title="HR Career Webpage"- Adam, HR Intern

I can't believe that it has already been six weeks since we have begun our internship 'journey'. I currently serve as one of the HR interns for Equity Trust. One of my main responsibilities for the summer is to re-vamp and update the ETC careers page.

Much of my time so far has been researching some of the best careers web-pages, and then taking ours a step above. It's been a tough, but fun challenge. I have had some experience with HTML in the past, but this experience has truly shaped and enhanced my skills in this field.

I've also had the opportunity to sit in with the HR Recruiter to phone screen some of our new employees. I've learned a lot about the application procedure and the details that go into phone screening and background checking every interested applicant.

I still have quite a ways to go with our website, but am ready to take on the challenge. Through the guidance of those in the Marketing, IT, and HR team, I've had a lot of support with my project. It will be great to know that I have helped in contributing to the organization in a significant way.

All Things Must Come to an End

As you can probably tell by the title, today is the last day of my Equity Trust Internship. It is very bittersweet and I cannot believe that the summer has gone by so fast. I remember my first day here, completely overwhelmed when my mentor gave me three large projects to work on. I didn’t think I could do it. But if there’s one thing that this experience has taught me, it is that I can do anything I put my mind to. Whether its learning about Windows Movie Maker, presenting in front of our CEO, or completing all three of those projects on time, I know that I can accomplish anything by working hard and pushing myself to succeed.

For this last blog, all I want to say is that this is a great internship for anyone looking to gain real-life experience at a company that will treat you like a person and friend, and not just an intern. All of the interns were given tasks and projects specific to our education, allowing each of us to gain a foundation for our future career. If you are a person that wants to challenge yourself and learn a lot about a company, the world of business, and your field of study, Equity Trust is the place for you.

Hopefully you have gotten to see the types of projects we have all been working on and use this as a guide for the potential work you may be doing as a future intern here. The best of luck to everyone, and make sure to follow Equity Trust Careers on Facebook and Twitter ;)

Week 8

Hello, my name is Emily Steffensen. I am the accounting intern here at Equity Trust Company. I am a junior at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Yes, South Dakota. Now you may be wondering, "How did she end up in Ohio at Equity Trust Company?" Well, Equity Trust Company was granted a trust charter from the State of South Dakota in 2003, which enabled them to expand their business. Because of this, Equity Trust Company has relations within South Dakota, and that is how I ended up here.

My mentor while here at Equity Trust Company is the CFO of the company. I also work very closely with the accounting controller. My internship responsibilities are very hands-on activities. I pay accounts payable invoices every week, key journal entries into the accounting software, and help prepare the month end financial statements. I generally do what an entry level accountant does. It is not very often in an internship where you have those opportunities! I am having so much fun working with the accounting department, the other interns, and all employees at Equity Trust Company!

Yesterday, the interns and leadership trainees had happy hour with the Leadership Team at Champps. Although all of the interns are not 21, the event was a lot of fun. When Equity Trust Company has employee events, they go all out! The HR Director made sure everybody had enough to eat! She ordered one of every appetizer on their menu. Afterwords, some of us even had extremely large desserts!

I am having such a good time in Ohio and at Equity Trust Company. The internship experience is truly unique. It is definitely going to be hard for me to go back to South Dakota!

“Time flies by when you’re having fun”

I guess time does fly by when you’re having fun. I can’t believe that we are already going into our 8th week here at Equity Trust. It just seems like yesterday that I was coming into my first day here.

Why is it so fun?

Everyday is a learning experience for me; I don’t know what challenge I am going to be faced with each day. I am currently working on two projects. My first project is consolidating some of our current database into one relational database so that upper management can analyze the information efficiently. I am building the database in Microsoft Access (which has given me some headaches but I have gotten over them). For my second project I am updating one of our internal websites (intranet), which I have to write some HTML here and there, nothing to strenuous.

Well it's been fun posting, now back to work I go! Have a good day everyone!

You Know You're in HR When...

This is now week four for me, and I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of things. When the Recruiter asks me to do a reference check on someone, it’s no problem! And on the plus side, I found out that I really do like doing Human Resources work…listening in on phone interviews, doing reference checks, reviewing resumes, etc. And it’s pretty nice to find that out since I’ll probably be doing it for the rest of my life…well, at least for the next 5 years I’m guessing. And you definitely know you’re in HR when the other interns start coming to you about the company dress code and when they give you a hard time about the blogging and social networking policies you write. Oh well…all part of the world of HR!

As for my projects, this week has been almost entirely focused on the new applicant tracking system that Equity Trust will put into place next month. It’s a great system that’s really going to help the recruiting process by consolidating all the candidate, requisition, and user information in one place. However, like any new system, it’s definitely got some kinks. And I’m the one who’s assigned to figure them out, which is pretty exciting. Like I mentioned before, the staff here at Equity Trust really does trust you to be a problem solver and help the company. As long as the tech people from this certain company call me back, we’re good to go. If not…someone is definitely going to be leaving a lot of messages on their phone lines. Respectful, professional messages…but still.

To keep me busy while waiting for the company to call back, the HR team and I are sitting in on 3-4 hour training sessions on the system. It can get long, but here and there I find some really helpful information about the system. We’ve also started to upload resumes into the system and although it doesn’t sound that exciting, it’s a recruiter’s dream come true. And if you’re worried about the earth, be happy, because this computerized system is going to be saving some trees too.

