Alter Everything Podcast

AlteryxMatt · ‎11-05-2024

In this episode of Alter Everything, host Matt Rotundo interviews Bennett Montrose, a Wesleyan University senior and intern at Fender, on his journey with Alteryx in data analytics. Bennett shares how he tackled data challenges, saved time, and progressed from a beginner to an advanced user. He also offers networking tips for internships, advice for aspiring data scientists, and insights into his future in data science and analytics.

Panelists

Bennett Montrose, Mathematics and Economics Student @ Wesleyan University - LinkedIn

Matt Rotundo, Associate Engagement Engineer @ Alteryx - @AlteryxMatt, LinkedIn

Topics

Ep 171 (YT thumb).png

Transcription

Episode Transcription

Ep 171 Optimizing with Alteryx as a Student Intern

[00:00:00] Matt Rotundo: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Matt Rotundo, associate Engagement Engineer at Alteryx. In this episode, I chat with Bennett Montrose, a student at Wesleyan University, about his internship at Fender, how he solved data challenges with Alteryx, advice for other students looking for internships and more.

Let's get started.

Okay. Hi everyone. Today I am joined by Bennett. Bennett, thanks for taking some time to meet with us today. Do you want to go ahead, give yourself a little introduction, tell us who you are, anything that you think people might wanna know about you?

[00:00:45] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, absolutely, Matt. My name is Bennett Montrose and I am currently a senior at Wesleyan University.

I am a math and economics double major, and I'm from Arizona. Some other kind of fun facts about me are that I am on the club volleyball team here at Wesleyan, and I'm actually the captain. That's one thing I do a lot for fun. But this past summer I did an internship at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, where I was a finance intern.

And I think that's a little bit about what we're gonna be talking about today.

[00:01:15] Matt Rotundo: Awesome. Super cool about the volleyball. That's a really nice way to supplement your studies there.

[00:01:22] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We're not the best, but we're getting better.

[00:01:25] Matt Rotundo: That's all that matters. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your time at a Fender, your, you know, main project that you wanna talk about.

[00:01:33] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, so I started working at Fender this past summer. I had a really great time. I really love my coworkers and I'd say that the main thing I was focusing on was this one project where. I was trying to automate the commissions for sales representatives, selling guitars and other musical instruments from vendor.

Basically during that process, I just used Alteryx as a method to prevent lots of time spent in Excel worksheets and manually inputting data just so that we could start shifting to a more business oriented and thought provoking focus on what we could be doing better as opposed to just doing number manipulations.

[00:02:15] Matt Rotundo: Did you go into this internship thinking that you'd be automating and saving so much time on these processes or. What were your thoughts entering this internship?

[00:02:25] Bennett Montrose: So I guess in some ways yes, and in some ways no, because when I was interviewing for the internship, I was told what the projects that I'd be working on were, but I.

In my head, I, I was just honestly thinking that there was just no way I was gonna be able to do it. Especially, I really hadn't used Alteryx and I've done, I've had a bit of programming in my background, but I am not like a Wizard program or any of that. So when I was told that I was going to be working on commissions, I didn't necessarily think that it was going to get done.

But after spending some time at Fender and getting my hands dirty with Alteryx. I definitely achieved the goals that I wanted.

[00:03:03] Matt Rotundo: So by the end of your internship, what was your realized value of the implementations that you made to the company?

[00:03:11] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, yeah. By the end, I presented my work and I talked about what the benefits were, and one of the huge things is that this commissions process together takes about seven or more hours every single month.

It's at the month end close, which is a very stressful time for accountants. So you would rather not be spending seven or more hours just typing in numbers when you could be doing all of the other things in close and. All of the workbooks. There was about 18 workbooks, and by the end I think I got through about seven of them and created videos as well as templates for the rest so that it could be completed when I left.

So I'd estimate that I saved about three hours off of each month in the month end, close, especially because I targeted the hardest workbooks. So I'd say I did a good chunk of 'em.

[00:04:03] Matt Rotundo: Yeah, that time at the end of the month, I'm sure they're very appreciative of. It's a stressful time.

[00:04:10] Bennett Montrose: Totally. Yeah,

[00:04:10] Matt Rotundo: it definitely is.

