Jerry Lee worked at Google between 2017 and August 2020, first through the company's BOLD internship program while attending Babson College.
The program — which stands for "Building Opportunities for Leadership and Development"— is the company's flagship undergraduate business internship lasting 10 to 12 weeks. Participants can choose between functions like marketing, sales, support, and analytics, and are assigned a mentor, embedded into a team, and given a high-impact project.
"I was tasked with an ambiguous problem to drive deeper insights from a content reviewer team," Lee told Insider. "I spent the first half of my internship to understand the problem by interviewing team members across five teams and driving insights using SQL. In the latter half of my internship, I consolidated all my results and shared them with our management teams to come up with recommendations."
He also learned about collaborating across five different countries: the US, Singapore, India, Japan, and Ireland.
"I fought through early morning and late night meetings to learn different business cultural working norms and more importantly, come together to drive business impact," he said.
Right after graduation, Lee started a full-time role at Google as an analyst, working his way up over the course of three years and jumping from a strategist role into a role as strategy and operations manager, where he supported Google's SMB (small and medium-sized businesses) App Ads business.
While still working at Google in the winter of 2019, Lee cofounded a professional training and coaching firm. In the fall of 2020, he worked in lead product strategy for Lucid Software, a visual collaboration platform, before moving into the COO role at his firm full time.
When Lee first applied to Google, he had one year of non-intern work experience under his belt — a business intelligence role at cybersecurity solutions firm Rapid7, which he completed while attending school — and a BS in business management. His other relevant work experience was through four other internships he completed as an undergrad, plus a pro-bono consulting project for a nonprofit.
He said that the way he positioned and structured his cover letter was instrumental in helping him land the Google gig.
"I structured my paragraphs to directly relate to the job description," Lee said. The Google internship emphasized "critical thinking" and a "fast-paced" environment, he said, so he made sure to address those two skills and back them up with relevant experience in his application.
He also broke his cover letter up into three sections: an introduction, a skills overview, and a wrap-up.
Here's what he wrote:
Dear Google Recruiting Team,
With the utmost enthusiasm, I would like to express my interest in the BOLD internship. As an analytical and results-driven worker, I know my versatile skills and qualifications will make me a great asset for the internship.
As you can see on my resume, I have had a variety of experiences with many different roles, ranging from being a consultant for Boston Handyworks to being an industry analyst intern for the Gray Associates, a boutique strategy consulting firm. I am not only used to juggling many activities at once, but I enjoy working in a challenging and versatile environment.
As a candidate, I could immediately bring the following characteristics to the table:
Effective critical thinker: At Boston Handyworks, I analyzed the revenue streams for their cutting board product line and researched the market in Boston, as part of a group of five consultants. Through this experience, I was able to showcase my critical thinking skills by restructuring the business's financial model. Looking at sales trends and time series, I was able to pinpoint the distribution channel that made the most revenue and had the most potential for growth and was able to give the client two major recommendations. Through financial forecasting, I was able to calculate an expected increase in revenue by more than $10,000 by implementing the recommendations.
Fast-paced perfectionist: I have always displayed a careful approach to my position at Gray Associates by working on many projects that require a high level of attention to detail. I was challenged by being introduced to an unfamiliar market so I had to familiar myself with the industry very quickly. As an analyst, I conducted analysis on the higher education market for 3 clients using IPEDS and BLS data. Through this analysis, I prepared slide decks of competitive analyses and market growth rates. This involved interaction with the partner, CEO, and consultants of Gray Associates.
While my resume provides a history of my past experiences, there is considerably more to share, and I hope to arrange a time to meet, so that I can learn more about what your company needs and how I can help bring great success to us both.
Sincerely,
Je Hak (Jerry) Lee
Lee identified two things that he thinks helped him stand out during his interview with Google. The first was conducting industry research related to the company.
"I made sure I knew the relevant keywords and buzzwords and used them in my interview answers," he said.
Lee also turned to the "Daily Tech Headlines" podcast and TechCrunch each day beforehand to prepare.
"I remember I used an example where Facebook launched a virtual assistant as an example where tech companies were using machine learning to help users at scale," he said.
The second thing that Lee believes helped him land the internship was networking to gain insights about the role.
"I used LinkedIn to connect with previous BOLD interns and asked them for advice throughout the interview process," he said.
The most important recommendation that the other BOLD interns shared with Lee was to show his "Googleyness"— in other words, what traits he would bring to the table that made him a great fit for Google — throughout his interview.
"The way I showed my Googleyness in my interview was by providing tangible examples on how I was proactive in the process," he said.
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