Hi! My name is Chris Conte, and I am a junior at the Tepper School of Business.
I am working two internships this summer, both for small companies. In this blog post, I’ll talk about how I got my internship at Vteractive, a Carnegie Mellon startup.
I first heard about the opportunity to intern for Vteractive on TartanTrak. At this point, my internship search had taken up a huge amount of time (about 10 hours/week for five weeks), and I still had no offers. To apply to intern at Vteractive, I had to submit my transcript, resume, and a cover letter. A bit more work than the average application (which literally takes a couple clicks). In order to make sure the added effort wasn’t for nothing, I read the description a few times. With each read over, I became more convinced that the opportunity was worth the time to write an application.
To start, I noticed that the internship was in Pittsburgh, which offers many advantages. First, I am familiar with the city and the people in it. Also, there is a lot of stuff I’ve been wanting to do in Pittsburgh (visit the Mattress Factory, hike in Frick Park, ride the Duquesne Incline….), and (presumably) I would have more time to do it over the summer. Then, there is the consideration of cost. Of all places to live during the summer, Pittsburgh is definitely one of the cheapest. The second thing I noticed about the internship was its broad scope. The description mentioned a handful of things, including business development, case analyses, social media marketing, and analytics. The broad scope is valuable to me, because I am still unsure about what field of business interests me most. Finally, the qualifications made my decision to write an application final. These included an “analytical mind, self-motivation, initiative, [a] can-do attitude, passion for entrepreneurial ventures, [and the] ability to ‘see the big picture.’” These qualifications made the internship seem like a perfect fit for me. Plus, the personal touch in the posting [“We are confident that experience here will open opportunities up for you – our interns have told us this in multiple occasions”] made Vteractive appear welcoming, and so I applied the same day. (The other advantage that the posting won’t mention is that an unpaid internship is less sought-after. Therefore, it is one of the best ways to gain business experience if you are not a rising senior and don’t have the greatest qualifications.)
I was happy to get an e-mail back from Kenneth Hendrata , the President of Vteractive, a few days later. We scheduled an interview at Carnegie Mellon’s Project Olympus (a building that has housed several successful CMU startups). I was pretty nervous for the interview, but I shouldn’t have been, mostly because I WAS well prepared (thanks to the Career and Professional Development Center at CMU), but also because Kenneth Hendrata was extremely kind and personable. In fact, I should mention: if interviewing with your boss –to-be, the interview can serve an added purpose of getting to know what your job environment will REALLY be like. I guess you could say the same thing for all interviews, but you can observe a lot more first-hand than from HR’s formalized description. I was really impressed with Ken. He seemed very intelligent, but not arrogant, and he had excellent communication skills. Best of all, I could tell he would support me and motivate me to work to my full potential as an important member of Vteractive.
I left the interview for a class presentation. Ken wished me luck. He told me to follow up with him over e-mail, but he didn’t formally offer me the position. I e-mailed him a week later to tell him I wanted the position and let him know when I could start. He responded that he appreciated my enthusiasm and attached an offer letter for me to sign.
I’ll let you know about how my internship has gone since then in my next blog post.
Talk to you soon.
-Chris
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