I know you touched a little bit on how you didn't have a very technical background and then going in and using Alteryx to make changes very soon after you got to the company. Would you say that the ease of use is your favorite part about. The platform or do you have any other insight onto your favorite part of the platform?

[00:04:36] Bennett Montrose: Totally. I had two. I'm honestly one of Alteryx's biggest fans after this internship. There's two things that I really loved about Alteryx. The first, yeah, a hundred percent. It's so easy to pick up if you just spend 10 minutes on it. And you have a project in mind or a goal that you're working toward and you just fiddle around and look up and play around, you'll get the job done so quickly and you'll figure it out.

And it all is very intuitive. And maybe I'm just saying that because I am like a math major, so it makes some sense to me. But that is definitely one of my favorite components of Alteryx. You can error handle in Alteryx. You can have it connect to real time editing. Things like Google Drive. And I thought that was really awesome and it can pull from recent data through like we were using Redshift at Fender.

We could be changing the system in real time, even though the system was set up months ago, but also we connected to email. That was honestly one of the greatest tools, not having to send an email out every time something gets done and just having it automatically be sent out. That was great. Yeah, so it, it was really awesome being able to get this data from Redshift, and again, because this is a monthly process and it's an accounting process for commissions, and we're reporting about the commission payouts for representatives every month.

Obviously their sales are getting made each month. So to have that in an Excel sheet or put that in ourselves would be really tedious. So it was really great having kind of a master database with Redshift and having Alteryx automatically pull from that each month. But then as our information flowed through, it eventually got to this area where we had a Google Drive, and this was one of the greatest parts I think of this workflow, was that commissions and payouts.

Could change at any instant. It could change any month. It could change from year to year. Their commission structure could change. The percentage that they get on a certain product line could change. The representative themself could be a different representative, or we could add a different representative.

And all of these things were initially preventing fender, or at least making fender more weary of creating an automated process because. In everyone's head, we were like, oh, this is all gonna change over time. So we need something to actively change, which we thought was only manual input. However, when we connected it to a Google Drive, I allowed for there to be specific input areas for the information that was most likely to change.

For example, commission structure and someone's base pay, say they got like a raise or the next year they had a different base pay that would change their bonus payout. So. Those things. I gave the opportunity to manually input. However, the other great thing about having this Google Drive is that if nothing changed, you don't have to touch the Google Drive.

It's not like every month you need to go do something. It just stays there unchanged until you need to change it. Which in the end takes away the need to manually input everything, but also gives you the opportunity to fix something or, or change something if there's a drastic change in the structure of a project.

And then last but not least, the email part. And I know I, I talked about it quickly, but yeah, this is one of my favorite tools, mostly just 'cause I thought it was so cool. That when I would finish an Excel workbook or something like that, it, it would just automatically get sent to someone and I really liked that because it took all the pressure off of me to send a bunch of emails as well.

So that was really cool.

[00:08:19] Matt Rotundo: One person, you know, just learning the platform is able to provide so many other people with time savings and automation that can stand the test of time and be edited is. Such a great value, especially because of the limited amount of time that you were actually there. It really is pretty incredible that you were able to jump in.

Thank you. Do all of this stuff and then jump back out and that will be your legacy at Fender for as long as it shall live, but

[00:08:54] Bennett Montrose: oh wow. That's very nice. Thank you. I think also to, to tag on to Alteryx, I think is very easy to pick up. You can learn it really quickly. I. However, there are just some people on every team that not everyone is going to be a master of Alteryx, and there are gonna be some people in the accounting department at any company who may have some experience with Alteryx, but if it's not their workflow, they don't know the workflow as well, or changing it would be more difficult.

So what I think was really cool about having this Google Drive was that it was just very accessible for people to change if they hadn't or if they were uncomfortable with using Alteryx. And it also was. Part of the reason why this project was able to move forward because then it became able for everyone in the accounting team to make changes if they were uncomfortable.

[00:09:45] Matt Rotundo: Awesome. Very happy to see the lasting power of that. Going into this internship, were you completely just self-taught? Were there like resources that you used or anywhere that you found useful information to teach yourself how to use it?

[00:10:01] Bennett Montrose: I was, I would say mostly self-taught. However, there were two main resources that I had.

The first being that I had a Udemy course and working on Udemy and just learning a little bit there was great. I. But at the end of the day, I gained a lot more from just personally trying things out. And then the other biggest resource was that one of my coworkers, Megan, he was just such a great resource for me to, to work with.

