Pardon Rosealyn Downey if she now thinks of an American multinational corporation with more than 132,000 employees worldwide, a fixture on Fortune magazine’s list of the “World’s Most Admired Companies,” and a health and wellness juggernaut that rakes in $82 billion in annual revenue.
That’s because Downey has enjoyed a taste of the corporate world this summer thanks to an internship at the health and wellness juggernaut thanks to help from the Boven Career Development Center.
She joined a group of students who earned a competitive Talent Acquisition Internship for the Human Resource Department at Johnson and Johnson in Tampa, Fla. The internship runs from July 6-August 14.
Downey has been charged with evaluating current internship programs and suggesting enhancements for future virtual internship experiences. Through this career-building experience, she works closely with Johnson & Johnson recruiters — gaining invaluable experience and networking contacts within the organization.
“I am thrilled with this internship” said Downey, a human services major from Ocala, Fla. “This opportunity allows me to participate in meaningful projects to enhance my marketability, in addition to making valuable contributions to the Johnson & Johnson Talent Acquisition Team.”
Not that the road to Johnson & Johnson was without potholes.
“I visited the Career Center last year, and after few weeks of multiple meetings and adjustments to my application materials and interviewing skills, I finally interviewed with Johnson & Johnson,” Downey said. “I was ready, and I got this life-changing internship.”
Esteban Lopez, director of corporate and academic outreach at Beacon College, points to her resilience as key to her internship payoff.
“Rosealyn put in the time and the effort and never quit pursuing her dreams,” he said.
In fact, as the pandemic revved up earlier this year and spawned widespread chaos, confusion, and disrupted most pending internships around the U.S., Downey stayed in touch with Johnson & Johnson. She built a good rapport with their recruitment team and ultimately landed one of the few internship that the organization preserved.
“Rosealyn is a living example of perseverance as the best tool to achieve your objectives in life” Lopez said. “It’s not every day you meet a student that can keep that level of energy and momentum going.”
Her time at Beacon has made the well-rounded, 4.0 GPA student “more mature, more responsible, and more resilient,” she said.
And her time with Johnson & Johnson not only has helped give her a peek at the corporate world, but also helped teach her new life lessons.