Student uses ‘post-it’ notes to stick out from the crowd, land internship

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    ATLANTA, GA (WGCL) — You’ve got to be creative these days when it comes to standing out for a job or internship.

One local student did just that – using basic office supplies – to grab the attention and make a lasting impression on a company he wanted to work for.

“For Georgia Tech Students, NCR is one of those companies you want to work for, because it’s right in the middle of Atlanta, right across from campus,” Gursimran Singh said.

Singh, 19, is a second-year computer science major at Georgia Tech.

He says he, and many others like him, are all vying for the same jobs.

“If you’re a CS major, everyone wishes to work at those top 10 tech companies,” Singh added.

And he was eyeing NCR, literally. As the company’s building is next door to his apartment.

“I was sitting with my friends and I have this big window, and we were just joking about this big window, right in front of NCR, and I could post post-its, and I was not at all expecting any response from them,” Singh said.

So, a few weeks ago, he put up a bunch of post it notes that read, “hire me.”

“The next morning when I woke up, “email?” was there [in post-it notes],” Singh said. “When they responded it was pretty amazing.”

Singh was blown away. He never expected a response. He immediately went to work getting his email address up.

“I asked all my friends to help me and put up my email. Putting up email in sticky notes is a big task,” joked Singh.

He borrowed all the sticky notes from his friends, then he and the company went back and forth a bit:

“DEV?” someone from NCR put up in sticky notes, asking if he was a developer.

“YES!” Singh wrote back, then provided his email.

He got a response shortly thereafter.

“On the subject line he said good posting, and it was pretty cool, then I sent him my resume, and he said he’d send it to the hiring team and they’ll contact me soon,” Singh said.

He was put on the list for interviews, and then, just last weekend, he won an award at a Georgia Tech event that NCR was sponsoring.

“There’s a lot of competition out there. I thought this could help me stand out or something,” Singh said. “It’s really impossible to be sure about something, even if you’re so good, there’s so much competition out there.”

Singh says he’s so excited for his internship at NCR next summer, and hopes this inspires others to be a little creative when it comes to going after what you want.

“There has to be a way you should stand out, maybe have something on your resume no one else has, or maybe do this,” Singh said.

NCR issued the following statement:

“NCR Corporation is a leading software-and services-led enterprise provider in the financial, retail, hospitality, telecom and technology industries. We moved to Midtown and opened our campus here in order to be close to Georgia Tech and others,” said Bill VanCuren, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, NCR Corporation. “We are pleased that NCR has become a desirable employer for talented technical individuals. We have a recruiting process that all candidates go through when starting either internships or full-time employment with NCR. One of our key strategic priorities is to innovate high quality products and solutions, and we need the best technical talent to do that.”

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