Big Thoughts
ReliaQuest Summer Internship 2022
As part of our Job-Readiness Pillar, we were thrilled to provide an amazing Tampa summer internship opportunity to five of our Think Big kids through our partnership with ReliaQuest. After reviewing applications, Think Big and ReliaQuest selected five teens with the strongest resumes who all happen to also have Think Big mentors!
The internship program spanned five weeks this summer and exposed the students to a variety of careers at ReliaQuest. They began the program with an orientation, where intern Evelyn shared, “Everyone there is very welcoming and friendly and remind you that it’s okay to ask any questions because everyone starts somewhere.” What a great way to kick off the summer!
During week two, our students shadowed employees in the Business Analytics department to see how the department operates. They learned how the department supports both customers and ReliaQuest’s internal operations.
In week three, interns worked with the Software Development team on the cutting edge of cyber security technologies and learned how they work with the rest of the teams at ReliaQuest. This week was Evelyn’s favorite! She said, “All departments are amazing but however, the one that caught my interest the most was Software Development. Getting to understand how each small detail can make a difference in an online webpage on a computer is what made me interested, and it also deals with coding.”
Week four was Alayna’s favorite week. She said, “The topic that interested me the most was security operations because I like looking for small little details to point out the bad guys/hackers.” Interns learned about the Security Operations Center (SOC) and met with the Security Analyst team to learn how ReliaQuest is detecting, investigating, and responding to security threats for some of the world’s largest companies.
Another one of our Think Big teens, June, interned with ReliaQuest in summer of 2021, and was invited to return as a Security Analyst intern this year. She has loved interning with this company because “being able to work in a real environment and being able to contribute to my team as much as I can and having all my skills and knowledge come back to me that I’ve accumulated over the years has been the best thing. I know when I’m making an impact on my team.”
In week five, our students concluded their internships by working with the Customer Success team to see how everything from the technical departments comes together for the customers. Our intern, Quentin, learned he is most interested in customer success because making connections is one of his strengths.
The program culminated with a final presentation from each of the interns where they shared their favorite parts of the internship and how they plan to use this experience. All of our interns shared they would love to work at ReliaQuest, and we are proud of them for taking part in this experience!
