Week 9/9 Twelve-Week Interview

  In a blog post found on Tim Elmore's blog Growing Leaders (http://growingleaders.com/blog/), he describes a bad experience with six college students he invited to serve as interns for his company one summer. He discovered how unprepared today's college students are for the real world and blames the adults in their lives. However, Tim still believes in the potential of today's students and invited another group of interns to his company. This time, though, he introduced the internship differently: an internship is a twelve-week interview. The students realized that this was absolutely no time for social media or laziness, but instead, a simulation of the job they would one day have. Tim says that the top qualities his company looks for in interns are more about attitude than aptitude. They look for:

1. Teachabilty- students who are eager to learn from them

2. Initiative- students who look for what needs to be done

3. Responsibility- students who "own" the task they're given

4. Energy- high-energy students passionate about their mission

After establishing the expectations to his interns, Tim and his company were very pleased with the outstanding students they worked with over the summer. They had great work-ethic, attitude, and passion. 

• My biggest take aways from this article was the desire to learn and a great attitude every day! I can certainly make an effort to prepare myself mentally before arriving at my mentorship by having a great breakfast ( I will be going in the morning most of the time) and reminding myself how privileged I am to have a mentor offering their valuable time. When you have a great attitude, you will engage yourself and learn best. 

• What I find most relevant to myself from Tim Elmore's blog post, is initiative. It's not that I wouldn't want to do what I can to help out but sometimes I am tentative to just begin a task without being told to do so for fear that I am taking liberties. For instance, when I babysit I think about how appreciative a family may be if I unloaded their dishwasher...but conversely, maybe they don't WANT me digging through their drawers! But taking initiative is a valuable quality and doing SOMETHING is better than sitting idle. I can always just ask my mentor if they need any help or if there's anything I can do.