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Through this great opportunity, I found and channeled my strengths and learned what it takes to be a successful businessman. I was able to get hands on in business affairs and get to know clients and fellow business partners personally. Interacting with clients showed me how business men and women both get involved and accomplishes goals in the business field. Despite only being Just an intern I worked hard for this enterprise and in return they made me feel a part of a family.
This was a family that is a team with one goal, which was to find and provide the best engineers for our automotive clients here in the city that is known and proud of to be the home of classic American cars, Detroit, Michigan. Advantage Resounding, Inc. As purchased in January of 2012 by Recruit Holdings Co. Recruit Holdings is a leading provider of integrated human resource services. Recruit is also involved in marketing and promotional services, providing information for consumers in the form of magazines, internet, and mobile media. Overall Recruit is the fifth largest staffing firm in the world.
Advantage Resounding, Inc. Is a wholly owned subsidiary of Recruit Holdings Co. , Ltd. Advantage Resounding specializing in multiple human capital management services including contingent staffing, direct and permanent hire, on site staffing management services, acquirement process, outsourcing and master service provider in the U. S. , U. K. , and Australia. Advantage is a leader in providing talent in industries such as design and engineering, information technology, finance, accounting, human resources, marketing, skilled trades, clerical and light industrial skill sets.
When I first started my internship, Advantage Resounding had three Michigan offices. An office in Dearborn Michigan, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, and another office in Flint Michigan. At the end of June the Dearborn and Bloomfield offices combined and moved to Southfield Michigan in the Galleria Office center building. Advantage Resounding, Inc. Moved from Bloomfield to Southfield, Michigan. Southfield is known to be the sanctuary for automotive businesses and other enterprises in the Detroit metropolitan area.
When I first started my internship at Advantage Automotive, I was given an Advantage Resounding corporate laptop and bag that I was able to bring home that was equipped with all the software programs and documents that were needed to successfully keep up with information that was being shared. This alone gave me excitement to see what was in store for me to see what I would be getting out of this internship experience. The company culture of the office was an open and modern work environment and workspace with no cubicles or closed door offices.
The office had two conference rooms for daily office meetings. I was also given my own desk, which was placed right in the heart of the office. There was a strong difference in duties that everyone had, but it was never expressed because everyone was treated equally. Equality is the Advantage Resounding philosophy. This idea of equality leads to sufficient work ethic in the office. With everyone having their own expertise we were all able to collaborate and make Advantage Automotive Resounding, Inc. What it is known for with an excellent reputation.
Everyone also dressed and behaved the part for Advantage Resounding. We strive to be the best so we also looked the best. Here I was able to effectively communicate with the account manager, the recruiters, and my boss Tom Picot. Advantage Resounding office was in a suit in an office building of multiple big businesses. My responsibilities on a daily basis consisted of market research; I would look up new clients and research to see if they utilized our staffing services. Advantage Resounding, Automotive Division is lancing on opening an office in Dublin, Ohio to support one of our major clients, Honda.
Tom Picot, my manager who is the boss of this specific branch would be notified him about the new potential clients in the area with their detailed company information such as financial, geographic location, employment information. I then had to take that data and selected 50 that we could see ourselves affiliating with. From here, I was coached on how to properly speak with these potential clients. I would find who the key decision maker was and obtain all of their information that was necessary to be documented in our computer database.
If I was successful in obtaining valuable information from potential clients, I would from here share this information to our account manager in Ohio, Don Whittaker. Don would then follow up with them in order to generate new business. Other duties I was responsible for were on-going sourcing, meaning looking for candidates externally from our database. This means I would look for new valuable candidates beyond from who have already been entered into our database. This would be done by through a social media medium, such as Linked, Twitter, Hoovers, etc.
If I found a valuable candidate ho was interested in one of our Jobs available then I would have to screen them on the phone. From here, I would see what they were willing to work for one of our clients. I was always engaged with our candidates on an ongoing basis. I always was obtaining Jobs from the recruiters and would post them all over the web through websites such as Indeed. Com, Superiority. Com, Twitter, etc. Advantage Automotive lacked a brand presents in social media aspect of business, so I pitched the idea of starting a Twitter campaign for the company to Tom.
