technology. I found that the kiosks had a problem that when customers used the kiosk and their order included a drink, they paid at the kiosk then had to go up to the cash register to ask for a drink cup; this process created a flaw in the user experience as it is supposed to flow without a user going to the cash register. I created a simple product redesign image and recommendation document and printed out many copies to give to my interviewers who were impressed. 
I worked remotely for McDonald’s Corporation as an intern within their Global IT Department as an Associate Technical Product Manager on the Artificial Intelligence Drive-Thru Team. I fell in love with McDonald’s fast-paced environment, passion for their customers, diversity, inclusion, and technology innovation. I learned so much from this experience of interning for McDonald’s through a virtual environment; I learned how to work as a Product Manager, reach out to professionally connect with individuals inside a company, think strategically, bridge communication between very technical and non-technical audiences, refine my presentation skills, plus so much more. I became incredibly involved with the McDonald’s Accessibility Team because I have a passion for inclusive design and had the chance to work on real McDonald’s Accessibility projects as well.
My biggest takeaway from recruiting for jobs throughout my college career definitely would be to always be open to opportunities, regardless of if they check every box in your list of wants in a position. Additionally, never be afraid to apply for a job even if your experience is not mirroring the job requirements, skills, or description. Attend the information sessions to get your name in a company’s system and strike up a conversation with a speaker. Repay the kindness others have shown you in or outside of the workforce with a good deed to someone else; there can never be too much kindness going around. Connect with everyone, EVERYONE, on LinkedIn. Use your network, friends, family, the family of friends, all of it for that job! The biggest piece of advice would be to never stop learning; read new books, sign up for online short courses, or ask for mentorship! Employers want someone who continuously evolves and improves, not someone who halts their education after graduating. Find your passion and run like hell with it, life is too short not to.
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