Back in the US and back on the internship grind

What’s up, y’all. I got in from Cabo last night and it was a rough night because of this daggone cold. The coughing, sneezing, and congestion not only kept me up all night, but had me feeling like I was going to die on the plane. I feel a little better today, but I definitely need to go out and buy some meds sometime tonight.

When i got up this morning, I had to get ready to start the internship search grind up again with full force because I had three interviews over the course of the day. The first was a phone interview with Accenture. My interviewer was a manager from the NYC office who had been with the company since 1997 and was able to give me a lot of great information about the company. The call was relatively straightforward with some behavioral questions and then a mini-case discussion about the trade publishing industry. I felt like i’d done OK on the case, but I wasn’t getting good signs from the interviewer before she got off of the phone, so I was worried. Those worries were cast aside later when I got a call from the recruiter later telling me that they want to move me on to the second round of interviews sometime next week.

The second one was a phone call with a representative from McMaster-Carr, an industrial supply company. I heard about the company from the best friend of my roomie’s GF who is a recruiter there and, once i looked into the company a little more, I realized that they are a very profitable firm. The gentleman who called me was a manager in their Systems group and his vision for the call was to have it be part-interview and part-informational for me. He gave me a lot of great insight about the company culture, their performance, and values and told me that they had some really interesting project options for an MBA intern. At the end of our call, he told me that he’d call me back in the next couple of weeks with an update on my status and, from the way he said it, I think I’ll have some good news coming.

The last interview was with SAP for a position that would involve me doing research on the factors that influence enterprise software purchasing decisions. My interviewer was a Sr. VP with the company and, while he was a cool cat and was very accomplished, I don’t think I connected well with him during the interview. I had a feeling that it would be a rough session from the start when my current illness had me having flashbacks of my HBS interview. Everything started out well with him telling me about his background and the work that his group did within the company. Next, he described the project that he had in mind and why it would provide value to the company. and asked me a few questions, which I answered fine. Then, another SAP manager stuck his head in the door and my interviewer invited him to participate…that’s when things started going south. This new guy started throwing questions at me that I wasn’t expecting and then the original interviewer started asking questions too and, with my constant coughing, I was thrown for a loop. By the end of the interview, I felt like I was going to get a “HECK NAW!” for this position. Fortunately, I’ve got another interview coming up for a position with the internal consulting team at SAP, so I hope to do better on that one.

Before I go, I want to give a huge shout out to my man Brian G. who just emailed me this morning to tell me that he’s made the choice to come to the GSB this Fall. I had a great time hanging with him, his GF, and his friends a couple of weekends ago and I think he’s going to have a great two years here. Brian, if you’re reading this, pat yourself on the back…you’re only 5 1/2 months from being a Stanford GSB student 🙂