He was so good at Alteryx, it was crazy. I would think that something would be impossible. And I'd come to him and he'd be like, well, there's actually 10 different ways of solving this problem. I'd say the combination of the Udemy. Just learning about it myself and having Megan to be a help for me was the best way to approach it.

[00:10:48] Matt Rotundo: So going into starting an internship and immediately thinking, okay, like where can I start? Where can I like, make my mark? Where can I make an impact? And clearly you did make your impact by the end of your internship. Do you think that having that kind of mindset and then immediately having a tool that seemingly can do just anything that you want has changed your approach when looking at new problems or getting faced with new information?

[00:11:18] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, a hundred percent. Doing pivot tables and manipulating data can be so tedious using Alteryx and seeing what I was able to do at Fender in. Such a short time, I was only there for eight weeks. And being able to get through all of these processes and using Alteryx to do it really proved to me how easy data manipulation can be if given the right tools.

So it's, it's most certainly gonna be something I use in the future because I'd rather not spend 20 plus hours doing pivot tables when I could just use like a join tool or the Alteryx dashboard.

[00:11:57] Matt Rotundo: So speaking of the future, moving forward, any career opportunities that you look forward, do you think that you will utilize the platform or really have that to bring to the table anywhere you go?

[00:12:11] Bennett Montrose: A hundred percent. First and foremost, learning Alteryx is not only a skill in and of itself that I have this Alteryx experience, but it also is such a logical platform. I think being able to display that Alteryx skills and knowledge has been just like a really good tool for me to have, and it's helped me grow and just learn more in general about data manipulation.

As well. I really hope to find a job where I can utilize Alteryx in the future because I know how good Alteryx is now, and there's no way I'm going back to Excel

[00:12:48] Matt Rotundo: and that now you have the results to back it up, right? So right. That's gonna be useful in the future, going to different careers and. Saying, Hey, I did this here with Alteryx.

Let's see what I can do for you guys using what I've learned and my knowledge of the platform in Alteryx. So that's a big bargaining chip for you moving forward.

[00:13:10] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, I sure hope. So,

[00:13:11] Matt Rotundo: after your internship experience going through it and now you're back in school, what advice do you have for your fellow college students that may be looking for an internship?

Maybe they don't know. Where to start, what to look for. What advice would you give them to help them on their internship journey?

[00:13:35] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm still figuring some of the tools out myself as I'm going through college. But I'd say the biggest thing that really helped me in landing this internship and learning more here was utilizing my own personal network.

I think there's a big emphasis on going through LinkedIn and doing all these things, and those are still like an amazing tool and I still do those things and I highly recommend them and they can give you so many leads, but we shouldn't throw out our own friends and family members when looking for jobs because.

Sometimes it's the people that are closest to you that you just forget about and you don't realize that is a network you already have and you've already put the work in creating those relationships. So I think it can be a really great resource and it's often overlooked.

[00:14:24] Matt Rotundo: I completely agree. I think the best part about networking is that it's free.

Totally. And that anyone can make a LinkedIn account. Anyone can reach out to their own personal network, doesn't cost anything to at least try, ask around, see what people have to say. So I. I think that's really good advice, especially for college people that have so many different classes with so many different people.

You know it, have a study group, go talk to your professors, see what they have to say about networking. It's a great way to get around.

[00:14:58] Bennett Montrose: Yeah. College is itself a network of people and I even find myself still like reaching out to distant places to start a network when it's right in front of me. So I found that to be just eyeopening when I got this internship.

[00:15:14] Matt Rotundo: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. For those lucky students that do take your advice and get that internship, what advice would you have once they start their role? Any first day going into it? What do you think that should be? Top of mind for them?

[00:15:31] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, this is a great question and I wish I could hear myself answer this question back when I was starting my internship, but.

I guess my biggest piece of advice is just to really be focused on how much you're gonna learn and grow, put in good work and care about your work, of course. But it's really great to realize that the internship is also about preparing yourself for the workforce and becoming better at what you're interested in.

I guess what comes with that is maybe don't freak out if you have a lot to do, because you can do it. You'll get through it, but. At the end of the day, you're an intern and you've got a big support system to help you through your process because at the end of the day is it's a learning experience.

