Two months later I am here to tell you the LONG story of how it all came about. The good and the bad. We wanted to write it all down for our own history. First of all...when Mike got accepted into the program I had no idea that we would be doing "an internship". Mike started school and we got thrown into the internship search. He was assigned a Sherpa (a 2nd year student) to work one on one with him to go over his resume and "star stories". I attended a few meetings where they gave the spouses tips on how to help your husband find an internship, which only stressed me out! But, I did create info sheets for different companies he was interested in or interviewing with. Needless to say, it kept us both BUSY! Mike was a trooper, he worked so hard and prepared so well for every interview! Here is the list of trips and places he interviewed.
- Pepsi (located in Texas) Interviewed on September 16th @ BYU
- NBMBAA Job Conference-September 23rd-25th @ Los Angeles
- Company Visits/Networking-October 18th -20th @ Seattle
- Microsoft
- Amazon.com
- Adobe Interview-November 15th @ Lehi Office
- Microsoft Interview-December 2nd @ BYU
- Microsoft Interviews-January 13th @ Seattle
- Interviewed with 4 different people in 4 different departments lasting the whole day.
- Microsoft paid for his "fly back" including flight, hotel, car, food :) This was kinda a big deal!
- Amazon.com Interviews-January 14th @ Seattle
- Interviewed with 4 different people in 4 different departments lasting the whole day.
- Because Mike was already "in town" for his interview with Microsoft he was able to interview at Amazon's headquarters in Seattle. They usually don't fly out candidates.
- Company Visits/Networking- January 18th-22nd @ Silicon Valley, CA
- Symantec-Headquarters
- Adobe
- Ebay
- McAffee
- Cisco
- HP
- Amazon Final Interview-February 3rd via phone
- Symantec Interview-February 4th @ BYU
- Symantec Final Interview-February 22 @ Symantec
- Symantec INTERNSHIP OFFER!! March 3rd!!!!
If you lost count that is a total of 14 interviews and a whole lot of work! Symantec's been giving him a lot of swag - now everything we own has this logo on it:
Yes, most of these companies are outside of Utah. This took a lot of praying and talking it out between Mike and I to finally feel good about leaving Utah (I say we, but I was the slow one:). But, when we were seriously being considered by a few of these companies, we felt good about leaving if we got an offer from one of them.( I say seriously considered because we had been through 5 different interviews with Amazon and were still getting good vibes...we thought that was pretty serious) If we were to go out of Utah for an internship it would have meant I would leave my job and good benefits. I didn't want to just give up my job because we'd be coming back, so Mike and I brainstormed every possible way that I could "work from home" or "take some type of leave" all while not telling anyone from work that this was a possibility. It was a big decision. We were actually really excited and felt good about going out of state and then SYMANTEC came along. Looking at it now, It has been nice not having to worry about moving, finding furnished apartments for the summer, paying double rent while we were gone, leaving my job, wondering if I had a job to come back to, leaving family, and all the other worries I see everyone else going through right now.
There were many ups and downs. We'd get good news from one, a "we'll get back to you" from one, and then a "no" from another, all within the same week. Our plans of "where we were going for the summer" changed from day to day. I'm glad to have a plan and glad that it worked out the way it did. Mike finished up school last week and started his internship about 2 weeks ago. Its going great and we are happy to have a break from school. We have lots of fun plans for the summer!
So about Symantec and Mike's job. Symantec is a Fortune 500 company that focuses on computer security for thousands of companies. One of the things they do that you might have heard of is Norton Antivirus. They have over 18,000 employees in offices all over the world. Mike's job is in global marketing with a team of about seven other marketers. He is really excited for the people he'll be working with, out of all the interviews he had, this team was the one that he felt like he got along with best and the job was one of the most exciting. He started two weeks ago and has been loving it. He'll be doing marketing stuff over the summer, still trying to figure out exactly what he does, but we'll keep you posted as the summer goes along!
Thanks moms for reading through this, we know nobody else probably will!
Good luck to all our friends in the program who just graduated or are still looking for internships!!!!
Whew!!! I can't imagine all the stress and anxiety caused over these internships! So glad Mike found one and that you're staying here! :) We will have to get together again soon. So glad things all worked out, even if it may not have been as you planned.
ReplyDeleteK, i didn't know HOW much stress they put on the students and especially WIVES for something like that! holy moly!! I'm glad it's all worked out, and that you feel good about it! And, of course, i'm glad you're still local ;) I feel another girls night comin' on!!!!
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