Category Archives: On The Job

Entry by Brittney Horn, Membership Intern, Greater Lafayette Commerce

No matter where you work, there is most likely going to be someone that you just don’t see eye-to-eye with.  Let’s face it – it’s inevitable that you aren’t going to get along with every single person you meet in your entire life.  In the work place, it is even more prone to happen because you are surrounded by the same people for at least 40 hours a week.

Unless if you are one of those “I get along with everyone all the time no matter what” kinds of people (which is rare, and if you are one of those people, I congratulate you) you will experience feelings of frustration with other co-workers.  These feelings happen especially when you don’t understand where the other person is coming from.  This can happen often when you work with people with different types of …

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Entry by Brittney Horn, Membership Intern, Greater Lafayette Commerce

Hi everyone! My name is Brittney Horn and I will be submitting blog posts this semester detailing my experience of being an intern! I am currently interning with the Greater Lafayette Commerce in Lafayette, Indiana. My title is “Membership Intern” but I’m pretty much the “Do whatever is thrown to me intern” and I love it. Let’s rewind a little here though and give you a little background information about me.

I graduated from Purdue University this past May with a degree in Public Relations & Rhetorical Advocacy. I completed two internships during school while also living in a cooperative house and taking on leadership positions during my 3 1/5 years at Purdue (I first went to Indiana University).  These experiences led me to Vail, Colorado for this past summer working with a vacation rental company as their Public Relations Intern. …

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Entry by Jake Zielinski, Peer Career Advisor, Wabash College Career Services

I’m Jake Zielinski, a junior Rhetoric major from South Bend, IN. I’m a Wally with high entrepreneurial spirits. In the last year I have been involved in various business activities and programs; however, I’m not exactly sure where I would like to be in a few years.  Dealing with business, social environments, traveling, and negotiation are all very important aspects in whatever my future shall bring.

During last summer, I was fortunate enough to work for the Wabash College Career Service office. My official title was: Event Management Intern. Within the time allotted, I was able to collaborate with two fellow interns, Brady Young and Bobby Wade, to coordinate the 5th Annual Wabash College Community Fair. Being a large event, we started preparing months in advance. Duties included communicating with local business owners to increase event participation, marketing the …

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Entry by Kristijonas Paltanavicius, Peer Career Advisor, Wabash College Career Services

My name is Kristijonas Paltanavicius. I am an international student from Lithuania at Wabash College. I am a junior theater major and aspire to have a career in theatrical directing. During my two years at Wabash I presented at a few scholarly events, received three grants to do research, did two major directing projects and found many other ways to express my creative self. This semester is particularly exciting to me because, besides all my projects and classes, I am a part of the peer career advisor team at the Career Services.

Just two months ago I was in Washington DC, and somebody at the airport asked me about my accent and where I was from. “I’m from Indiana,” I said. It came out unintentionally, and I immediately realized it was true in terms of how I felt about …

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Entry by Courtney Sampson, Marketing and Communications Intern, Indiana State Fair

Let it be known to all! Here’s my new slogan…maybe I’ll suggest it to the “Head Fred” of the Indiana State Fair. Probably not. Anyway, here it goes – The 2010 Great Indiana State Fair – Making Memories Happen.

OK – but really, this one-line slogan sums up my entire summer! There’s been no shortage of things to do around here; I can’t say I’m surprised, though. The Indiana State Fair draws more than 900,000 visitors over 17 days. Here’s a taste of my favorite fair memories:

10 – Riding The Blizzard with my co-worker, Kris Karol…AFTER he ate 2 pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, and water. Good thing he didn’t drink Pepsi. It might have put ‘em over the edge. Oh yeah, and he sat on the outside, so I got to slam …

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Entry by Ali Norman, Career and Technical Education Intern, Department of Workforce Development

Last week was my final week at The Department of Workforce Development. As I have been wrapping up the last couple days by taking down personal touches to my little cube, I have to say that I’ve been a bit nostalgic while doing so. My experience has been nothing short of great this summer. I’ve had a wonderful job experience, done some great networking, added to my resume and made fabulous new friends along the way.

I’ve also been thinking about my favorite parts of this internship and came to this realization: You get what you put into your experience. My experience this summer was so stellar that I would recommend it to anyone. All the qualities of a great internship any college student would want was included: versatility in projects, a great work atmosphere, participation and …

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Entry by Ashley Cashen, Talent Acquisition and Retention Coordinator, digitalKnowledge

As you may recall in my earlier blog entries, digitalKnowledge chose to team up with the Interns for Indiana Program through Purdue University for their first internship.  We chose to go this route for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, with this being our first internship in company history we could use the help.  Interns for Indiana has supported our internship from the beginning, including sending us resumes of students who fit our criteria and setting up an “interview fair” for us to meet these candidates. Secondly, Interns for Indiana offers funding for smaller start-up companies. 

Choosing to partner with Interns for Indiana has without a doubt been one of the best decisions we could have made.  Not only do they offer administrative support to employers, but they also provide the interns with additional educational opportunities.  Bart has had …

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Entry by Courtney Sampson, Marketing and Communications Intern, Indiana State Fair

You know, nothing’s typical at the Indiana State Fair. We’re the biggest fair in the state, attracting nearly 975,000 visitors throughout 17 days. We’ve got “the world’s largest boar” and a 25-foot tall sculpture based upon Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” We’ve even got gigantic pumpkins, big deals and steep discounts, and real-life bears. (Oh my!)

