Name: Derek Fein

Internship Company: Vice Media

Title: Global Sales Operations Intern

What did you do before Stern?
Associate Producer at CNN on the morning programs Early Start and New Day

What was your role over the summer?
Assisted both the Head of Global Sales Operations and CRM Product Manager with various projects in order to help support the Vice Media sales team.

What were your responsibilities?
I primarily spent my time organizing Vice's CRM platform, Salesforce, which needed thousands of duplicate accounts deleted or merged, new hierarchies implemented for global agencies, and new procedures established to avoid issues resurfacing in the future.

How did you spend your time preparing for recruiting and interviews?
Recruited mostly by networking with MBA2's and alumni who work in the industry. In preparation for recruiting, I attended as many company treks with EMSA as possible (both in NYC and LA), read daily industry newsletters (Cynopsis, Hollywood Reporter), researched companies who had previously hired Sternies in the industry, and took several EMT courses through Stern.

What experiences (if any) helped prepare you for this internship?
Knowledge of Excel was very helpful. While I wasn't necessarily always using Excel specifically, understanding how to use raw data to generate usable information for relevant parties was critical.

What was the best advice you received during the recruiting process?
Be patient. Entertainment clearly doesn't follow a traditional recruiting cycle. If you are truly passionate about working in this industry then you need to be extremely patient and trust that the right position will eventually come your way if you are actively looking.

Movie/TV recommendations:
For TV I am looking forward to the return of Billions on Showtime. In movies I recently enjoyed Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and A Star is Born.