On another note, once again Equity Trust is putting on another fun event for the intern and leadership trainees tonight. This time, we’re going to enjoy a happy hour with the Leadership team at Champ’s bar and grill. Although I won’t be partaking in the “happy” part of happy hour, I’m still looking forward to networking with the leaders and a nice, refreshing Diet Coke (or maybe a virgin piña colada….I haven’t decided yet).

"Winning is overrated. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war." ~Al McGuire

In order to take our minds off of a busy work week, some of us in the marketing and sales departments decided to have a fun contest during our lunch break. We just finished the first annual "Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich Eat-A-Thon", and to my dismay, I finished last. There were five competitors, Brendan Hughes, Ken Barhoover, Josh Schinagle, Jeff Tippy, and myself. We each invested in the "5 for $5" deal from Arby's, and had a contest. The rules were simple, whoever eats 5 roast beef sandwiches first wins, and if no one finishes 5 sandwiches, whoever eats the most wins.

As the contest started, Josh and I dug into our first sandwiches neck and neck, while Brendan and Ken started slowly with the intent to pace themselves. Jeff, however, took a different, maybe smarter approach. He combined his first two sandwiches into one, and began to inhale. After the first sandwich, Josh had a slight lead, while I was staying close behind. However, this was the beginning of my downfall. I unwrapped my second sandwich and started to eat. By the time I looked over at Josh, he was finishing his second, I knew I would have to keep up. I scarfed my second sandwich down. While unwrapping the third sandwich, I realized I should have paced myself like Ken and Brendan. I slowed down big time. Ken had no trouble catching and passing me at this point. In only a few minutes, Josh finished his fifth, and final roast beef sandwich. He is crowned as the official "Equity Trust Arby's Roast Beef 5 for $5 Eat-A-Thon Champion". Jeff's creative eating style was enough for him to earn second, followed closely by Ken. They both finished 4 sandwiches. Brendan was able to take 2 bites out of his fourth sandwich, totalling 3.25 roast beef sandwiches, which was enough for him not to be tied for last with me, at 3 sandwiches.

Other than the horrible feeling we felt after overindulging on roast beef sandwiches and Arby's sauce, I would say the contest went well. We had a great turn out this year, and I hope everyone can make it next year. Congratulations to all the competitors, who all gave their best effort in this year's contest.

Week 6

Hello, my name is Josh Schinagle and I am a senior at the University of Toledo. I will be graduating from the College of Business Administration in December 2009, and my major is Information Systems. I try to stay as active as possible while in school, I am in Alpha Kappa Psi which is the oldest co-ed professional business fraternity. Along with being in AKPsi I am the President of Association of Systems Management, which is an organization which is open to all majors but puts a strong focus on Information Systems, E-Commerce and Computer Science and Engineering majors.

I started here at Equity Trust on May 18th, 2009 and have had the best time since. It is a very upbeat environment and everyone is always willing to help out if need be. The purpose of this blog is to give future interns an insight on how the week-to-week operations work. I hope you enjoy my blogs, lets get started!

The following took place in my 6th week (6-22/6-26)
--This was a pretty busy week but an exciting one as well. The week started off relatively well, I had a few items I need to finish from the previous few weeks which didn’t take very long at all. Wednesday of this week all the interns were given the opportunity to sit down with Rich (Vice President) and Jeff (CEO) Desich for lunch at Elyria Country Club. This lunch was very informative and fun, we all felt very comfortable talk with Jeff and Rich. On Friday Equity Trust set up and all employee fun day event where they got us tickets to the Cleveland Indians game!! There will be food, games and just an over all good time.

"I order the club sandwich all the time, and I'm not even a member."

My name is Ryan D'Arcy, I am the Marketing Intern here at Equity Trust Company. I work at our Berea office, one mile down the road from the glorious and prestigious Baldwin-Wallace College, where I am currently a student. As I approach my final two semesters at BW, I am starting to realize how lucky I am to take part in this internship program. In school, I have a hard time narrowing down the specific area of marketing I want to work in, and this internship has given me the opportunity to experience all of them.

This is not the type of internship where I am getting people coffee, doing my boss's laundry, or surfing the Internet in an attempt to appear busy. At ETC, I get to take part in real projects, most of which will still be around long after I am finished. And the best part is, each of my projects has given me experience in a different area of marketing. I have researched state specifications for lawyers, accountants, and financial ad visors to gain continuing education credit through the classes and webinars we offer. I have created a new HR brochure from scratch using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, and also created a new logo for our Equity Trust Careers page on Adobe Illustrator. I have created marketing reports and analyzed how well each of our marketing efforts have been generating leads for the sales team. Currently I am helping promote and "re-create" our careers page and finding new ways to market it on Facebook and Twitter. I am also currently working with many of our high level managers to put a brand new online tax lien investment process into place. In my time here, I have had the opportunity to meet with all of the channel managers, and even the President and CEO of our company.

It seems my blog has only talked about the "work" I do, I did not even mention the fun. One of the core values of ETC is "We have fun at what we do", and it is no lie. If you work here, be prepared to laugh daily. You'll get to take part in Indians games, cookouts, and happy hours. All in all, this is a great place to work and be an intern.