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About Me:

My name is Steph, and I am a senior Marketing major with a Communication Studies minor. Since this is my last year at Butler, my main goal is to enjoy every moment that I have left, while doing as much as humanly possible. I am a marketing analyst at the Butler Business Accelerator, a Speakers Lab tutor, and a Butler blogger (obviously). I also am an Alpha Phi, the President of the Butler University Student Foundation, a member of Alpha Kappa Psi (a professional business fraternity), and a member of the Butler American Marketing Association. In the small amount of free time that I do have, I love crafting, watching large amounts of television, and enjoying my favorite comfort foods, like sweet tea.

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Posts Tagged “human resources”

My Internship Timeline

Over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of internships.  Four to be exact…and they all have offered me something a bit different.  They have all been in different locations, they have all entailed different responsibilities, and they have all been awesome for different reasons.  So, I thought I would use this blog to talk a bit about each internship that I have had, and why it was/is great.

Pike County HTC

I worked with HTC (HomeTown Competitiveness) the summer before my Junior year.  PCHTC is a group that had formed in my community the year before, and their goal was to foster economic development and growth in the community.  So, I was the Marketing Intern, and I spent my summer advertising for the group and local businesses, planning events, and doing any little things that would be helpful for HTC.  It was a great internship because I was able to give back to my community, live at home, and it helped me get my feet wet in the business world.

Vera Bradley

Last summer (summer before Senior year), I worked for Vera Bradley in Fort Wayne, IN.  I worked with Human Resources as the Recruiting Intern, and I spent my summer helping out with the recruiting process in basically every way and developing a social media plan for recruiting.  This was a great opportunity for me because not only did it force me to live on my own in a new city for the first time, but I also learned an outrageous amount about business and recruiting.  Their formal internship program was absolutely wonderful, because I was able to learn about every single area of the company, while developing relationships with the other interns at Vera.

The store opening I attended while working with Vera Bradley…

Slingshot SEO

I worked at Slingshot during the first semester of my Senior year, and it turned out to be a really cool opportunity for me.  Not only was it the first time I got to work with an actual Marketing department, but during the semester I was able to see how companies handle organizational change.  Slingshot is a very young company (much different from Vera Bradley, an older  company) so things were constantly changing throughout the semester.  This was a great experience for me, because after graduation I will be working with a very similar company, so I now have at least a partial idea of what I should be expecting when I start my full-time job in June.  Also, working at Slingshot forced me to be serious about time management since I took 12 hours of class, worked close to 30 hours per week between all of my jobs, while holding 4 leadership positions in my clubs and organizations. 

Butler Business Accelerator

This is my current internship…and I’m totally loving it.  The BBA is an on-campus consulting firm located in the College of Business at Butler, which means that it is most definitely the most convenient of all of my jobs.  I work with some great people, all Butler students, some of which I knew beforehand and some of which I didn’t, and we just have a great time.  I am the Internal Marketing Intern, so it is my job to market the BBA, rather than work with any of our clients.  It’s fun, outrageously convenient, and I feel like it is allowing me to pull together all of my internships and everything I’ve learned in classes, so it is kind of like my Capstone Internship.  So fitting.

Next I’m going to blog about how to get internships…so check back tomorrow for an inside look into how I got each of these internships…and my tips for looking for them!

Is everyone in HR like Toby??

One of my very favorite TV shows is The Office.  I watch it religiously, or if there is a way to watch it more than someone who watches something religiously, then that is what I do.  So, when I accepted an internship in HR with Vera Bradley for the summer, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I did wonder if I would arrive there on my first day to find a department full of Tobys (Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s HR Representative).  If you have not seen The Office, basically Toby is Michael Scott’s (the office manager) least favorite person.  Michael always says that Toby ruins his fun and just makes each day awful in every way possible.  So, with this as my only exposure to HR prior to starting, I was slightly nervous, not going to lie.

Toby Flenderson himself...

