The last job I had was an internship at a large international company in Portland, Daimler Trucks North America. This was an internship I got through MECOP and therefore the hiring process was a little different than standard. In this case, you just took general interviews and then you were essentially picked like in a draft pick. So, I was not really in a position to decide if I wanted the position or not, therefore I never made any decisions based on the description. With that said, I never saw an official job description prior to beginning the interview process or even the job for that matter. I was able to see previous interns’ experiences and that gave me a vague understanding of what it might look like. A lot of these described the importance of communication across departments, meeting with the test department and producing process improvement charts and exercises. Comparing this to my actual experience, I believe it is fairly close. I spent a lot of my time meeting with different clients, working with the prototype shop, engineers, and the test department. I also was busy making flow charts and diagrams to describe processes and operations. Beyond the description, I also helped with the procurement department and working on ways to make their process more efficient. All of these experiences were valuable to me as a management student. Some of them were included in what I will call the description I received, but some stepped out and touched different areas. I think the job description gives potential hires a great indication of what should be expected of them if it is done correctly. I would recommend to the companies that make up MECOP to give more descriptive job descriptions specifically for each open internship position.
