How a Georgia Tech Student Used Post-Its to Land Fortune 500 Internship Role

Usually, post-its are used for writing down ideas. In this case, the sticky notes were part of a cunning plan.

An enterprising Georgia Tech student, Gursimran Singh, used post-its to get the attention of a Fortune 500 company by writing out a message on his window from across the street.

The student's unorthodox but successful appeal for an internship shows that it's always worth taking a shot no matter how unlikely you think your chances are.

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Thinking outside the post-it note

Singh, a second-year computer science major at Georgia Tech, recently got through to NCR — a big player in point-of-sale technology for retail and hospitality — from the comfort of his room. But he didn't have anyone's number or email.

Going onto the huge company's website and finding email addresses would have most likely seen him end up as just another on the endless pile of career query emails the company likely receives.

So how did he get noticed? 

Singh turned to a very old technology: paper. As a Georgia Tech press release describes it, when the second-year student realized he could see some of NCR’s office and conference spaces from his apartment window, he got to work.

Singh placed sticky notes on his window in reverse so that they would spell out “HIRE ME” for the entire right side of the NCR offices to see.

The response?

NCR staff members clearly admired the student's efforts as they soon got back simply writing "EMAIL?" in post-its on one of the office windows.

Another message from NCR also appeared soon after in sticky note form asking, “DEV?”

Singh then got to the task of post-it writing back his email, which took up almost the entirety of his floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows.

“I spent a lot on sticky notes, but it looked pretty cool,” Singh said in the Georgia Tech release. “I was [then] contacted by a few people, including the vice president of IT,” Singh says.

“They asked me to send my resume, so I did,” he explains. 

Amazingly, Singh was added to the list of interviews for summer internships, and he seems to have aced the process as he was offered an internship which he duly accepted.

Singh's actions show that a little clever thinking is all you need to get noticed. There's no harm in throwing an idea out there and seeing if it sticks.