Looking for Highshool IT Intern
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Hello. My father is a member here and introduced me to this possibility for an internship with NTG. Although I am in my 20s and seeking full time employment, I would not give up this opportunity to get experience with the IT industry.
I enjoy working with technology, such as the iPhone and Macbook Pro as well as other Apple products. I also have your basic experience with website development and starting a domain of my own and keeping up with it, which I have done for a non-profit, as well as a blog of mine. I am interested in getting a position with Apple or AT&T but am having trouble getting a full time position right now. I hope to learn more about this intern position and can then become that intern and gain some valuable experience.
Thank you,
Michael
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Hmmmm... the last intern's name was Michael. Well, I guess it still is Michael, in fact. I wonder if that is going to be a requirement for interns?
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@Michaelnp500 So Apple or AT&T long term goals... what kind of position at those companies? If you could picture a short term (say one year) and long term (say five years or more) career goal, what would you picture them being?
Example... short term get into help desk on a Windows support desk.
Long term (5 year) work in Cisco Network Engineering in a Fortune 500
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AT&T is a crappy company, one of the worst ones..
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Apple is a decent place to work, though. I have several friends there or who have been there. Some rave about it, some say it's just so so. But no one disliked it, which says a lot on its own.
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@scottalanmiller Starting out, my short term goal with AT&T is increasingly gaining experience in their sales department, helping customers out in the store. My long term goal would be working with customers over the phone in a call center or via email and live chat, being a problem solver for questions and or issues they are experiencing.
The same would have to go for Apple, but because we do not have an Apple store here, gaining experience elsewhere would be great to show on my resume, and to get references that can discuss my personality when it comes to customer service as that is what Apple is seeking for employees. I currently have volunteer experience helping Apple product owners on a forum, totally voluntary as I am also on there asking my own questions. I have owned Apple products since at least 2006 if not a year or two before then. I now have experience with more in depth questions when it comes to fixing Apple iPhones, not your basic issues. Technology is something I most definitely enjoy, as well as customer service.
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@Jason said in Looking for Highshool Intern:
AT&T is a crappy company, one of the worst ones..
I will so completely second that. Worked at AT&T for 7 years. Started on the DSL helpdesk back in 2000. Horrible company to work for. Lots of nice people, horrible corporate sinkhole.
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@Michaelnp500 said in Looking for Highshool Intern:
@scottalanmiller Starting out, my short term goal with AT&T is increasingly gaining experience in their sales department, helping customers out in the store. My long term goal would be working with customers over the phone in a call center or via email and live chat, being a problem solver for questions and or issues they are experiencing.
The same would have to go for Apple, but because we do not have an Apple store here, gaining experience elsewhere would be great to show on my resume, and to get references that can discuss my personality when it comes to customer service as that is what Apple is seeking for employees. I currently have volunteer experience helping Apple product owners on a forum, totally voluntary as I am also on there asking my own questions. I have owned Apple products since at least 2006 if not a year or two before then. I now have experience with more in depth questions when it comes to fixing Apple iPhones, not your basic issues. Technology is something I most definitely enjoy, as well as customer service.
These are customer service and/or sales jobs and not IT.
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@JaredBusch Doing the type of work I want to do at AT&T and or Apple at some point with customer service and helping with technical questions etc is an IT job. IT is not just computers. Phones are also now computers in a sense.
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@Michaelnp500 I'll second @JaredBusch here. From your description of goals, it sounds like you are looking for what I generally call "bench" work or customer service + bench, or maybe customer service + IT. Those are great ambitions and there are definitely career options for that, no problem there, but the role here is really IT, so on the technical side. Could be some customer service interaction internally, that's not impossible, but not sure that we would supply what it is that you are looking for necessarily. This would be primarily lab side work, like systems engineering and such. Interactions with people would be mostly around getting support for you, rather than supporting them.
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I have a few suggestions for you. Take a look at working for Staples or even bestbuy. From the sounds of it the customer service side is really what you are looking for. An Internship wouldn't here with NTG wouldn't put you in contact with customers at all. You would be working in our LAB which would give you Engineering experience and true IT experience.