[00:16:19] Matt Rotundo: Yeah.

A lot of people might be surprised how much you can actually learn and experience in eight weeks at a company. It's like a trial run of working full-time and being in a business environment, going to meeting, going to all hands, interfacing with bosses and coworkers and other teams, and. It really is a great way to get yourself prepared for that next step, maybe after school or wherever life takes you.

[00:16:49] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, and I'd say also to add on to what I was saying a little bit before too, definitely make friends with your coworkers and be a happy face around work because I'd say that I was so, so appreciative when I was done with my internship at Fender. To be leaving with people that I had not only made connections with, but also just really enjoyed working with and had such a good time with, and it made my process just a lot more exciting and fun.

I'd say that there was. Not very, I had not many regrets from my decision at Fender. It was a pretty great time.

[00:17:26] Matt Rotundo: Well, I'm happy to hear that that's always the desired outcome of any internship. Yeah. So looking forward to the future of your Alteryx career, what are some of your goals moving forward with the platform?

[00:17:42] Bennett Montrose: First and foremost, I am really interested in getting some Alteryx certifications. Just because I, I would love to have something to show for my knowledge of Alteryx, and I know that I have a little bit to show with my work at Fender, but a certification would really mean a lot to me, and so I'd love to work on that as well.

I'm an economics and math double major at Wesleyan, so I'm working with data all the time. And it's a goal of mine to just continue to use Alteryx and keep up with my interest in Alteryx and make sure that I don't lose touch with it, which I know I won't because it's transformed the way that I manipulate data.

So those are, I'd say my two biggest goals.

[00:18:28] Matt Rotundo: Yeah. Certification is a great way to show your prowess with the platform, especially because you can show it off on your LinkedIn. I am core certified. I'm advanced certified. I know what I'm doing. I didn't just fire it up yesterday, but even if you did, it's very easy to jump in.

And there are the micro credentials where they're a little bit more condensed and smaller and easier to take if you have a certain amount of knowledge on the platform. So we'll put some certification resources in the show notes of this episode. Well, Bennett, thank you so much for your time and your advice and for joining us on the Alter Everything podcast.

We really appreciate. Your expertise, and I'm sure a lot of students will get a good kick out of the information that you had to share with them.

[00:19:20] Bennett Montrose: Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt. It was a pleasure to be on here, and I'm really happy to be able to share some of the work I did. It was really cool.

[00:19:29] Matt Rotundo: Thanks for listening.

To learn more about our Sparked program and the resources it has for students, head over to our show notes on alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

