Andrew Pittman
Amazon
Financial Analyst
Personal Information
School: University of Washington
Major: Finance
Years at College Works: 2010
Career Information
Company You Work For Now: Amazon
Title: Financial Analyst
Industry: Retail
Brief Description of Duties / Responsibilities
Forecasting call volumes during different seasons. Creating staffing models to ramp up to peak Explaining variances between foretasted and actuals Ad-hoc requests
What Has Been Your Proudest Accomplishment Post-CWP?
Landing my full time offer at Amazon. The competition was very fierce, and if I didn't have the experience at Russell Investments, which College Works helped me in getting, I would never have been considered at Amazon.
CWP Career Impact
In one sentence, what has CWP meant to you?
It was the jumping off point into my career.
How did your CWP experience impact your career? Immediately after graduation? Now?
It allowed me to get an internship in my sophomore year when my colleagues were seniors in college. In the long term it allowed me to feel extremely confident in interviews.
What do you want to tell your clients about what it meant to work with them and how it has helped you get to where you are today?
I have two and they were neighbors. First guy was a retired military guy, and he was just a very relaxed guy. The project had a lot of delays because of weather, and he was very relaxed about it. Other clients aren't that way. (I once lost a job because my painters were taking what the homeowner thought was too long of a lunch. It was only 30 minutes) The other guy just wanted to help me in my career. He wanted to know about me, and what I wanted to do and he wrote me a really nice letter of recommendation. I never had to use it, but what he said made me feel really good.
What was the greatest lesson you learned from your CWP experience?
Time management, Soft skills (how to go into an interview and lead the conversation in a direction I want it to go)
If you had to come up with an one line slogan for CWP, what would it be? :)
Work extremely hard, barely sleep, never regret doing it a day in your life.
Advice
What advice do you have for potential CWP participants? Current CWP participants?
Spend time picking out painters. Go into this experience expecting to get a resume booster. Financial gains should be a cherry on top. If your underlying goal is to make money, you will not do well. DON'T QUIT, two years from now you will be glad you didn't, I promise.
What's your best advice for someone interested in entering your career field?
I would recommend this internship to freshman and sophomores, industry specific experience is also highly valuable in my industry.
What's your favorite memory from CWP?
Cancun. Enough said.
Last words of wisdom
If you're going to do this, do it all the way. Half-a**ed efforts never get you to where you want to go.