When Life Gives You Lemons, Get an Internship

Unexpected Circumstances

Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Calob Jones and I am fresh off of my junior year at SDSU. I will be graduating next spring with a degree in Advertising. I have been working remotely from Brookings during this internship. I am also on the track & field team at SDSU where I compete in the throwing events, but the season did not go as planned for me.

Sometimes life will throw a curveball at you, and that is exactly what happened to me. I suffered a serious knee injury (torn ACL, torn medial & lateral meniscus, chondral defect, and a sprained MCL) about a month before I landed my internship at Click Rain. Normally, I wouldn’t look for a job or internship that requires me to start in the middle of the school year, but these were not normal circumstances.

I remember at the end of my interview we joked that “everything happens for a reason” and I truly believe that was the case. Click Rain's commitment to Faith, Family, and Work (in that order) is what made this transition easy for me.

Since I started this internship, I’ve gotten to work on awesome client projects, learn from an extremely talented team, and see first-hand what great company culture is built on. Based on my experience so far (I’m about two months in), I’ll share some insights into what I’ve learned.

Remote work

One sign that a company has a great culture is when they trust you to work from anywhere, and this is exactly what Click Rain does. Working remotely wasn’t too big of an adjustment for me since I had to do a whole year of school remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The onboarding experience made this process even more seamless. I came into the office on my first day and received my work laptop along with meeting team members. I started right away with meetings to get spun up on everything that I needed to know. I also got a mentor assigned to me that is here to help me on a daily basis with anything I may need.

But, just because you work remotely does not mean that you are not part of a team. Everyone is just one Slack message away from anything you may need, and if it is too troubling to describe over Slack everyone is great about meeting with you over Zoom.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

I can’t tell you how many questions I ask a day. I know what it feels like coming into a company as the new kid, and that can make asking questions hard.

But I have learned that it’s 100x easier to ask the question, rather than not, and then have to go back and fix your work because you were too scared to ask the question.

This is just another part of what makes Click Rain unique and a great place to work because everyone puts others before themselves and makes time to answer your questions and help you out. (Thanks, Colee.)

Flexibility

As mentioned, I came in with some special circumstances and Click Rain gave me the flexibility that I needed. As you can imagine with a serious knee injury comes a long rehab process, not to mention all my classes and schoolwork.

This flexibility helped me manage all that life had thrown at me, along with school, and still work part-time during the school year and full-time during summer.

Every day is a learning experience

I’ve enjoyed my time studying advertising at SDSU and have found it to be valuable, but I’ve already learned so much more from my hands-on experience.

There is something new to learn every day, and there are many ways to make that happen. Whether it is asking questions, conversations with team members, or research for a new project, Click Rain makes the internship a learning experience.

Importance of culture

At the core of every company is culture. When I started my internship search, a big part of my process was researching each company's culture, since this is where you will spend a good part of your day.

No one wants to wake up and go to a job that they don’t like. So, this is where culture comes into play. If you work where everyone's values match, you’re likely to enjoy the workplace and the people. This is exactly what Click Rain has provided to me and everyone on the team.

In conclusion, I’ve had great experiences since day one. If you’re interested in a career at Click Rain, check out our open positions.