Many individuals have yet to identify their desired specialty or discover the educational and employment opportunities associated with their field of study. As a sophomore approaching my junior year of college, I began to wonder what applied experiences I could gain that would have an effect on not just my collegiate career, but my future career as an Industrial Organizational (IO) psychologist. I was offered many business, management and even counseling internships. These types of internships are theoretically related to my career, but did not consist of my specific interests. I did not feel that these internships could fundamentally prepare me. I found Engauge, an internship dedicated to behavioral research, through the career services center at Kennesaw State University. I never expected to find an internship that so closely intervened with what I wanted to become as an Industrial Organizational psychologist. The experiences I’ve gained here from survey development, social media analysis, to competitive analysis has had implacable implications on my interested subfields in IO psychology such as survey development, assessments and performance appraisals.
The behavioral research department at Engauge has given me the opportunity to develop my knowledge of survey building into skills with an independent task of developing one based on a client’s goals. The first step in understanding what companies want and how I can create surveys to meet the needs of a company is truly one of the most useful experiences I have gained here at Engauge. I was also given the opportunity listen to and review findings of some user experience testing. A significant part of what I want to do with psychology involves developing surveys and assessments based on client goals. The IO subfield of assessment centers are used to give detailed, structured evaluations. In assessment centers, individuals participate in surveys, situational exercises and simulations. Through several revisions of a survey and sit-ins on user experience testing findings, I can say I have had some experience in understanding what all goes into this subfield of assessment centers and the ways they help a client progress to meet their consumer needs.
The analysis portion of my internship, I’d have to say was extremely fun. I’ve had the most memorable experiences with social media and competitive analysis. This experience directly relates to the subfield of performance appraisals in IO psychology. Performance appraisals focus on evaluation of the present job to assess and identify employees’ strengths and weaknesses. We were able to give competitive analysis, which is similar to performance appraisals, to our clients by providing them with feedback on what they are or are not doing effectively and what their competitors are doing as well. Providing this type of feedback gives the companies I work for an advantage over their competitors and ultimately benefit their consumers.
At the end of the day at Engauge, when I reflect on the experiences I’ve gained here, I can say the environment at Engauge is very welcoming and the people are extremely helpful. From the first day I walked in the door, I felt the passion that these individuals have to meet the goals of their clients. This internship was applied and I was able to apply every aspect to a specific field of Industrial Organizational Psychology that I am interested in. I am fortunate to have gained as much knowledge and experience as I have interning here at Engauge. Having the opportunity to sit in on a findings meeting and see the different ways I contributed to a client’s happiness is purely exhilarating. Granted there were times when there were stressful deadlines that had to be met, but even those didn’t seem too bad when you have a team of dedicated individuals working for the same clients and willing to help in any way possible. It would be of my utmost pleasure to recommend an internship with Engauge to my peers.
Does an unbiased interview exist? YES!
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*While most of my blogs are about academic articles and their application
to Human Resources, this was a topic that I had to write about. In a
conversatio...
11 years ago
