Gratitude: From Intern To HootSuite Employee

The last few months have been pretty amazing. I went from being a lost puppy without direction to fulltime employment doing what I love. I also graduated, finally putting an end to my six year arts degree marathon.

How did I pull off the transformation from intern to HootSuite employee status?  A few things come to mind which i will lay out below.

Interning

The key to post-internship employment is making yourself indispensable. This is easier said than done, but you need to find unique ways to contribute. Boast your creative side and come up with ideas that will actually help and disrupt the company your interning for.

This may be suggesting new features and programs, or tweaks to a product. In my case, I went rogue and launched a new program at HootSuite. This is risky, but well worth it.

The key is that if your new program, idea, or initiative catches on and gets momentum from the higher-ups, you’ve essentially made the perfect pitch to get hired.

Your new initiative should ideally be something which only you can perform or execute. That way, the opportunity cost of not hiring you is too high for the company. You have made yourself indispensable.

I finished my internship at HootSuite three weeks ago. It obviously blows not getting paid for your efforts (they laughed when I asked about subsidizing my bus pass). That being said I think interning is more about learning than anything else. My hope was that I would traverse from tech intern full time regular. The last half of the internship got a bit stressful as I tried to plan for life after the internship.

9 to 5ish

Bill Lumbergh

Lucky for me, I got hired on and am now getting paid for the fruit of my labour (still not sure what they were thinking on that one). It’s pretty amazing getting paid doing something you love. I never pictured myself doing the 9 to 5 daily grind with all the clock punching, TPS reports (new cover sheet) and water cooler talk that comes with it.  At HootSuite, it doesn’t feel like work (is that cliché enough?); I get to go in and hangout with awesome people all day.

Gratitude

As I reflect on how my things have changed for me over the last few months, I sometimes find it hard to believe where I’m at.  I think gratitude is such an underappreciated trait. Some rarely take stock of the importance of being grateful. In my case, I can’t stop thinking about how fortunate I’ve been. There are some amazing people who’ve helped me get where I’m at today. People have taken chances on me, and for that I am truly thankful.

Blogging

One of my regrets over the past month is that I haven’t blogged, for the few that actually read this, I apologize. I don’t want to be blogging just for the sake of blogging. A lot of thought goes into most of my posts, so I’m pretty cautious with posting blogs that I don’t feel are up to par.  This blog represents so much for me; as a natural introvert, it allows me to put gather my thoughts and express myself. It’s also one of the reasons I landed at HootSuite in the first place (thank god they didn’t look at my resume).

More updates coming at you soon.