From now until August, each week, two or three of our summer interns will be highlighted as they reflect upon their experiences and work while employed with Dwellworks.

This week, we put the spotlight on Bridget Barkume, our Corporate Housing intern in Detroit and Brendan Lenhard, our Valuation Services intern in Cleveland, as they write about the meaningful work they have completed at Dwellworks and their view of working for a global company.

Best Internship Ever!

Bridget Barkume, Corporate Housing, Detroit

Picking up coffee, slaving over paperwork, dying of boredom – all these things pretty much fit the stereotypical depiction of interns. I’m sure the Hollywood filmmakers got that idea from some big company that doesn’t quite care about their seasonal hires, but they didn’t get it from Dwellworks. In fact, my time here has been full of opportunity and too much fun (plus, I only fetch coffee for myself).

Here in the Detroit office, Dwellworkers only come into the office twice a week and get to work from home the other three – amazing, right? Well, from the get go myself and my fellow interns (hey, Allie & Eric) were a little worried about this dynamic. I expected to feel distanced from team and left out of the loop, especially since we would be in the office five days a week. That expectation was far from the reality. Not a day went by that we weren’t asked if we needed help or given an invite to grab a Shake Shack milkshake. No matter how many questions we had or mistakes we made, someone was always willing to take time out of their busy schedule and walk us through our problem.

With only two days in the office, people come in full of energy and excitement. They all seem to genuinely care about one another’s lives – in and outside of work. Most importantly, they really value lunchtime (and the conversation of what everyone will be eating that day usually starts at 9 am).

But seriously, no matter if everyone else is swamped with work, there is always a helping hand willing to minimize your stress. The people in this office live by the “Work Hard, Play Harder” motto and they make sure the interns do the same. From Mandatory Fun Time to Team Tuesdays, we have never missed out on an opportunity to explore this bustling city with our team. This has been one of my absolute favorite jobs and I genuinely look forward to coming into work every day. Everyone works hard and puts in their best 40 hours, but they never fail to be the most down to earth people.

Thanks for an awesome summer, Dwellworks Detroit.

[Lastly, a huge shout out to my manager, Steph - she’s a total boss.]

My Biggest Takeaways from the Internship

Brendan Lenhard, Valuation Services, Cleveland

With only a week left of the internship program, I decided to reflect on my experience as an intern at Dwellworks and highlight what I felt were some of the most important things I can take away from my experience. I decided to focus on what I felt were the two most important experiences I had this summer.

1. The first thing that came to mind was that this internship taught me how to interact and communicate with people in a professional environment. At Dwellworks, I learned how to properly communicate with clients and send professional and formal emails. While these may seem like minor things, they are not skills you learn while at school. In a professional environment you are expected to act and handle people a certain way; the best way to learn this is from on-the-job experience. Even the ability to construct and send a professional email is a skill I feel is overlooked and something that I will use in any job I have in the future.
2. One of the coolest things about this internship was participating in the professional development activities they provided for us. For me, the most beneficial activity was the mock interviews. Each intern had to do a mock interview with someone brought in from outside the company. I found this experience to be very beneficial because the interview involved a lot more than your typical interview. Going into the interview, I thought it was just going to be a typical interview to help me practice for future interviews, but it turned out to be so much more than that. The interview was constructive and very interactive; my interviewer asked me questions like in a normal interview but then gave me feedback and advice on how to give better answers to the questions. She also had me ask her any questions I felt were difficult to answer and gave me different possible answers I could use if ever asked the question. There were answers to questions that I never would have thought of had I not had this experience. This opportunity was so helpful because it gave me a chance to see what interviewers and recruiters are looking for and like to see.

I could not have asked for more from this internship and I am very thankful to have been a part of the Dwellworks team this summer!

Missed last week's intern blog? Don't worry! Check it out here.