Summer internship reveals new interests

This is a guest blog by Alecia Kissel, HR/Recruiting intern at Milliner & Associates, LLC in Indianapolis. Milliner & Associates recently hired Kissel to continue her duties into the fall. 

Often I look back at past experiences and wish I knew then what I know now. If I had stepped in the door of Milliner & Associates in May and known it was going to be the best experience of my life, I would’ve hopped on the phone and started calling resumes right away. That is not an exaggeration either; being a summer intern at Milliner & Associates was the best experience of my academic, soon-to-be-professional life thus far.

Prior to this internship, I had no knowledge of staffing. Honestly, I had no idea that staffing and recruiting firms existed. Coming from someone who stepped into staffing with no experience, it is a great industry to learn about and work in.

At first, a lot of the information regarded data entry from interviews and how to properly phone screen potential candidates. It took a while for me to get the hang of the whole process from start to finish (from looking through resumes to filing that perfect candidate in our system).

Even sorting through which resumes to print—one of my simplest tasks—stumped me at first because it is not as black and white as the academic world. Just because someone has a well-formatted resume does not mean they are the best candidate for a job. Good format doesn’t hurt, but I quickly learned that experience, especially recent related experience, is what makes the difference.

Now I try to master new assignments as efficiently as possible, because then my boss gives me more fun tasks to work on. Since the beginning of summer, she has given me projects such as going to job fairs and ordering background checks. We even went to the State Fair and won prizes thanks to IndianaINTERN.net!

As Nicole put it, the summer taught me that I can do this. The fall is to find out if I want to do this. While I am a bit biased toward the staffing industry, I am open to wherever my professional path takes me.

There is one thing I know. Come December, I will wish I could press the reset button on my summer and fall internships.