Developing Relationships by Jasmine Lee

By Jasmine Lee

 

This past week has been all about developing relationships and experiencing the culture of the office. The most important aspect from a recruiter’s point of view is making interns comfortable in their office setting and making sure the culture is the right fit for them. Internships are all about exploring yourself and your likes and dislikes. They give you a chance to basically find out what you want to do and what kinds of people you want to be around, and the opposite holds true as well. My employer is all about gaining experiences; his philosophy is that internships are a chance to find out what you don’t want out of a career.

This may sound funny since we students generally think of internships as an “in” with a company and hopefully a chance for a lifetime career after graduation. However, I’m beginning to agree with his philosophy. I mean, when we’re only 20 years old, do most of us really know what we want to be doing and what kind of company we want to end up with? It’s good to explore your options by talking to as many people as you can and getting as many experiences with different companies as you can.

So what this company does to help students explore themselves and help them see if they are the right company fit for them is they hold weekly classroom seminars for students looking to get into the financial industry. This way, they get a closer look at the recruits, and the recruits get to experience the culture of the office and learn more about what they will be doing as financial advisors before actually committing.

They talk to as many advisors as they can and develop relationships with the recruiter as well as among themselves. Thus far, I’ve really enjoyed meeting everyone in the office and developing those relationships