One of the most highly anticipated fall semester events is right around the corner for UMSL students. The UMSL Fall Internship and Job Fair held by Career Services is on September 20, 2024, and various events around campus are helping to prepare students.
The Marketing Club, in conjunction with the Entrepreneurship Club, invited Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals to campus to host an event titled The Importance of Internships. At this event, Eli Lilly was advertised to speak to students about why internships are important before graduation and what companies expect of their new hires in today’s job market.
I originally went to The Importance of Internships event to write a recap piece that relays important internship tips and tricks to The Current readers before the career fair. However, the promised event did not meet expectations. Instead, Eli Lilly took advantage of UMSL students looking for insider internship advice and turned the event into a lackluster advertisement for their company.
The guest speakers from Eli Lilly started the event with an overview of their company, which is to be expected and entirely within reason. Students will not listen to valuable information a company gives without first knowing about its business practices and culture. In the presentation, Eli Lilly spoke about the founding of their company, their company values, the processes for developing new medicines, and their volunteering and outreach efforts for the community. This information provided insight into Eli Lilly as a company and gave students a great basis for what the company does. However, that is all the presentation had to offer. The presentation did not include useful resources that could benefit students for real-world experiences. Instead, the event was essentially a free advertisement for Eli Lilly.
When it came time to talk about internships, a brief two-slide section spoke about their summer internships, including a ten-week program intended to give students experience as pharmaceutical sales territory managers. While the requirements were specifically looking for rising juniors or seniors to apply, they were not specific about the day-to-day responsibilities of these interns. The only information provided about the internship responsibilities was the mention of “specialized training” and a one week intensive in Indianapolis at the Eli Lilly headquarters. The guest speakers from Eli Lilly never specifically spoke about why it was so important for students to have an internship before graduation. Additionally, students were not given specifics on what qualities would make interns successful or even a good fit for their internship, which completely missed the mark for the advertised event.
When an audience member looked on Eli Lilly’s website and found virtually no information about their internships, the guest speakers prompted them to sign up for their Talent Registration so they could be notified when internships go live. When asked when the internships would go live, the guest speakers could not give an exact answer and directed the student to sign up for the Talent Registration again. Moreover, when the guest speakers could not answer students’ questions, they directed students to visit them at the Career Fair later this month. Theoretically, this answer is fine, but why direct students to visit you at the job fair when you have their undivided attention right here and now? And why advertise an internship at an event when no information or registration is available to students they can immediately access?
I cannot overstate that I do not blame the Marketing Club or the Entrepreneurship Club for how this event turned out. Dr. Perry Drake, the Department Chair and Associate Teaching Professor of Marketing, did a phenomenal job of asking questions related to the student experience for the guest speakers to answer. Furthermore, I am thankful for the efforts the Marketing Club and Entrepreneurship Club put into hosting these events because it allows students to network and build professional relationships. The blame falls on companies that fail to provide students with beneficial information to make events like these worth their time.
Michael Sherblom, the President of the Marketing Club and Vice President of the Entrepreneurship Club, said the one thing he wanted students to take away from this event was to connect.
“Connect with people, learn soft skills. Much of business is EQ rather than IQ. It’s not about what you know, it’s about how you can speak to people, how you communicate, follow up, and follow through. Relationships are what make the world go around”, said Sherblom.
Michael’s quote about the event highlights just how badly Eli Lilly missed the mark. At the end of the presentation, Eli Lilly did not share any websites, graphics, or business cards with students. The guest speakers invited students to connect with them on LinkedIn but failed to provide students with a link or any way to connect with them other than their names.
This article is about my personal experience with this specific event, but it serves as a reminder to companies that they must consider the student experience when they come to campus. A student’s time is a valuable resource. Between classes, studying, clubs, and work, students have a limited amount of time to devote to special events like these. Quite frankly, this feels like a slap in the face when companies waste our time by hosting what is essentially an uninformative commercial for their company.
Students do not want to take time out of their busy schedules to hear a company speak about their metrics and optics. It is beneficial for companies to promote themselves to students, but I wish these companies would see the value in actually providing relevant information a potential intern or new hire would want to know. Often, companies are concerned with getting the most applicants instead of getting quality applicants. When hosting campus events, companies have an obligation to not only advertise their company but give students guidance that is worth their time and advice they can take and apply to their professional and academic lives.
