Hi everyone! My name is Valentina Martin, and welcome to a day in my life as a Services Sales intern! I am currently interning for Dell Technologies, a multinational technology company headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, known in the technology industry mainly for its computers and company culture. However, it also offers solutions and services, and the awareness of these two has been increasing over the years. As I said, I am a Services Sales intern, and learning about the different services that Dell offers has indeed been a fantastic experience.

My internship is fully remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has still been extremely fun and rewarding. As a full-time employee, I start my day at 9am by logging into my email account and ensuring all my tasks are up to date, double-checking the weekly schedule I am given, and sending emails to people I want to have a 1×1 with. At 9:30am, I have a daily “morning meeting” with my team of twelve interns, where our Lead Intern, Ryan, makes sure we have all of our zoom links for the day ready to go and goes over any announcements he may have for us.

The twelve of us have the task of learning about a particular service each week by attending zoom meetings, taking online courses, and having mentoring sessions with Services Sales Representatives. The following week, we must pitch the service we learned about the previous week to a group of managers. Pitches are done in teams, which are usually given to us on Mondays in our “morning meeting” with Ryan and are always different as they want us to learn how to work with other people.

Following the morning meeting, I usually meet with my pitch group of the week for at least an hour to work on our presentation and scripts. Some weeks I may have to pitch on Thursdays, and other weeks on Fridays; we are randomly chosen for a specific day. Pitches are usually eight minutes long and end with a broken deal presented by the managers. Once the managers have finished explaining the scenario, my group and I must quickly ask questions to develop the best solution (service) for the “client.”

After meeting with my pitch group to plan our presentation, I usually attend zoom meetings. Different executives may be speaking or employees that are experts about the service we must learn about. Once those meetings are over, I spend my time researching and learning about the different services on my own by taking some online courses provided to us or asking my mentors for helpful information.

Time flies by when attending many zoom meetings, but there is always time for a bit of fun and some rest! My supervisor truly cares about all of us, so she includes breaks in our schedule and fun activities such as what we call “Fun Fridays.” Every Friday, we choose a theme and play games related to it for about an hour – supervisor and managers included! It truly helps us connect personally and stay mentally stable, as working remotely can be extremely tiring at times.

Besides the pitches and trainings, I have also been working on my final project, which consists of creating an e-portfolio, shadowing two inside sales representatives to learn about best practices and techniques when performing a customer call, and performing customer calls myself. I have learned how to manage my time as I must find time throughout the week to focus on these three parts of the project. Additionally, I try to make time for any 1x1s I want to have with people I genuinely want to meet in the company. It is essential to build a strong network, especially in companies as extensive and successful as Dell Technologies. Lastly, I am part of two Employee Resource Groups (ERG): Latino Connection and Mosaic. I have mentors from both ERGs that I also must make time for as they have been extremely kind and helpful. I try to do all of these tasks between 9am and 6pm as I cannot work overtime.

Never in a million years would I have imagined myself working for such a big company. To be honest, I didn’t really think Dell Technologies was THIS big when I got the job. I have quickly learned how big it really is and how there is so much room for opportunity. There is a lot to learn, so I have learned to work in a fast-paced environment. As my supervisor says, “working for Dell is like drinking from a firehose.” One must always be ready to actively listen and learn from all the fantastic people who work in the company.

This Summer internship has been by far the most rewarding experience of my life. I have grown personally and professionally. Most importantly, I have gotten out of my comfort zone as I never really considered sales. I accepted the job because I needed the experience and knew Dell was a good company. However, now that I have worked at Dell Technologies for ten weeks, I can say that I enjoy sales, and now I have a sales background.

I am genuinely grateful to Dell Technologies for giving me an opportunity when nobody else did and for believing in me. I have met incredible people throughout the Summer that I will remember forever. Additionally, I now have more knowledge about the technology industry. Lastly, not only have I learned about this fantastic company, but also about myself and skills I did not think I had. I am so excited to see what the last two weeks of my internship look like, but I am sad it is almost over. I will never forget this experience and the life-long friends I made this Summer.

Thank you, Dell Technologies!