On March 2, Junto Coffee—a fictitious coffee company represented by eight teams of UConn students—presented sales proposals to a panel of Altria Case Competition judges for the purchase of state-of-the-art coffee machines. Each student team spent two weeks honing their teamwork and sales skills by creating a business plan designed to close a sale to a large retail chain.Continue Reading
Kendra Andrada had an internship this past summer with Lincoln Financial Group, a Fortune 250 American life insurance company who provides advice and solutions to help customers with their financial futures. She heard about this internship by talking to a Lincoln employee at the Spring Career Fair. She did not hear anything from them until she sent in her updated resume to the HR contact. Kendra applied for a position in Radnor, Pennsylvania. After two phone interviews, she received an offer right away!Continue Reading
UConn Baseball Pitcher/Grad Student Ryan Radue Didn’t Let Cancer Call the Play
On the baseball mound, UConn pitcher Ryan Radue can strike out his fiercest opponent with the combination of a steely gaze, a powerful right arm and a sizzling fastball.
If only cancer were that vulnerable.
Isabelle Hou is a marketing major who completed an internship with Alibaba Group, a leading online and mobile marketplace for retail and other services in the world headquartered in Hangzhou, China. She heard about the internship from her cousin when she studied abroad in China last semester. After she completed her application and essay, which were done in English, she landed a group interview and an individual interview with HR. A month later, she was offered the internship position.Continue Reading
Stacia Smart is a marketing senior who interned with Frito-Lay, a large corporation that markets and sells corn chips, potato chips and other snack foods. Over the course of the summer, Stacia worked as a Consumer Insights Marketing intern for the Oven Baked Lays brand. She was responsible for developing a comprehensive situation analysis of the Oven Baked business while collecting historical work, marketplace audits, organizing data and key stakeholders, looking at trends and identifying opportunities. After all this, she initiated a re-branding project and research for the brand.Continue Reading
Kendra Thomas is a senior marketing major who interned with Apple, the multinational technology company, this past summer as part of the social strategy team in California. She interacted with all types of social media and participated in social listening to detect buzz generated about Apple. She miraculously got this internship by simply applying on their website. She received a phone and Skype interview before the company flew her out to begin her internship. She thought they’d never get to her application but they did!Continue Reading
Jacob Bond is a senior marketing major who completed an internship with Indeed.com, a job search engine that connects employers with job seekers. Employers can post their job listings on Indeed.com and job seekers can filter through all jobs to see which ones they want to apply to! It’s frequently called “Google for jobs.”Continue Reading
Marisa Crecco is a marketing senior who completed an internship with GOBig Marketing, a full service marketing and advertising agency located in Winter Park, Florida. She found this internship by researching and emailing marketing related companies near her home in Florida. After contacting about 40 different places, she received an internship offer from GOBig Marketing. Continue Reading
The School of Business Undergraduate Career Development Office (UCDO) successfully hosted its first “Interview Challenge” in the fall semester. With prizes funded by a Target Corporation Campus Grant, students were challenged to participate in coaching to develop their professional interview skills. Over the course of one month, students who registered for the Interview Challenge had three tasks, or challenges, to complete.
The challenges were:
The goal of the program was to help students develop their interview skills and become aware of the services that UCDO offers, allowing them to feel more comfortable in the career development process.
For senior international exchange student Guzela Marisova, the Interview Challenged helped ease her fear of interviewing.
“UCDO challenge put me in a situation where I had to show my best in order to get a ‘job.’ What was really good about it, is that this situation was not stressful at all. Lorraine Liswell, who interviewed me, was a very nice and friendly interviewer who made me understand that I’m not in danger (as we are used to thinking while being interviewed),” said Marisova.
As a result of the program, 71% of the mock interviews that were conducted this semester were from students engaging in the Interview Challenge. These students included freshmen up to seniors, business and non-business majors, and first-time UCDO visitors. As a sidebar, another significant result of the program was that UCDO staff had the opportunity to meet business freshman, Seeyashree Sodani, who impressed us so much that we offered her a job in the department. We are happy to announce that she has accepted and will join our student career intern staff this spring semester.
All students who completed the challenge were invited to a dinner held at Chuck & Augie’s on December 8th. This business casual event was an informal and fun way to network with their peers, Target Executives and the UCDO Team to de-stress before finals.
“Not only was the interview challenge fun and helpful, but it was easier than I thought it would be. The staff is so approachable and really cares about helping each student, plus there was food afterwards!”
noted Evan Wexler, a Management and Engineering for Manufacturing junior.
This program would not have been possible without the support of Target Corporation. Over the last couple of years, Target’s Campus Grants have sponsored a number of career development events including:
UCDO would like to thank Target for their continued support and commitment to student development. The success of the Interview Challenge set the ground work for the program to be continued each year.