March 27, 2012

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Veselina Hristova

Veselina Hristova interned at Redcats USA, an online retailer of men's and women's plus-size apparel in addition to home, outdoor and lifestyle products. Verselina shares her experience in an interview with Kathy Kim, a graduate assistant at GCMC.

Describe in detail your duties as an intern with Redcats USA.
Leverage product ranking spreadsheet to help improve performance of individual categories  and products over time. Name product titles in more SEM friendly terms. Analyze and report customers’ feedback about the web site. Analyze monthly Omniture reporting on top products, top categories and marketing promotions.

What did you consider to be the most positive features of this job?
Everyone treated me as part of the team. I was given real tasks and assignments that were contributing to the better performance of the whole team. My manager was always available for me. He was willing to explain and to have me involved in the working process.

Please describe the work environment and culture of the company/organization.    
The company is very team-oriented. I was included in many employee meetings from other departments, so I would say the cooperation between the different departments is very important. The company has a very good internship program, and interns are welcomed and are treated as a valuable part of each working group.
                       
To what degree did this position contribute to your professional development and future marketability?
Great experience: I learned a lot about how direct marketers approach their customer base. I was working with the web team and had the opportunity to learn a great deal about SEM/SEM, good practices when reaching customers mainly through the web. All of my experiences related to the marketing field that I want to continue my career in.

Would you recommend this position to future student interns?
Yes, if they are interested in web marketing. I recommend it  because my experience with the company was excellent,  I was given the opportunity to learn and contribute to the whole team.

Veselina Hristova
MS, Marketing
Graduation Date: June 2012

March 13, 2012

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Neli Desai


Neli Desai, an MBA student in the field of Finance and Information Systems, has been interning with HBO, one of the largest premium cable television networks in the United States. Read what she has to share about her experience:


“The positive features of working at HBO primarily are the work culture, work life balance that they provide and the enthusiasm with which every team member works.  My manager was very flexible with respect to my timings as they had to match my college schedule.  The team was very encouraging and welcoming and they trained me in a very short span of time.  They were very friendly and provided guidance at every step.
The weekly meetings helped me understand the process quickly.  Good rapport with the manager was also an important feature that was responsible for the high quality work.  Project meetings and team lunches helped make interaction easy.  Since my job mainly required analyzing data, the theories and concepts from my course CIS 9467: Spreadsheet Modeling helped me in optimizing my analysis using pivot tables and graphical representations in Excel.  Although I had prior knowledge of excel and databases, this internship polished my skills as a SQL coder as well as an analyst, since it involved database querying and data integrity checks.  HBO is a great place to learn and enjoy while learning!”

Neli Desai
MBA, Finance and Information Systems
Graduate Date: May 2012

March 7, 2012

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Tal Givon

Tal Givon is a final year MBA marketing student who has been interning with TriPlay, an innovative multi-faceted technology company focused on providing globally-available multimedia services to consumers. This is what she has to share about her experience so far:

“I am very fortunate to be interning for TriPlay at such an exciting time for the company. TriPlay launched MyMusicCloud, which makes your music available on every device, in late 2011.  I lead the product launch marketing wise: the project started with marketing research to explore the competitive environment, differentiating MyMusicCloud against competitive giants such as Amazon Cloud player, Google Music and Apple’s iCloud and identifying our target market. At this point we formulated the messages we wanted to convey, and selected media vehicles to distribute our word, while adjusting our tone according to the medium.  In a short while I have accumulated hands on experience in social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Blog, YouTube and explored other options such as SEM, SEO and leveraging our PR efforts to generate more leads.  This has truly been a wonderful opportunity to witness a product’s growth from inception, and truly understanding the power of Marketing.” 

Tal Givon
MBA, Marketing
Graduate Date: May 2012