Ep 171 Optimizing with Alteryx as a Student Intern [00:00:00] Matt Rotundo: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Matt Rotundo, associate Engagement Engineer at Alteryx. In this episode, I chat with Bennett Montrose, a student at Wesleyan University, about his internship at Fender, how he solved data challenges with Alteryx, advice for other students looking for internships and more. Let's get started. Okay. Hi everyone. Today I am joined by Bennett. Bennett, thanks for taking some time to meet with us today. Do you want to go ahead, give yourself a little introduction, tell us who you are, anything that you think people might wanna know about you? [00:00:45] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, absolutely, Matt. My name is Bennett Montrose and I am currently a senior at Wesleyan University. I am a math and economics double major, and I'm from Arizona. Some other kind of fun facts about me are that I am on the club volleyball team here at Wesleyan, and I'm actually the captain. That's one thing I do a lot for fun. But this past summer I did an internship at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, where I was a finance intern. And I think that's a little bit about what we're gonna be talking about today. [00:01:15] Matt Rotundo: Awesome. Super cool about the volleyball. That's a really nice way to supplement your studies there. [00:01:22] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We're not the best, but we're getting better. [00:01:25] Matt Rotundo: That's all that matters. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your time at a Fender, your, you know, main project that you wanna talk about. [00:01:33] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, so I started working at Fender this past summer. I had a really great time. I really love my coworkers and I'd say that the main thing I was focusing on was this one project where. I was trying to automate the commissions for sales representatives, selling guitars and other musical instruments from vendor. Basically during that process, I just used Alteryx as a method to prevent lots of time spent in Excel worksheets and manually inputting data just so that we could start shifting to a more business oriented and thought provoking focus on what we could be doing better as opposed to just doing number manipulations. [00:02:15] Matt Rotundo: Did you go into this internship thinking that you'd be automating and saving so much time on these processes or. What were your thoughts entering this internship? [00:02:25] Bennett Montrose: So I guess in some ways yes, and in some ways no, because when I was interviewing for the internship, I was told what the projects that I'd be working on were, but I. In my head, I, I was just honestly thinking that there was just no way I was gonna be able to do it. Especially, I really hadn't used Alteryx and I've done, I've had a bit of programming in my background, but I am not like a Wizard program or any of that. So when I was told that I was going to be working on commissions, I didn't necessarily think that it was going to get done. But after spending some time at Fender and getting my hands dirty with Alteryx. I definitely achieved the goals that I wanted. [00:03:03] Matt Rotundo: So by the end of your internship, what was your realized value of the implementations that you made to the company? [00:03:11] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, yeah. By the end, I presented my work and I talked about what the benefits were, and one of the huge things is that this commissions process together takes about seven or more hours every single month. It's at the month end close, which is a very stressful time for accountants. So you would rather not be spending seven or more hours just typing in numbers when you could be doing all of the other things in close and. All of the workbooks. There was about 18 workbooks, and by the end I think I got through about seven of them and created videos as well as templates for the rest so that it could be completed when I left. So I'd estimate that I saved about three hours off of each month in the month end, close, especially because I targeted the hardest workbooks. So I'd say I did a good chunk of 'em. [00:04:03] Matt Rotundo: Yeah, that time at the end of the month, I'm sure they're very appreciative of. It's a stressful time. [00:04:10] Bennett Montrose: Totally. Yeah, [00:04:10] Matt Rotundo: it definitely is. I know you touched a little bit on how you didn't have a very technical background and then going in and using Alteryx to make changes very soon after you got to the company. Would you say that the ease of use is your favorite part about. The platform or do you have any other insight onto your favorite part of the platform? [00:04:36] Bennett Montrose: Totally. I had two. I'm honestly one of Alteryx's biggest fans after this internship. There's two things that I really loved about Alteryx. The first, yeah, a hundred percent. It's so easy to pick up if you just spend 10 minutes on it. And you have a project in mind or a goal that you're working toward and you just fiddle around and look up and play around, you'll get the job done so quickly and you'll figure it out. And it all is very intuitive. And maybe I'm just saying that because I am like a math major, so it makes some sense to me. But that is definitely one of my favorite components of Alteryx. You can error handle in Alteryx. You can have it connect to real time editing. Things like Google Drive. And I thought that was really awesome and it can pull from recent data through like we were using Redshift at Fender. We could be changing the system in real time, even though the system was set up months ago, but also we connected to email. That was honestly one of the greatest tools, not having to send an email out every time something gets done and just having it automatically be sent out. That was great. Yeah, so it, it was really awesome being able to get this data from Redshift, and again, because this is a monthly process and it's an accounting process for commissions, and we're reporting about the commission payouts for representatives every month. Obviously their sales are getting made each month. So to have that in an Excel sheet or put that in ourselves would be really tedious. So it was really great having kind of a master database with Redshift and having Alteryx automatically pull from that each month. But then as our information flowed through, it eventually got to this area where we had a Google Drive, and this was