Connor Armuth ’19 Technical Recruiting Solutions – Thanks to the generous Lilly Endowment which provides Wabash students with great internship opportunities, I recently had the pleasure of spending 8 weeks of my summer interning with Technical Recruiting Solutions, a high-tech staffing agency located in West Lafayette, IN. This opportunity has provided me with valuable work experience and taught me an important lesson, among others, that I will carry with me throughout my professional career.
Before starting with TRS, I was nervous because I knew my job involved talking to people in high tech positions such as software engineers and web developers every day. I know absolutely nothing about computer programming or coding. How could I find the perfect Software Engineer if I had no idea what code for Java or Python even looks like? I didn’t want to come off as a naive young intern who was wasting everyone’s time, I wanted to be a valuable asset from the get-go. Luckily, I had two fantastic bosses (Jonathon Bradley ’96 and Patrick Bondi ’15) who were able to teach me lessons and guide me along the way. With their help, I quickly realized that understanding every detail of a candidate’s massive coding project wasn’t going to lead me to success. In order to be successful, I needed to focus on the big picture, and simply put focus on satisfying a need. Rather than getting lost in attempting to understand the technique of a high skill job, I had to understand the function of the job itself. This taught me the lesson of working efficiently, and that “busy” and “productive” are not always synonymous.
I owe great thanks and gratitude to Jonathon and Patrick for the mentoring they both provided me. This is a classic example of the “Wabash Mafia” and the opportunities it provides. I can confidently say that I have two new connections who I know I can go to for advice on my career or personal life. Without the Lilly Endowment, this wonderful experience and the lessons I have learned from it would not be possible. Thank you to Wabash College, Technical Recruiting Solutions and Career Services for helping make this happen.