Not that I’m biased or anything, but we’re the biggest and the best! And we sure aren’t typical. So, let me share a secret with you. It’s been a lifelong goal of mine to reach the “corner office.” You know, once you get to the corner office, it means you’re the big kahuna…the big cheese…you’ve made it to the top! Well guess what, folks? It may all be downhill from here – cause I’ve got the corner office at the Indiana State Fairgrounds!

Really, …

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Entry by Anastasiya Elaeva, Indiana INTERNnet Intern

The fun part of interning is that you never know what events you will have a chance to attend and what people you will get an opportunity to meet.  If you keep your eyes wide open, your internship can extend beyond your primary responsibilities and the department to which you are assigned.

After my Washington D.C. internship in international affairs did not work out because of differences in mine and the company’s schedules, I was desperately looking for something in Indiana.  I picked up the phone and called the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. To be honest, at that point of time, in mid-May, I did not expect that there would be anything available.  I picked up the phone because I thought that trying every single opportunity would be the right thing to do.

To my surprise, I was offered an exciting internship assisting …

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Entry by Lindsay Davis, Solutions Marketing Intern, Interactive Intelligence, Inc.

We live in a world where it is now socially acceptable to follow people, where “tweeting” is used in everyday language, and where we learn to describe any emotion we may have in 140 characters or less.

Thank you, Twitter.

Above all else, we live in a world where corporations can use this simple animated bird-themed website to reach out to their customers and employees while gaining feedback in return.  I gained firsthand experience of this during my first few weeks at Interactive Intelligence.

I’ve “tweeted” before, but it was always meaningless updates about my whereabouts, or what I was doing.  Never did I imagine Twitter as a marketing tool, until now. These days if you’re not up-to-date with the latest and greatest, you’re at a huge disadvantage, especially when it comes to company branding and customer service.

With “hashtags” …

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Entry by Anastasiya Elaeva, Indiana INTERNnet Intern

In Monday’s blog entry, I provided you with Interactive Intelligence’s perspective on virtual internships.  I also recently spoke with one of Interactive Intelligence’s virtual interns, Courtney Guard, who would like to share her advice on having a successful internship experience.  An economics major at Purdue University with minors in business management and political science, she is currently doing an internship in the office of Interactive Intelligence, a global provider of business communications solutions.  However, last fall she worked for the company from her campus, assisting with the management of Interactive Intelligence’s customer accounts.

Courtney’s started as a regular summer intern in Interactive Intelligence’s office.  When her term at the company was over, she talked to her manager about the possibility of keeping her job over the fall while working from home.  Courtney really wanted to have a professional job in the fall semester, …

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Entry by Courtney Sampson, Marketing and Communications Intern, Indiana State Fair

Last Tuesday, I shared with you a “Top 10 List of Things I’ve Learned about the Indiana State Fairgrounds.” While there is plenty more where that list came from, this week I’m shifting my focus to writing. Sounds thrilling, doesn’t it?

Seriously, whether or not you’re studying communications (like me), employers across the board will take you more seriously if you can write well. But how can you write well if you don’t know where to begin?

Well, you can start by reading and asking a lot of questions. Just ask my boss – I’m sure he’d confirm that I ask plenty of questions. Because I’m an inquisitive person, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about the State Fair, agriculture education, the 4-H, FFA, and even musical acts set to perform at this year’s fair, like Drake! As …

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Entry by Colleen Borgmeier, Summer Coordinator Intern, PACE Community Action Agency

Pace has always wanted to implement an internship program, but the funds were not available until 2009 when stimulus dollars became available through the American Recovery Reinvestment Act. This Internship Program is providing summer employment opportunities for college students, giving us the opportunity to acquire skills, gain valuable work experience, and help finance our return to school. Opportunities are being offered within Pace facilities in Washington and Vincennes and will run for a 13-week period beginning May 11th and completing August 6th.

As summer coordinator interns, Andrew and I have already learned valuable skills to use next year after graduation. We have been working to monitor the high school workers who have been placed around various small businesses in Vincennes and Washington. We are also organizing and implementing a volunteer day and researching and creating surveys and other documents …

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Entry by Ashley Cashen, Talent Acquisition and Retention Coordinator, digitalKnowledge

This past week, Bart had the opportunity to not only take part in a client meeting but to also do some traveling with our Co-Founder and Vice President, Sean. With digitalKnowledge being a consulting firm, we made the decision early on that it was imperative that we expose our intern to the client side, not just the internal works. Bart traveled to a small town in Ohio and had the opportunity to observe, meet a variety of people, and get a taste of the art of consulting.

Bart shared his experience…

“Recently I was given the opportunity to attend my first client meeting! When I was approached I wasn’t sure where I would be heading, or what digitalKnowledge was doing for the client. I was excited for a few reasons. I was given the chance to see what consulting does …

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In the June INTERNnetwork, we included an article about virtual internships, working for an organization outside of an organization’s office. Although there are benefits of being a virtual intern (no office commute, flexible work schedule, no dress code, more personal freedom, etc.), not every student can excel as a virtual intern.

Before you apply for a virtual internship, consider these questions:

– Do you have previous internship experience in an office setting?
– Are you interested in working for a web-based organization?
– Are you interested in electronic outreach, including email pitching and social media communication?
– Are you self-motivated?
– Are you independent enough to work with minimal supervision?
– Are you technology savvy?
– Are you able to meet important deadlines?

A virtual internship may be ideal for a student who may not have the opportunity or funds for a traditional internship …

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