Southwestern Advantage Blog

Southwestern Advantage - A Member of Southwestern Family of Companies Our Family of Companies features  over 20 brands  that serve businesses and consumers through financial services, consulting, real estate, fundraising, insurance, direct sales, executive placement and more. Southwestern Advantage is the founding company (1855), providing America's oldest entrepreneurial program for university students (1868). Participants of the program regularly find career opportunities within Southwestern Advantage and our  Southwestern Family of Companies . AWARDS & RECOGNITION 1,500+ participants from 200+ campuses and 20+ countries  each year Winner of the  CEIA  Charles F. Kettering Award for  Top Internship in the U.S.  - presented to Southwestern Advantage and Dr. Ralph Brigham, our Global Director of Campus Relations Recognized by the industry experts at  WayUp  as one of the nation's  Top 100 Internship Programs Recogni...

As a college student, you know internships are important. You know there are many to choose from. So, how will you find the right one for you? How will you become the right person for them ? How will your internship springboard you into a fulfilling post-grad career? Let’s start here... 3 Qualities of a Great Internship Challenge You may have expected “experience” to be first on the list, so why would challenge rank higher? Ask yourself this – wouldn’t the more challenging internships offer you better experience by default? Wouldn’t a future employer be more interested in your history of taking on challenges? The fact is, dealing with challenge is synonymous with meaningful experience. The bigger the challenges the better the experience. Don’t be fooled by that “internship in the fashion industry” where the day-to-day responsibility is to fold t-shirts at the mall, or the glamorous experience interning in Manhattan on Wall Street where the day-to-day responsibility is to pou...

A big congratulations to our Student Excellence Award winner, Hannah Riesberg !

one of the best pieces of advice i’ve ever received was given by a sales manager back in my book-selling days with southwestern advantage . i was at one of our sales conferences, and we’d been listening to session after session of all of the most successful salespeople, dishing their scoop on their techniques and strategies, and how they became so successful at it. i was feeling slightly overwhelmed by all of the advice and pulled my manager aside to ask for a bit of guidance on how to figure out exactly how i should best apply all of this new advice to follow. i wanted to improve my schedule, my presentations, my referrals, my this, my that. everything! i wanted to be just like these super-successful people! and he said, “lexi, slow down. try to  emulate, not replicate . start first by   picking an attitude and an action  you could best apply to your life and your situation today .  trust that these people are indeed telling you the methods and the strate...

it’s a bummer to see people who believe that their lives, or their jobs, are not exceptional enough to be impactful; that they’re not BIG enough to make a difference.  FISH!  is a story of the philosophy of real-life fishmongers in seattle’s pike place fish market. it’s a touching tale about personal choice, energy, service, and culture; and our ability to make an impact. the beauty of its story, really, is that you can be extraordinary – at ANYTHING . you don’t have to be president or prime minister, or rich or famous to make a positive difference in the world. you can be the BEST garage attendant in town. the BEST therapist. the BEST sister-in-law. the BEST broker, or salesman, or cube-mate, or customer, or teacher, or garbage man, or HR specialist, or nurse, or movie-ticket collector!  whatever it is you spend your time on (regardless of whether or not you get paid for it), you touch people daily.  you may not touch millions of people at one time, but your ...

There is a guy on my swim team who is brutally uninteresting. You're probably imagining a quiet, shy person who can't make eye contact and hardly ever says a word. Wrong.  This fellow is talkative, chatty, and chronically outgoing. So much so that he seems to have verbal diarrhea -- he hardly takes a breath between sentences. He's an English teacher's worst nightmare, as he is the embodiment of a massive run-on sentence. You can ask him a simple harmless question like, "How was your workout?" Then you can relax, knowing that you'll never have to respond -- or even look at him for that matter -- he just launches, and talks, and talks, and talks. I've imagined people leaving the room entirely and wondering if he would notice.  So why am I sharing this? Well, to give him some credit, he really is a smart guy. It's just that he is a monologuer, a one-way communicator. He never asks questions. In fact, I can't recall him asking anythi...

Student Rep Chad from Michigan Over 200,000 families invest in education each summer through a Southwestern Advantage student rep. We've put together a photo album highlighting some of our favorite customer pictures so far from the summer of 2012.  " Families For Education " Album link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.477960385547713.110211.297627776914309&type=3 

Student Rep Anna from Vancouver Here are few more recent  reviews  we've been receiving about the Southwestern Advantage Learning System, and our student reps, that you have sent to us. As always, thank you for your kind words, and for taking the time to let us know how our products and/or our student reps have made a difference to your family.  via email to CustomerContactCenter@southwestern.com via general contact email: sw@southwestern.com via message to company Facebook page Tell us your story: Facebook.com/SouthwesternAdvantage Twitter.com/Southwestern Email : sw@southwestern.com Read July reviews here Read September reviews here Read prior reviews here