Three for three: Internships to jobs
Three seniors not only gained invaluable work experience during their Jepson School of Leadership Studies summer internships with consulting firms — they also received job offers. After graduating in May, Amanda Reese and Emma McCauley will move to New York City to work for EY and AlphaSights, respectively, and Tristan Henning will move to Washington, D.C., to work for VERTEX.
Reese interned in EY’s Atlanta office with a people-consulting team. “People consulting helps employees bridge the gaps when a company goes through a major transition, such as a technology implementation, downsizing, or a merger,” she said. “My team helped a client’s employees understand the goals of their company’s change broadly, as well as the day-to-day changes individuals would experience.”
The Atlanta native said she learned to think critically, solve problems, and work in teams in her leadership studies major and honed her writing and presentation skills in her American studies major — soft skills that benefitted her in her internship. Some hard skills she learned on the job.
“My first week on the job, the consulting teams were using VLOOKUP in Excel during a training,” Reese said. “I didn’t know what that was, so I watched YouTube videos and taught myself basic Excel functions. I was a sponge, excited to be learning new things and helping people solve problems. Consulting is a great way to do both.”
Henning, who hails from Greater Boston, spent his summer in Washington, D.C., interning with The VERTEX Companies LLC, a global professional services consultancy. Assigned to the commercial damages and investigations division, he worked on litigation cases related to labor disputes, contract terminations, project delays, and more.
“One project involved a case about who was at fault when a construction company experienced delays in completing a building,” he said. “To support our client’s viewpoint, I helped create a concise document that listed steps and provided a rationale for each step.”
“I would look at costs a company incurred, then figure out how to synthesize the accounting information to make it understandable to an audience unfamiliar with the case,” said the leadership studies and business administration major. He drew on his accounting and finance classes to create and analyze Excel spreadsheets and on his Jepson classes for insights on teamwork and thinking creatively to achieve a goal.
“Seeing a raw set of data or papers come in, then working through the process to produce a finished report was very rewarding,” Henning said. “It validated all the effort.”
Leadership studies and psychology major Emma McCauley worked in the New York City office of AlphaSights, a global consultancy specializing in connecting experts with clients in private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, investment banking, and strategy consulting.
“I interned in the capital markets division, working with institutional investors,” said the senior from Ponte Vedra, Florida. “The work is very fast paced. Our speed and efficiency allow us to stand out from our competitors.”
When a client requested detailed information on a company or industry, McCauley researched and contacted experts on that company or industry. “Sometimes I got a project in the morning, and by the end of the day, I had found an expert and arranged a meeting between them and our client,” she said.
Many experts are high-level executives who are uniquely positioned to talk to AlphaSights’ clients about market research. “It’s easy to get caught up in thinking it’s scary to talk to a CEO when you are an intern,” she said. “But then you get on the phone, and it’s just a guy talking about what he loves. People love to talk about what they love!”
The communications skills she learned in leadership studies classes and the knowledge of human behavior and persuasion gleaned from her psychology classes were key to her success, McCauley said.
Another factor contributing to their success, the seniors said, was their Jepson School internship class, led by Associate Dean Kerstin Soderlund and Career Services Senior Associate Director Beth Chancy.
“The internship class helped me focus my interests and get to where I want to be,” Henning said. “It taught me how to find an internship, how to interview for it, and how to negotiate a full-time job offer.”