one of the greatest parts I think of this workflow, was that commissions and payouts. Could change at any instant. It could change any month. It could change from year to year. Their commission structure could change. The percentage that they get on a certain product line could change. The representative themself could be a different representative, or we could add a different representative. And all of these things were initially preventing fender, or at least making fender more weary of creating an automated process because. In everyone's head, we were like, oh, this is all gonna change over time. So we need something to actively change, which we thought was only manual input. However, when we connected it to a Google Drive, I allowed for there to be specific input areas for the information that was most likely to change. For example, commission structure and someone's base pay, say they got like a raise or the next year they had a different base pay that would change their bonus payout. So. Those things. I gave the opportunity to manually input. However, the other great thing about having this Google Drive is that if nothing changed, you don't have to touch the Google Drive. It's not like every month you need to go do something. It just stays there unchanged until you need to change it. Which in the end takes away the need to manually input everything, but also gives you the opportunity to fix something or, or change something if there's a drastic change in the structure of a project. And then last but not least, the email part. And I know I, I talked about it quickly, but yeah, this is one of my favorite tools, mostly just 'cause I thought it was so cool. That when I would finish an Excel workbook or something like that, it, it would just automatically get sent to someone and I really liked that because it took all the pressure off of me to send a bunch of emails as well. So that was really cool. [00:08:19] Matt Rotundo: One person, you know, just learning the platform is able to provide so many other people with time savings and automation that can stand the test of time and be edited is. Such a great value, especially because of the limited amount of time that you were actually there. It really is pretty incredible that you were able to jump in. Thank you. Do all of this stuff and then jump back out and that will be your legacy at Fender for as long as it shall live, but [00:08:54] Bennett Montrose: oh wow. That's very nice. Thank you. I think also to, to tag on to Alteryx, I think is very easy to pick up. You can learn it really quickly. I. However, there are just some people on every team that not everyone is going to be a master of Alteryx, and there are gonna be some people in the accounting department at any company who may have some experience with Alteryx, but if it's not their workflow, they don't know the workflow as well, or changing it would be more difficult. So what I think was really cool about having this Google Drive was that it was just very accessible for people to change if they hadn't or if they were uncomfortable with using Alteryx. And it also was. Part of the reason why this project was able to move forward because then it became able for everyone in the accounting team to make changes if they were uncomfortable. [00:09:45] Matt Rotundo: Awesome. Very happy to see the lasting power of that. Going into this internship, were you completely just self-taught? Were there like resources that you used or anywhere that you found useful information to teach yourself how to use it? [00:10:01] Bennett Montrose: I was, I would say mostly self-taught. However, there were two main resources that I had. The first being that I had a Udemy course and working on Udemy and just learning a little bit there was great. I. But at the end of the day, I gained a lot more from just personally trying things out. And then the other biggest resource was that one of my coworkers, Megan, he was just such a great resource for me to, to work with. He was so good at Alteryx, it was crazy. I would think that something would be impossible. And I'd come to him and he'd be like, well, there's actually 10 different ways of solving this problem. I'd say the combination of the Udemy. Just learning about it myself and having Megan to be a help for me was the best way to approach it. [00:10:48] Matt Rotundo: So going into starting an internship and immediately thinking, okay, like where can I start? Where can I like, make my mark? Where can I make an impact? And clearly you did make your impact by the end of your internship. Do you think that having that kind of mindset and then immediately having a tool that seemingly can do just anything that you want has changed your approach when looking at new problems or getting faced with new information? [00:11:18] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, a hundred percent. Doing pivot tables and manipulating data can be so tedious using Alteryx and seeing what I was able to do at Fender in. Such a short time, I was only there for eight weeks. And being able to get through all of these processes and using Alteryx to do it really proved to me how easy data manipulation can be if given the right tools. So it's, it's most certainly gonna be something I use in the future because I'd rather not spend 20 plus hours doing pivot tables when I could just use like a join tool or the Alteryx dashboard. [00:11:57] Matt Rotundo: So speaking of the future, moving forward, any career opportunities that you look forward, do you think that you will utilize the platform or really have that to bring to the table anywhere you go? [00:12:11] Bennett Montrose: A hundred percent. First and foremost, learning Alteryx is not only a skill in and of itself that I have this Alteryx experience, but it also is such a logical platform. I think being able to display that Alteryx skills and knowledge has been just like a really good tool for me to have, and it's helped me grow and just learn more in general about data manipulation. As well. I really hope to find a job where I can utilize Alteryx in the future because I know how good Alteryx is now, and there's no way I'm going back to Excel [00:12:48] Matt Rotundo: and that now you have the results to back it up, right? So right. That's gonna be useful in the future, going to different careers and. Saying, Hey, I did this here with Alteryx. Let's see what I can do for you guys using what I've learned and my knowledge of the platform in Alteryx. So that's a big bargaining chip for you moving