Chamber hires three Northwest interns

Skye Pournazari
Ashtyn Dedovesh Northwest senior Business Management and Marketing major

Ashtyn Dedovesh, Northwest Missouri State University senior, took a paid internship with the Maryville Chamber of Commerce this semester to better businesses in the region, the side effect, she hopes, will be bettering her future.

“My personal goal for this internship is to get more of an insight of what I should be doing in a personal sense with business owners,” Dedovesh said. “It’s more personal to them because it’s their own business. I think that it’s going to be a good experience in learning how to control the personal and business sides with them.”

The chamber program paired a Northwest student with a regional business, many of them Maryville businesses, even one a far away as Weston, Missouri. Each intern works with five of the 15 businesses signed up and gets a full understanding of the owners’ social media goals.

Chamber Executive Director Lily White said the starting goal for the interns is to increase the social media presence of each of the businesses, whether they start from nothing or had some slight presence. She said another goal for the current interns is to have a plan in place for the businesses so the owners could take over and continue their online presence without the interns.

“Each business is going to be different obviously because some know a lot about it,” Dedovesh said. “But there are some clients who don’t and each business is going to have some goals. I already have a baseline of what they’re kind of expecting toward the end. So, my first meeting I’ll be able to set some long-term goals and then see what they want to get and include in the content of their social media.”

Dedovesh said she has a lot going on already with her own social media, so learning to handle it and organizing the social media for five others would be something worthwhile to try.

“Trying to keep up with whose social media is what, is also going to grow into more being prepared for the future,” she said.

White said the chamber didn’t really know what to expect with regard to its seminar or this program.

“It’s actually been very overwhelming,” White said, “Fifty-five people attended the seminar which is way bigger than we ever imagined it would be. We have now had to hire a third intern.

“I think we just didn’t really know what to expect going into how much people would actually need this which is overwhelming but exciting,” she said. “Now we’re just looking toward where to go with the workshops in the future. Now we have to figure out what to teach people next. It’s a good problem to have.”

She said the chamber hopes to take interns again next spring and even expand the program.

“Right now, it looks like it will continue to grow,” she said. “We’d like to see them continue with the same social media, but as we have more talks we maybe wanted to go into the website side.”

Opening up the internship to a website creation could allow more students in different disciplines to find the internship useful.

Travis Kline, career development coordinator for internships at Northwest said he hasn’t heard from the chamber interns, but “I am thrilled at the opportunity and hope it expands to become a bigger program in the future.

“I really feel this idea is a win-win for the campus and community,” he said. “Taking on an intern can be a bit overwhelming for a small business, but having a group like the chamber host them and allow members to use their skills as needed is a great concept.”

There’s a focus on students being career ready at graduation. What used to be called soft skills, like teamwork, leadership and communication skills are now called career ready skills.

“We find internships are a really good way for students to practice those skills,” Kline said. “They learn them in class in theory, but they don’t always have a way to practically put them to go use. An internship gives them a really strong way to do that.”

The Career Services center tries to partner with Maryville businesses as often as it can to encourage them to use Northwest students to leverage the skills they’re learning in the classroom, he said. Sometimes there is hesitation on the part of the business owner, because it’s new to them or because they’re not sure if pay is required. The Career Services office on campus works to answer those questions, create job descriptions and more.

“‘Hire a Bearcat,’ is our job and internship board, where we can post jobs or email students and faculty in certain majors try to drum up some applications for them,” Kline said.

Not only will the center help a business owner create a job description, but also help funnel students in the right field to the job posting. Then after that, the center offers interview rooms on campus, in case business owners don’t have a space conducive to that.

Renee Riedel, Career Development Coordinator Employer Relations, “will work with folks that want to recruit or get the word out,” said Kline. “We’re Maryville citizens, so we want Maryville businesses to be strong and really all of Northwest Missouri businesses to be strong.”

The internship program at the chamber “was their idea, they get credit for that,” Kline said. “We helped implement it. What a great experience for those students. What a resume builder.”

There are lots of good opportunities for students. Kline said Career Services really wants work with Maryville as much as possible.

“Students want to do internships while they’re in classes during the fall and spring,” Kline said. “They want to stay in the summer too. I think there is a misconception that they want to get out of here as soon as classes are over. The bell rings and they’re out the door just like high school. But, I don’t think that’s the case for all our students. There’s some value for them to take classes in the summer because it’s hard to do the four-year thing. If there are more opportunities, more will stick around. That helps the town and that helps the university.”

For more information about Career Services Development on campus, visit www.nwmissouri.edu/careerserv.