Luckily, I arrived on my first day at work to find that Vera Bradley HR was not only much cooler than Toby, but they are much more fun.  None of the executives or managers acted anything like Michael Scott, so many of the things that Toby has to do in response to Michael’s outrageous acts are never actually necessary at Vera, or at any company that is not Dunder Mifflin. Even though I would have LOVED to meet a real life Toby Flenderson, I am secretly happy that everyone I got the chance to work with was so much cooler.  We would chat throughout the day, take breaks to get coffee and water altogether, dress up in themes on special days like the Friday before July 4th, decorate the office for special birthdays, and go out for lunch to celebrate anything and everything.  Today was the third workday that I haven’t been at Vera since I finished, and it still hasn’t exactly sunk in that I’m officially done, and not going back next week.  I loved working with them so much that I have actually wondered quite a few times if I really do need to finish my degree here at Butler, because if not, I would happily stay and work with them for as long as they would have me.  Maybe if I just continue to pretend that I’m not really done, and I’ll be going back soon then it won’t be so bad??  Maybe??

Vera Bradley HR...some of my absolute favorite people!

 

My Summer Internship: Exciting, yet Dangerous.

If you didn’t know…this summer I am interning in Human Resources at Vera Bradley. I have several responsibilities, but one of them actually includes posting on their Intern Blog, Behind the Seams.  I’ll be writing about my internship, living in Fort Wayne (for the first time), and just about working at Vera.  I’ve only posted a few times so far, but I had a very pleasant surprise yesterday when my blog was linked to from the Communities page (where my photo/bio is as well), from Vera Bradley’s other blog (Inside Stitch), and when the Office of Admissions posted about me on their Facebook page as well.  Talk about feeling awfully famous…all at once….it was rather great!

So far with my internship, I have been learning how everything in HR works, and I’ve been doing lots of research about social media trends that can be applied to recruiting.  I have also been doing a lot of “product research”…as I have chosen to refer to it.  Sounds very sophisticated, right?  Well, truthfully…it isn’t.  Mostly, it consists of shopping.  But when you work for a company that makes awesome products (and get discounts on said products) it just makes you want to buy things…all the time (hence my internship being dangerous…to my bank account).  Because when August rolls around…I won’t get those discounts anymore….so I might as well take advantage of them now…right?  To illustrate how obsessed I’m becoming…here is what my collection looks like now.  And This isn’t even everything that I have.  So imagine…that there is more.  It’s both great and awful at the same time….

The majority of my Vera collection….

Finally….I have a summer internship!

6 months…19 applications…11 interviews…and 4 offers later….I have an internship for the summer….and I am so excited!  I looked at non-profits, agencies, corporations, and small companies….and in the end….I decided to accept an offer to intern in Human Resources with Vera Bradley in Fort Wayne for the summer.  Basically….I’m ecstatic.  I first began to love Vera a few years ago when I started to buy their bags….and even then I started out small with only a clutch and an ID case.  Now, I love Vera Bradley for so many more reasons, in addition to the actual products themselves of course.  They have an amazing and unique company culture, one that I am so excited to be able to experience and get my first real working experience in.

The only downside to working in Fort Wayne this summer is that I am from southwestern Indiana….and I will be spending the summer in northeastern Indiana.  So basically, I will be as far away from home as I can be, while still being in the state of Indiana.  So that will make trips home more time consuming…and since my sister is getting married this summer….I might have to make the trip every once in awhile to help plan things out.  And in addition to that, I’m not sure where I will be living just yet….but there is still almost a month…which is plenty of time…right?

Fort Wayne...relative to the location of my hometown...

Luckily, I am so excited for this amazing opportunity that it makes all of the difficulties and uncertainties completely fade away into the back of my mind.  So….be sure to check out my blog this summer to see how I handle the transition to being away from home and Butler at the same time….and you can also check out the blog that I will be writing with Vera Bradley for the inside scoop of an intern’s experience at this amazing company!