By Katie Yao
During the first two years of college, I had a difficult time finding a suitable internship for my interests in business and law. I felt that I was being pushed to pursue biological research whenever I talked to recruiters because that is where I had experiences as an undergraduate. I was not considered for non-research positions even if those were the roles I was most interested in. However, during sophomore year, my friends told me about Health Career Connections (HCC), a national non-profit that connects students to organizations in health sectors.
My junior year was very different because I decided to drop the premedical track and pursue a minor in business administration and management. I also began considering attending law school after joining the mock mediation team. I was finally able to attain the basic skills needed to be considered for business positions. Although the large investment banks and firms did not result in an internship offer the recruiting process helped me regain confidence that I was hirable. So, I applied for everything that I was interested in and “qualified” for because I thought that my skills were transferrable across sectors.
HCC notified me in mid-January that I was selected to participate in the first round of interviews. After that, they sent students’ information to organizations to review and thus, start the on-site interviews in February. I thought I articulated what I could offer and what I wanted well but, I was not considered for any on-site interviews. I was quite discouraged at that point. In mid-March, I received a call that I could choose to interview with one out of two consulting firms, and I ultimately decided to choose Public Consulting Group (PCG), due to the proximity to my home.
This year was the most successful internship search in my college career. (I was also considered for a fellowship that has now been cancelled due to the pandemic.) This is in part due to tailoring resumes and cover letters/essays to the position I was applying for. I also tried to put a lot of the phrases and/or words noted in the description in materials in hopes that applicant tracking systems would flag my resume as a good fit. I also asked Mary, my FirstGen Ahead coach, to help edit a few of my essays. This all worked out since I received a lot more responses from recruiters this year compared to previous years.
Now, I look forward to starting my internship at PCG in June. I’m hoping to learn about consulting and services that large public healthcare systems could improve on.
