Summer is drawing near and Tippie first-year MBAs are ramping up for the valuable internship experience. Christopher Majekodunmi’s energy background and enthusiasm for developing his leadership skills led to an offer from Chevron.
Nearing completion of my first year, I can say with confidence that my biggest piece of career prep advice for incoming Tippie MBAs would be to pay careful attention to all of the soft skills taught throughout the LEAP (Leadership, Ethics, and Professionalism) curriculum – particularly when it comes to interviewing.
My internship search started the summer before I joined Tippie with the review of my resume in conjunction with Career Services. As soon as I got to campus I started applying to marketing internship postings on Symplicity (Tippie’s internal recruiting system) and from the weekly list of sourced job leads. I applied to openings at companies I was interested in and at companies that were not high on my list. One of my major takeaways from LEAP was to practice interviewing skills, so I used any interviews with companies lower on my “priority list” as mock interviews to better prepare for the interviews with companies I was most interested in.
Career fairs were also important to my job search success. I attended NSHMBA in Anaheim and the Midwest Career Fair in Chicago. I applied to postings on the career fair websites ahead of the events. The advance work paid off when Chevron invited me to interview at NSHMBA. To prepare, I mock interviewed with my second-year student coach. After the career fair and initial interview with Chevron, I was invited for the second round in Houston. I worked with my Career Services coach to prepare for the next interview.
The practice interview opportunities with my SY coach and Career Services advisor contributed to my success of securing the internship at Chevron. I will be working as an Analyst in the Commercial Skills Development Program this summer in Houston.
I am very excited about the internship and plan to take with me insight gained from one of my peers. Second-year Jon Finley shared valuable advice about converting his internship to a full-time offer. Similar to Jon, I will fully utilize the network at Chevron to develop my professional network and build relationships.
