Oftentimes opportunity shows up when you’re not looking for it and you must decide to capture it or not. 2020 has presented many unusual opportunities for us; one of those was hiring a marketing intern. Like many things, it wasn’t on the 2020 road map for our team. But interning at C2IT wasn’t on Michael’s road map either. It was only because of COVID that his previous plans fell through and he had to make a quick change of plans. Bringing Michael onto our team forced us to grow in ways we hadn’t anticipated and gave us the confidence to pursue new initiatives and get more organized internally.
More importantly than his contributions, Michael has been a reminder of the importance of bringing in new perspectives and asking questions. Clear communication is a part of our core values. What we do isn’t simple; it’s highly nuanced and impacts critical business operations for our clients. Most of our colleagues in our industry are honest and ethical people, but a few bad apples spoil the bunch. Enough technology providers have chosen to talk over and at their clients using jargon and unnecessarily technical explanations that cause communication to break down. Or they don’t bother at all and businesses become trapped in shaky relationships for fear of not knowing how to move forward. All of this is important, because even with our team’s commitment to clear communication we don’t always meet the mark. Michael has come in and asked great questions, put intentional effort into learning more about what we do for our clients, and making the effort to understand how we do it. All of his questions and observations have forced us to be a little more observant about what we’re doing and why. It has also forced us to put more effort into communicating our value to the broader market.
If you have the opportunity to bring on summer interns I highly encourage it. While it definitely had its challenges, a few key practices helped us as a company get great value and allowed Michael to have a great experience. Adhering to our core values is a huge part of what made our summer experience successful – especially Loyal Partnerships and Cohesive Teamwork. Loyal and long term partnerships were a critical mindset to have when bringing Michael onboard. Yes, we knew his time working directly for us would be short. But we also know from our own Andrew Roy that an internship can turn into full-time employment later on down the road. But if we should never work directly with Michael again, giving him opportunities and guidance to accelerate his career only serves to grow and strengthen the C2IT network as he goes on to work for other companies who will need technology solutions.
We want to thank and congratulate Michael for the incredible work he’s done for us and continues to do for us. Because of Michael’s professionalism and work ethic we were able to extend his internship into the fall and continue working together. Even though he worked 100% remote the entire summer he was engaged, he did great work and communicated his challenges professionally and effectively.
You may think internships are only for large corporations but we encourage you to rethink that assumption. If you’re a small business interested in hiring summer interns and would like to discuss how we’ve done it and what we’ve learned please reach out to Ryan today at ryansullivan@c2itconsulting.net or call us at (317) 721-2248.
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