Last May, senior Zac Quist and masters students Cody Pettit and James Dayhuff were three Marriott School information systems students excited to begin their internships together at oil and gas giant ExxonMobil. Four months later, not one, not two, but all three students landed full-time offers at the company’s Houston offices.ExxonMobil’s hiring target has been extremely competitive the last few years due to low gas prices, but the company was impressed by the Marriott School students enough to want them all back after graduating.
“To receive an offer in this climate was surprising,” says Quist, who worked in the software development group helping redesign HR software for 26 countries. “It was something I was very happy about. I look forward to jumping on with the company at such an exciting time.”
All three students were introduced to the ExxonMobil internship through an info session set up by alumni before being mentored by alumni who worked with students individually and provided concrete career advice.
“I have gained valuable insight from alumni who have made themselves available to mentor students,” says Dayhuff, who worked with business intelligence to run evaluations and product incubation. “They gave me the long term perspective of what to look for in a company.”
Once on the job, the three IS students quickly realized how well their academic experience at BYU had prepared them to stand out from other candidates as potential hires.
Pettit, who spent his summer building a business intelligence portal focused on IT help desk strategy, stated that the collaborative skills he learned at BYU helped make a difference during his internship. Although the IS program is extremely competitive among students, Pettit is grateful that it also required him to frequently work in groups and learn skills that showed recruiters he was a team player and interested in the welfare of others.
“During the internship we were able to do well on all our individual projects and still carve out time in our schedule to help the other interns with their projects,” Pettit says. “I think that made a very good impression on HR and management.”
Quist added that he and his other BYU cohorts also stood out during their internships because of the monthly presentations each gave to faculty. This consistent practice allowed the trio to give professional and confident demonstrations to ExxonMobil’s upper management at the close of their internships.
“I am very grateful for the ways my education at BYU has prepared me for a successful and bright future,” says Dayhuff. “Because of the experiences I’ve had at the Marriott School, ExxonMobil is a natural next step.”