You need to start small with a customer service position somewhere to get to the big boys.
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@Michaelnp500 said in Looking for Highshool Intern:
@JaredBusch Doing the type of work I want to do at AT&T and or Apple at some point with customer service and helping with technical questions etc is an IT job. IT is not just computers. Phones are also now computers in a sense.
Absolutely. Phones are definitely computers. But IT is computers in the business infrastructure context. Those are more customer support outside of that context. If your goal is, for an example, an "Apple Store Genius" role, we'd call that bench. It is very closely tied to IT, for sure, but is considered a related rather than integrated job role. Whereas if you are providing phone based desktop support that would be considered a customer service-heavy IT role. Lots of grey area where these things overlap, of course. But if you tend to support consumers rather than staff, it's normally considered bench (or some other term for what I call bench.)
So, for example, at NTG we might support someone's iPhone, but that would be incredibly rare. Not that we don't want to support those things, it's just such a tiny percentage of the workload. But supporting a corporate PBX system would be very common.
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@Minion-Queen Unfortunately Best Buy does not seem to be interested in me. I got an interview in Mobile, AL and did not get the position. Where I am now, which is where I currently live, I got invited to a group interview which was more of just learning about the positions. We introduced ourselves but not in great detail, just our name and what we applied for. I did not get an interview.
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@Michaelnp500 said in Looking for Highshool Intern:
@Minion-Queen Unfortunately Best Buy does not seem to be interested in me. I got an interview in Mobile, AL and did not get the position. Where I am now, which is where I currently live, I got invited to a group interview which was more of just learning about the positions. We introduced ourselves but not in great detail, just our name and what we applied for. I did not get an interview.
If only Crazy AJ's was up and running
(Community joke, @thanksajdotcom has been looking to open a customer service center that is very similar to what you are talking about doing.) -
Going to bring in @thanksajdotcom who has done a lot of the kind of work that you are looking at getting into. He has worked with small MSPs, Staples, local shops and some others; and is looking to start his own someday; and he might have insight for you as well.
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@scottalanmiller I would appreciate that. Also, as for customer service experience, I have 10 years experience in a few different types of companies. With that experience I should be able to get a chance with a somewhat larger company such as Best Buy, but it has yet to happen. I can reapply, but at some point I need to apply elsewhere which I have been.
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@dafyre said in Looking for Highshool IT Intern:
Who was it that had to treat their kid to a lobster dinner for thinking about the firewall... She might enjoy that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking for Highshool IT Intern:
Hmmmm... the last intern's name was Michael. Well, I guess it still is Michael, in fact. I wonder if that is going to be a requirement for interns?
The friend I told about this...his name is Michael too actually...ROFL
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@Michaelnp500 said in Looking for Highshool Intern:
@scottalanmiller I would appreciate that. Also, as for customer service experience, I have 10 years experience in a few different types of companies. With that experience I should be able to get a chance with a somewhat larger company such as Best Buy, but it has yet to happen. I can reapply, but at some point I need to apply elsewhere which I have been.
So in a dream role, say with Apple, woudl you be hoping to be "in store" support, or remote support from the call center? Just trying to get a feel for the end goals.
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@Michaelnp500 said in Looking for Highshool IT Intern:
@scottalanmiller Starting out, my short term goal with AT&T is increasingly gaining experience in their sales department, helping customers out in the store. My long term goal would be working with customers over the phone in a call center or via email and live chat, being a problem solver for questions and or issues they are experiencing.
The same would have to go for Apple, but because we do not have an Apple store here, gaining experience elsewhere would be great to show on my resume, and to get references that can discuss my personality when it comes to customer service as that is what Apple is seeking for employees. I currently have volunteer experience helping Apple product owners on a forum, totally voluntary as I am also on there asking my own questions. I have owned Apple products since at least 2006 if not a year or two before then. I now have experience with more in depth questions when it comes to fixing Apple iPhones, not your basic issues. Technology is something I most definitely enjoy, as well as customer service.
Call centers are where you will gain lots of experience, but a true call center will kill your soul. Forewarning...
