In the year and a half since he graduated, alumnus David Gianesin has played professional football, worked in door-to-door sales, taken a position in cost estimation, played another season of football, and is now participating in a two-year B2B/Account Management training program for a top domestic ingredient supplier. But before all of that, Gianesin, a former four-year student-athlete at Bluefield College, participated in two BC internships that set the stage for his successful career.
The Bluefield College Business Department prides itself on equipping students for successful careers through experiential learning. One of the ways for students to gain this experience is through participation in one of 50+ local internships.
In the summer of 2014, Gianesin, a California native, stayed in Bluefield for an internship with Cole-Harley Davidson as a marketing assistant. Over the course of the internship, Gianesin was tasked with creating an email/text marketing campaign and organizing events to foster customer interaction. As a result of his interactions with customers, Gianesin gained a new perspective on marketing for future courses and was able to hone his relationship-building skills that would play a vital role in his future success as a salesman.
The following year, he was given another local internship as a marketing and data entry specialist at Douglas Equipment. As an athlete, work ethic had always been a part of who he was, but it was during this internship that Gianesin was able to learn how to balance his schedules. Gianesin, who was taking classes online for the semester, would work for Douglas Equipment from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., after which he would head to football practice as an assistant wide receivers coach, and to end his day he would attend practice for the men’s volleyball team.
Following his graduation and an initial season of arena football, Gianesin got his first job in sales with TrueGreen. After long hours cold-calling clients, knocking on doors, and sweating in the summer heat, he began to climb the board to quickly become the number one salesman by his fourth and fifth week on the job.
“I worked my tail off,” said Gianesin, who went on to impress a customer so greatly that he was offered another job. “I earned it, and it fueled my fire to compete and win.”
Gianesin took the offer and showed up the next morning to Gault Electric, LLC. After one last season of football, Gianesin took a position at Sensient Natural Ingredients, the number two provider of domestic dehydrated garlic and onion. In his new position at Sensient, Gianesin is participating in a two-year training program that he says values many of the same business concepts and principles that he learned from his studies at Bluefield College. While Gianesin has worked hard to get where he is today, he says the experiential learning he gained at Bluefield College provided him the opportunity to flourish.
“The internships helped me decide what was for me and what was not for me,” said Gianesin. “I worked hard to get my foot in the door…(but) the internships were valuable because they helped build my resume and credibility as a professional.”