Office with a Window....and a Bed?!

Monday, March 30, 2009

After 6 months, 70 online applications, 50 cover letters, a dozen interviews I finally got myself an internship. Wow, what a relief. At the beginning of October I started applying to internships and I said that I wanted to go into either Management Consulting or Finance. (Great time to pick finance huh?) That was October, by January or February I had kind of given up hope of finding an internship at one of my target companies or even target industry, and I had all but given up on consulting in this environment. January rolls around and I have a business strategy simulation with Dr. Schweiger. The first day we learned that he owns a couple of consulting businesses, I didn't really think anything of it at the time, except wondering how he got into consulting and can I get in without a PhD. Fast forward to my first week in Mexico. I look on the school job posting website and I see an internship for Dr. Schweiger's consulting company Schweiger and Associates. I thought hey lets give it a shot. ( I was not very confident at this point after receiving daily rejections) Two days later and I get an email asking if a guy named Vishal could contact me for a first interview. Alright this isn't too bad, maybe I have a shot. The first interview goes good, we talked for about an hour and I felt that Vishal was a really nice guy, and not what I expected. I thought he was really easy to talk to, and I felt that we got along well. The night that I get back from Mexico I get an email saying that I have been selected for a second interview in which I will have to give a 15 minute case presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A. I thought WOW this is great, I hope I can deliver in this next part. The instructions were to prepare a market overview of the Solar Power Industry in the USA in 48 hours and limit it to 4 slides. At first this task was a bit daunting since I knew nothing about the industry. For a day and a half I devoured all the information that I could for the industry and then I found I had enough for an hour or two and I didn't know how to fit it all in 4 slides in 15 minutes. At 11am on Friday I gave my presentation, and I felt that I had given it my all and that I nailed it. I felt really good about it, and Dr. Schweiger and Vishal were very complementary of the presentation and my conclusions.

Now for the title of this post, Office with a Window....and a Bed?! The great thing about this internship is that I get to work from home and since Delilah and Michelle play in the living room most of the day we have decided to turn the bedroom into my office.

The company that I will be interning for starting on Friday is Schweiger and Associates. (http://www.scaas.com) This company is a Strategic Management Consulting firm that specializes in Strategic Development and Planning, Merger & Acquisition Integration, and Organizational Culture Assessment & Intervention. I am very excited about this opportunity, and it is exactly the type of company and in the exact consulting field that I wanted to be in when I came to the Moore School of Business. Please visit the website for more information about Schweiger and Associates.

I would also like to thank everyone who has been supportive throughout this stressful process of finding an internship. Especially to Michelle for dealing with me being so stressed.