The overall goal of the Twitter page was to generate a social media presence for Advantage Automotive. I had to come up with a posting schedule routine for the Twitter so everything was uniformed. Some of the postings included active Job openings, resume tips, staffing industry news, automotive news, and Advantage Resounding achievements to ultimately make a presence in the social media aspect of business. The Twitter page ended up becoming a huge success. We were able to gain 1,ass’s of followers rapidly and we interacted with our followers daily.
Some of our clients would read and “rewet” Tweets of ours. Many influential people in the staffing industry would follow our account and interact with us. Before this was achieved, a lot of hard work was out into the strategic planning of our Twitter page. First the “@” symbol name had to be approved, and the named changed several times before it was finalized. There is a length restraint in the “bio” section on Twitter, so we had to come up with a very descriptive biography with as little words as possible.
The bio we thought would be the most successful in expressing Advantage Automotive image and brand name was “Experts on the placement of Engineering & Technical professionals I Leaders in the Automotive & Manufacturing Industries I Tweets dedicated to Advancing Careers. Followers of our Twitter page were also lead into our main website where they would be able to do more extensive research about who we are and what we do. Overall Twitter was a great gateway to expanding our brand image and brand awareness.
One of the responsibilities I had the pleasure of doing was associate care. Here I would keep in contact all of our associates who work onsite for our clients. The overall goal was to both keep them happy and to make sure their needs were being accommodated. Our goal was to gain inside information from our clients to see if they were hiring, which generated new business for Advantage Automotive. Advantage Resounding has a referral bonus program and if associates were to refer a new candidate to Advantage Resounding they would receive a compensation bonus.
The next marketing piece that I worked on for Advantage Automotive was referral bonus email that I would send out weekly to our clients that would remind them of the referral bonus program. Through this marketing piece we would try to generate profit from or associates. This type of marketing piece was never utilized by Advantage Resounding before and it was very successful because associates would email people high quality engineers who were looking for Jobs in the industry. From here, our account manager would easily place them in a Job position with one of our clients that that best suited the individual.
Some problems that I had faced while working at my internship was the commute to work every day. The Detroit metropolitan area commute during rush hour is very condensed and congested since there is no public transportation in the city, everyone commutes by car. At first a problem that I had was that I was intimidated by speaking on the phone, which was a problem because that is what I did for 80% of my time. Eventually, I was able to grow out of this fear and succeed at this. Lastly, another problem this company encountered was trying to find engineers to fill the job orders.
This task was difficult because you had to find the perfect engineer to fit each Job order and in an efficient amount of time. The demand for engineers is increasingly high and the supply of them is very low, making this hard for us to accomplish our goals. So I and the recruiters had to come up with new ideas to engage and find new candidates. College visits, and online college Job board postings was a huge success. The course relevance to this internship was that I took all my knowledge that I learned in the past three years and utilized it to my advantage in the work environment.
In Introduction to Management and Organizational Behavior I was exposed to the basic functioning of a business establishment. We learned management theories, studies and the importance of diversity as well as keeping within guidelines of state and federal regulations to avoid litigation problem and a bad reputation that could affect the company in a negative way. While working at the internship I was able to take my initial exposure in the classroom setting and apply it to a real world situation as a market research intern.
In the management class for example, we learned the difference between vertical management in which all decisions are passed down from a superior, at my intern I experienced horizontal management. In contrary to vertical management I worked in a horizontal management setting in which I was able to make decisions and work as a team without the pressure of superiors looking over my back. I feel this helped me learn way more because I was expected to be independent and responsible, yet guidance was always there for advice and questions. Another big topic in the intro to management class was the thought of diversity.
I always knew that diversity was important due the operations of a corporation. However, since gaining the experience from the summer internship I was able to see firsthand to why and how diversity works to together. A hostile work environment looked where a dichotomy exists is inevitable going to break the business down. Where I worked the company was so diverse. Different people from different walks of life were able to see the world in different ways and they brought different ideas to the table that other people would not be able to think of.
We had people who were fluent in other languages and they ere able to speak to people that were not fluent in English; they also if ever applicable could help take the company transatlantic and allow the company to grow international. They could help provide the barriers of entry and ease the company into the social norms of that region. With the diverse work area I also was able to see how neat some people are and learn to think outside of the box. If I am able to learn from a vast diverse population, then a company can also learn from there, allowing them to grow and be cohesive.
