After graduation from the University of Michigan this spring, I reflected on my college experience. In addition to my on-campus activities and studies, my experience with A&M’s Consumer & Retail Group played a major part in shaping my college experience.
I began my journey with CRG as an intern at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020. CRG was young – around 20 people at the time. As most of my peers’ internships had been canceled, I knew it was special that CRG made the commitment to keep their program. With the group being small, it brought an intimate and personal feel, true to the narrative that the group was trying to build. My manager made my experience exceptional as he provided a holistic learning experience. He spent countless hours on the phone with me teaching me technical skills while mentoring me through the process of an end-to-end RFP process. After reflecting on my experience and talking to some of my friends, I realized it was unheard of to receive that amount of attention from senior leadership. At this point, I was all in on CRG.
On a fall Friday evening in the grocery store, I received a call from a Managing Director that changed my life. After a few minutes of small talk, he made me a return offer!
After going back to school in the fall, I was hoping to return to CRG in summer 2021. On a fall Friday evening in the grocery store, I received a call from a Managing Director that changed my life. After a few minutes of small talk, he made me a return offer! I wasted no time and accepted the offer immediately on the phone, which I believe speaks volumes about my mindset and opinion toward CRG.
During my second internship, rather than being staffed on a client project, I was on an internal project responsible for creating CRG’s brand new website. The goal of the site was to bring the identity of CRG to life. I supported the website development and strategy and was responsible for a video marketing campaign to bring the site to life. I put out my own RFP to find our video vendor, determined the themes for the videos, coordinated the shoots, and helped to draft the copy for this campaign all with the website team’s supervision and support. This experience was not what I expected, but in hindsight, I was glad to be a part of shaping how we display the group’s ethos to the rest of the world.
Fast-forward to the present. I am now a full-time Associate at CRG which has grown to 100+ people. Most of my colleagues from Summer 2020 are still my friends today! My experience with CRG has been great, and I whole heartedly believe CRG provides an amazing experience to all interns and new grads.