Follow 3 Marketing Club Members through their summer internships in Retail, Technology, and Financial Services. This installment, the writers reflect on their first week(s) of their internships. The next installment will follow the writers during the middle of their internships.
From Amanda Hill - Target
Minneapolis in the summer is a great place to be! I am one week in to my summer internship at Target and have made Minneapolis my summer home this year. I am spending 10 weeks as part of the Merchandise Buyer internship program in the Housewares Division, and that includes everything from kitchenware and small appliances to home improvement and automotive goods.
Target has an extensive training program for their MBA interns, and we’ve spent most of the week getting to know more about the buyer role, guest insights, financials, strategic plans, and getting to know our team. I came into this program very interested in Target’s culture, their retail approach and not really fully understanding what a buyer is and what they do. I’ll spend a large part of my summer shadowing buyers across departments and meeting with people across the company as I learn more about retail. Already one week in, and I’m pretty fascinated with how the products are selected, the interactions with the vendors, the inventory turns, store layout, and each brand approach to the aisles. Also, I’ll spend a lot of time on a promotional strategy project for the Housewares division – really figuring out how to best leverage pricing incentives, their weekly circular, and online marketing to find a way to optimize their marketing voice. So far this internship is the perfect marriage for me of the quantitative approach to merchandising and the qualitative approach to guest and brand insights.
Prior to Wharton, I worked in Advertising and PR account management for seven years in both Washington, DC and then Manhattan. I’ve worked with government and non-profit clients and ultimately, pharmaceutical clients. In making this shift to business school and marketing on the client side, I’m looking to broaden my perspective and understand more of the business in brand management and retail. So far so good. And interning at a company with a great culture of “Fast, Fun & Friendly,” endless happy hours, and a wealth of knowledge in the retail space is pretty exciting.
From Shirley Lin - Amazon
Hello from almost-sunny Seattle, Washington! I am working in a retail management position at Amazon for 12 weeks this summer in theirBooks In-Stock division. I am working on a customer analytics project that is focused on understanding why customers are making certain traffic/navigation decisions on the Amazon website. The project is data-intensive, which is a focus and core competency for Amazon, but it is also extremely cross functional, as I get to work closely with the In-Stock team, along with product managers, vendor managers, and engineers. I have learned so much about Amazon’s business as a whole, in addition to developing a specialized skill-set for my position (lots of SQL queries!). Amazon’s culture feels very self-serve in that you are expected to seek out people and information you need for your project, but it is a good feeling to know that they trust and empower you, even as a summerintern.
Prior to Wharton, I worked in finance for 5 years: 2 years in New York in investment banking, 2 years in Boston/Providence in middle-market private equity, and 1 year in Malaysia helping my parents outwith the family semiconductor business. My summer internship is a big career change for me, as I learn more about what it feels like to work for a technology/consumer-facing company.
My goal for the summer is to learn more about e-commerce and retail management, and to also reach out to people in the various teams/functions at Amazon. While my internship is not a traditional marketing role, it helps me better understand how important it is to differentiate your product or service in the increasingly competitive e-commerce landscape.
From Gayley Woolston – Chase Credit Card
Greetings from Wilmington, Delaware and the Philadelphia area! For the summer, I am working on a recently launched co-branded credit card that partners with an up-scale hotel chain. An example of a co-branded card is a Disney or Marriot Chase card. My projects are to develop the strategy and communication plans to re-engage high-spend customers. I am trying to understand the consumers’ preferences and patterns to better cater to their needs and inspire them to use their credit card for more purchases and rewards. I am a part of a class of over 30 college and graduate student interns for the summer, and many times a week, we have the opportunity to learn about a specific business unit or brand such as Chase Sapphire or Ultimate Rewards. This access to a diversity of groups at Chase provides a great perspective on how my project fits in to the organization.
My goal for the summer is to understand the various aspects of a marketing career at a large institution and get a better sense whether a career in marketing is right for me. The biggest adjustment thus far has been navigating the work flow in such a large company. Every task needs to be accomplished with the help of numerous people, many of whom I have not yet met. On a positive side, I have exposure to so many different people within the organization, so when I do reach out to new colleagues, I learn so much. I am looking forward to continuing learning more for the next 8 weeks of my summer at Chase.
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