By Keith Hollis T'17
Prior to Tuck, I spent five years serving in the United States Navy. Although my experiences were varied, I was able to develop a common set of skills and virtues that were forged from strategic and stressful situations. These experiences ranged from navigating a 700-foot-long warship through the Singapore Strait in a torrential downpour to performing nail-biting test procedures in the control room of a nuclear reactor. I knew what some of my strengths were heading into my MBA, but what I didn’t know was how I would be able to apply those to the civilian workforce.
As my first year went on, I would see numerous postings on the Tuck Recruiting database that seemed like dream internships. I would usually read the descriptions and discount my skills, presuming that my military experience didn’t fit the bill of what the company was looking for. For this reason, I didn’t feel I should leverage the Tuck network because I wanted to feel more comfortable with the fit of the internship I was applying for and inquiring about.
Lizzie Napier T’91 of the Career Development Office reached out to me to ask how I was feeling about the summer. Within seconds Lizzie had several opportunities she ran by me to gauge my interest. It was the first time I had really leveraged the Career Development Office at Tuck to narrow in on the intersection of summer opportunities, my interests, and my skills. My meeting with Lizzie lasted for about 30 minutes and the next week I received an email with the contact information of her close friend who worked in e-commerce at Monster.com. She thought my profile would work perfectly with her objectives at Monster. This came as a welcome surprise as I would have never thought the position would be a fit for me, and never would have applied otherwise.
After learning more about the position, I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to not only apply my strategic process and newly developed business tools, but most of all, make an impact. Using the same critical thinking abilities and thorough approach that I applied as a nuclear engineer, I’ve spent the summer at Monster rethinking the way it sells its products online. Through this project, I’ve helped to completely redesign a product website and buying interface, with the expectation that it will launch in early September. These changes are expected to make a difference in Monster’s product offering and change its position in the competitive landscape of talent search. This internship blew away my expectations and previously established ideas of “the right fit.”
The Career Development Office was essential in connecting my current strengths, newly acquired skills, and internship opportunities. Without this facilitation, I may have found myself far from the ideal position this summer. From my internship search experience, I’ve learned that the Career Development Office has an unmatched ability to identify a student’s desires and abilities and pair them with opportunities that are made through leveraging the Tuck network.
Keith is a second-year student at Tuck. He grew up in Syracuse, NY and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2010 with a degree in Quantitative Economics. Prior to Tuck, he spent five years serving in the Navy and was stationed in Japan and Virginia. At Tuck, he is a club leader for Tripod Hockey, a co-chair for Admitted Students Weekend, an admissions associate, and a co-chair for Tuck Winter Carnival. He is currently spending his summer at Monster.com in e-commerce strategy.