This is the best way to seek and accomplish our work mission statement. I received this wonderful opportunity with Advantage Resounding because my father’s really good friend is Mark Marianne, the president of Advantage Resounding North America. He discussed with my dad how they wanted to make a bigger internship program this past summer and he said that he thought I should apply for a position. I decided to send him my resume and he forwarded it to Tom Picot who ended up interviewing me. The interview process lasted for about an hour and a half.
Tom and I had a very long conversation about business, and I could tell that he thought I was smart and liked me. I left the interview feeling really good, and I ended up receiving a call from Tom later that day. He told me that I was one of the eight interns that were selected. The beginning three weeks were all training and learning about the company and the people who I would be working with. We were given a binder that had schedules to meet with different individuals that worked at the office. Then we would sit down with them and they would explain what their Job and role was at the company.
I got to sit with every account manager and learned that each of them had different clients. Each account managers told us how important it is to know the history behind each of their clients and how different they all are. We got the opportunity to go out to lunch with Don Whitaker and his clients from Honda. On this lunch the Honda clients stated that they did not want to incur the cost of the pay for time off for the Fourth of July for their associates. Don Whitaker had to negotiate a compromise to cover the cost of the holiday for Honda.
The compromise was that Advantage Resounding ended up paying for the time off on the holiday. Since he did this Honda gave him more business and more Job orders to fill. Ultimately, this was Don Weather’s main goal in the business deal and it ended in a win win situation. The second part of training dealt with the data base, called Job Diva, which entailed me calling a woman at the help desk located in Boston. She then took over my computer and showed me how to work the computer and gave me tips on how to input the data in the database.
Inputting data on the database ended up being my main Job. This training went on for three days for about two to three hours a day. I believe I should be credited for this internship experience because I worked 0 hours a week for over 3 months in a professional business setting. The Advantage Resounding internship allowed me to meet and network with so many amazing individuals. I was able to experience a professional work environment and work on tasks that were beneficial for the company.
I feel this internship was beneficial to me because I was able to view business in a new way by directly working with a company, rather than Just learning about it in a classroom setting. It made me open up and come out of my comfort zone. I had to talk to clients and new people on a daily basis, which helped me be not as shy and learn to interact with others. The luncheon helped me to talk on a professional level with clients, come up with compromises, and problem solving. All this allows me to see how to work in a business setting.
The business programs at SST. Bonaventure have prepared me for a professional business career because it gave me the background knowledge that prepared me for this professional environment. All the teachers in the business program have helped prepare me because they told us about all of their own experiences. For example, Professor Ryan shared that before she started teaching she worked in the marketing department for Perry’s Ice Cream. She was able to share lot of inside information on what we learn in class and apply it to real world businesses. DRP.
Case talked about how he set up IT systems for corporate businesses and this helped me for when I worked on Advantage Recording’s database. Professor Prom’s management class taught me to learn the functioning forms of a company. There have been many courses that have been useful in helping me with my internship. My Accounting, Finance and Managerial Accounting classes have given me the best specific information on running a business. These were helpful because I had to input financial data into excel spreadsheets from previous years ND compare them to more recent years to see if the company is growing.
All of these classes and teachers assisted in preparing me for a professional business career and the internship I was able to work with. I feel like the internship program at SST. Bonaventure is great because it gives real world experience. It is important for students to have an internship for this reason and most companies require some sort of experience to be hired or considered for an entry level career. Also, internships allow you to make new connections and meet different people that can tangentially help you after graduation when you are searching for a career.
Through my internship experience I made many new connections and met people that can help me later on when I may need a Job. One of the greatest days of work I experienced at the internship was when we reached 2,000 followers on Twitter, which I created myself for the business. To me, this was rewarding because everyone in the office was cheering, and this made feel accomplished. On the other hand, my worst day of work was when I was an hour and a half late to work because all the lights on Telegraph Eave were out and the traffic was incredibly backed up.
This worried me because I did not want to make a bad impression with the people I work with. Two of the most influential people were Tom Picot and Mark Marianne. Tom Picot is the branch manager and Mark Marianne is the president of North American branch. Tom is a very down to earth person and he mentored me by telling me a lot about his own life and how he made how he has progressed into a successful career. He makes sure the company is always team oriented and working together. One of the ways he keeps this type of atmosphere is he has employee appreciation days or outings with the company.