At the start of recruiting season, Eric Pickard wanted to know one thing: how to get an internship with a Fortune 500 company. With his persistent attendance at recruiting events and outreach, he eventually earned an internship with Goldman Sachs for the next two summers.
The key is to simply talk with recruiters when they visit campus. After attending a Goldman Sachs information session, Eric reached out to former company interns who connected him with recruitment engineers and the head of campus recruiting. Networking gave Eric the boost he needed when it came time to interview.
Seeking out an internship with a high-profile company can be intimidating for students, but Eric encourages them to go for it. “If there’s a company you want to work for,” he says, “don’t be afraid to go for it and apply. It’s not what you know but how you think.” Employers are aware that students don’t know everything when they interview. Instead, companies look for people who can think for themselves and solve problems.
Through persistence and an expanding network, Eric spent the next two summers in Salt Lake City working on the Goldman Sachs platform team doing reliability engineering –automating processes for changes across the organization’s network. The BSIS core prepared him for working in a team, especially when it comes to interpersonal communication and problem-solving. “The core is designed to make you struggle a bit, and it gives you good practice for debugging on your own,” Eric says. “Being able to dig in to the code and be the guy that figures it out…you stand out and become everyone’s best friend.”
Working at Goldman Sachs gave Eric a blend of tech and global business. “I loved being able to see the business purpose behind what I was building,” Eric said. “That’s what brought me to information systems in the first place.” Coming from a family of mechanical engineers, he always loved to build things, but he wanted more business experience as well. “Information systems is the perfect blend of engineering, building, and business. You can see the effects your product has on efficiency.”