forward. [00:13:10] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, I sure hope. So, [00:13:11] Matt Rotundo: after your internship experience going through it and now you're back in school, what advice do you have for your fellow college students that may be looking for an internship? Maybe they don't know. Where to start, what to look for. What advice would you give them to help them on their internship journey? [00:13:35] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm still figuring some of the tools out myself as I'm going through college. But I'd say the biggest thing that really helped me in landing this internship and learning more here was utilizing my own personal network. I think there's a big emphasis on going through LinkedIn and doing all these things, and those are still like an amazing tool and I still do those things and I highly recommend them and they can give you so many leads, but we shouldn't throw out our own friends and family members when looking for jobs because. Sometimes it's the people that are closest to you that you just forget about and you don't realize that is a network you already have and you've already put the work in creating those relationships. So I think it can be a really great resource and it's often overlooked. [00:14:24] Matt Rotundo: I completely agree. I think the best part about networking is that it's free. Totally. And that anyone can make a LinkedIn account. Anyone can reach out to their own personal network, doesn't cost anything to at least try, ask around, see what people have to say. So I. I think that's really good advice, especially for college people that have so many different classes with so many different people. You know it, have a study group, go talk to your professors, see what they have to say about networking. It's a great way to get around. [00:14:58] Bennett Montrose: Yeah. College is itself a network of people and I even find myself still like reaching out to distant places to start a network when it's right in front of me. So I found that to be just eyeopening when I got this internship. [00:15:14] Matt Rotundo: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. For those lucky students that do take your advice and get that internship, what advice would you have once they start their role? Any first day going into it? What do you think that should be? Top of mind for them? [00:15:31] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, this is a great question and I wish I could hear myself answer this question back when I was starting my internship, but. I guess my biggest piece of advice is just to really be focused on how much you're gonna learn and grow, put in good work and care about your work, of course. But it's really great to realize that the internship is also about preparing yourself for the workforce and becoming better at what you're interested in. I guess what comes with that is maybe don't freak out if you have a lot to do, because you can do it. You'll get through it, but. At the end of the day, you're an intern and you've got a big support system to help you through your process because at the end of the day is it's a learning experience. [00:16:19] Matt Rotundo: Yeah. A lot of people might be surprised how much you can actually learn and experience in eight weeks at a company. It's like a trial run of working full-time and being in a business environment, going to meeting, going to all hands, interfacing with bosses and coworkers and other teams, and. It really is a great way to get yourself prepared for that next step, maybe after school or wherever life takes you. [00:16:49] Bennett Montrose: Yeah, and I'd say also to add on to what I was saying a little bit before too, definitely make friends with your coworkers and be a happy face around work because I'd say that I was so, so appreciative when I was done with my internship at Fender. To be leaving with people that I had not only made connections with, but also just really enjoyed working with and had such a good time with, and it made my process just a lot more exciting and fun. I'd say that there was. Not very, I had not many regrets from my decision at Fender. It was a pretty great time. [00:17:26] Matt Rotundo: Well, I'm happy to hear that that's always the desired outcome of any internship. Yeah. So looking forward to the future of your Alteryx career, what are some of your goals moving forward with the platform? [00:17:42] Bennett Montrose: First and foremost, I am really interested in getting some Alteryx certifications. Just because I, I would love to have something to show for my knowledge of Alteryx, and I know that I have a little bit to show with my work at Fender, but a certification would really mean a lot to me, and so I'd love to work on that as well. I'm an economics and math double major at Wesleyan, so I'm working with data all the time. And it's a goal of mine to just continue to use Alteryx and keep up with my interest in Alteryx and make sure that I don't lose touch with it, which I know I won't because it's transformed the way that I manipulate data. So those are, I'd say my two biggest goals. [00:18:28] Matt Rotundo: Yeah. Certification is a great way to show your prowess with the platform, especially because you can show it off on your LinkedIn. I am core certified. I'm advanced certified. I know what I'm doing. I didn't just fire it up yesterday, but even if you did, it's very easy to jump in. And there are the micro credentials where they're a little bit more condensed and smaller and easier to take if you have a certain amount of knowledge on the platform. So we'll put some certification resources in the show notes of this episode. Well, Bennett, thank you so much for your time and your advice and for joining us on the Alter Everything podcast. We really appreciate. Your expertise, and I'm sure a lot of students will get a good kick out of the information that you had to share with them. [00:19:20] Bennett Montrose: Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt. It was a pleasure to be on here, and I'm really happy to be able to share some of the work I did. It was really cool. [00:19:29] Matt Rotundo: Thanks for listening. To learn more about our Sparked program and the resources it has for students, head over to our show notes on alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.

Alter Everything Podcast

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171: Optimizing with Alteryx as a Student Intern

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This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.