Hello loyal followers, my name is Billy and I am a good friend of Rebecca’s from Colgate. First of all, I want to thank Rebecca for asking me to write a guest post for her blog. I have been following it this summer, think it’s a great idea and am happy to be a part of it. In this post, I’ll give a brief of my job this summer (which ended at the end of July), some of the most important lessons learned that I took away from this summer.
For 10 weeks, from May 23rd to July 29th, I worked on behalf of the Global Citizenship & Policy team at a very large healthcare company called Abbott Laboraties. The company is HUGE (has 90,000+ employees worldwide) and there are about 300 interns nationwide every summer. My internship was unique in that I worked at one of Abbott’s NGO partners called CARE International. CARE has been around for more than 60 years and in 2010 alone, it implemented 905 poverty-fighting projects in 87 countries that focus on the empowerment of young girls and women (their key target group). Abbott and CARE has shared a strong partnership for 6 years and have previously worked together in Pakistan, Myanmar, Haiti, and several other countries. My job this summer was to increase the amount of mutual information that exists between Abbott and CARE in two core areas:
1) On the general philanthropic giving of large pharma and healthcare companies (i.e. where companies give, how much, product vs. money donations, key geographic areas, etc) so that CARE and even Abbott can potentially expand their philanthropic partnerships with these companies.
2) On the shared resources and priorities that Abbott and CARE both have within India surrounding initiatives of child and maternal health. Abbott and CARE had previously never embarked on a project together in India, but they are now starting a program called the Social Enterprise Initiative in Health, so my duty was to ensure that they have full awareness of one another’s capacity and objectives in the region.
And here are my main takeaways from this summer:
1) Start researching and applying for internships early in the game. I applied to Abbott just after January, had almost 10 interviews for different positions spread out over 3-4 months, and finally got this job finalized at the end of April. Don’t wait until it’s too late and don’t start searching in April or May.
2) Use the networks and resources available to you when both applying for jobs and when actually working during the summer. Talk to your parents about what you might want to do (or older siblings) and see where their friends work. Don’t be afraid to reach out to family friends or alums yourself and use your career services center if it’s available to you.
3) Pursue your passions when applying for internships. Apply for things that are most of interest to you and that align with your strongest interests and career goals.
4) Find balance when working during the summer. Be active and find variety in your time off from work. Try to get out of town for a weekend or do different things on the weeks. This will help keep you energized and fulfilled with your job.
5) Be aware of how you present yourself, from the way you dress, to how you speak, the level of eye contact you make with someone, to what you say to friends vs. your managers. Always be positive because you never know when someone might overhear you.
6) Communication is key. Talk to your managers regularly, look for feedback and try to respond actively to it. E-mailing and regular phone calls were very important to me as I had two managers that I had to keep in contact with on a regular basis. Respond to e-mails promptly.
7) Think creatively and push yourself. Make your projects slightly more innovative and try to impress your managers with your initiative. Try to take on additional work (ask for it) if you have time to spare.
8) Stay in contact with professionals that you meet. This is incredibly important as it can lead to additional summer opportunities or permanent employment. Especially do this if your managers encourage you to do so (this is a good sign that they are pleased with your performance!).
9) Write (by hand) thank you notes to your managers at the end of the summer. These really go a long way and mean a lot to your supervisors.
Thanks for reading and enjoy these last few weeks of summer!
