Marketing, Technology Skills Helped Stevens Student Stand out at ICIMS
Without Analytics-Focused Classes, 'I Wouldn't Have Been Qualified for This Position,' Jimmy Flaherty Says
If he hadn’t chosen to pursue his business degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, Jimmy Flaherty said he would have been unqualified for the exciting internship he completed this summer with iCIMS.
At iCIMS, a software company in Matawan, NJ, Flaherty researched the efficacy of account-based marketing ads, researching whether a third-party provider’s technology solution could get the company’s message in front of the right decision-makers.
“Without the technology classes that I’ve had at Stevens, I wouldn’t have been qualified for the position,” Flaherty, a senior in the Business & Technology program, said. “A lot of the projects I did involved Excel — taking data that we had from our marketing campaigns, putting it into Excel and presenting it in a way that was actionable and insightful. The Excel background I got here just put me so far forward in that respect.”
A strategic, technology-centric internship
ICIMS sells recruiting software to companies to help them track and manage job applications, and onboard new hires. The company has a long track record of success selling to small and midsize firms, and is now turning its attention to enterprise-level customers. Flaherty’s responsibilities were in marketing and business development, but he played a more strategic role in weighing how account-based marketing ads could help iCIMS make inroads with those bigger companies.
In doing so, he again relied heavily on his Stevens coursework, especially the presentation skills he cultivated in Dr. George Calhoun’s classes.
“Professor Calhoun has us come in on Saturdays, in suits and ties, to give formal presentations to seasoned professionals,” Flaherty said. “Without that experience, I probably would have been more nervous leading discussions at iCIMS.”
Dr. Calhoun’s classes also made him comfortable with companies across industries — crucial at a place like iCIMS, which does business with clients in every category.
“At Stevens, you learn about companies across every industry, through presentations, reading the Wall Street Journal every day, and so on,” Flaherty said. “Three of the big categories we focused on at iCIMS were manufacturing, technology and retail, so knowing about the companies in those spaces and the challenges they face was very helpful.”
Flaherty, who completed an internship with Johnson & Johnson last summer, also credited his work with Sigma Phi Epsilon and his role as a student ambassador for the School of Business with giving him confidence in public presentations.
The marketing technology Flaherty was investigating during his internship is considered some of the most advanced available. Account-based marketing tools allow a company to track who at a company has seen an advertisement or promotion, how long he or she interacted with it, and what that person did with it. That can be used to help a company write white papers that get better engagement with the audience, but it also helps the sales staff know what talking points are likely to resonate when they get on the phone with the client.
“The capabilities are incredible,” said Flaherty, who scheduled software demos with key players at iCIMS after completing his research on the platform’s viability. “My coworkers told me they’re confident a tool like this can really help the strategic segment going forward.”
A passion for international business
Beyond marketing and business development, Flaherty said international business is a passion of his. In fact, he spent the spring semester studying abroad in Ireland, where he took four international business courses at University College Dublin.
“I really enjoyed studying abroad,” he said. “I got to do a lot of travel, which was great, but the courses were interesting, too. They were more research-based — less traditional homework and more research papers and research presentations.”
While iCIMS is no stranger to Stevens — it’s a regular recruiter at career fairs, which draw hundreds of companies to the Hoboken, NJ, campus throughout the year — the company typically hires interns to do software development. In fact, a friend of Flaherty’s who did an internship at the company last summer recommended iCIMS to him.
“Hopefully, they now start looking at Stevens for their marketing positions, too,” he said. “There are definitely students here who have a uniquely valuable skill set to offer them.”