Entry Level at eBay

Michael Costigan ’13 turned an internship at eBay into a full-time job.

What began as an elevator conversation turned into an internship and then a job offer for Michael Costigan ’13 (Allentown, Pa.). By this summer he’ll be working full time at eBay as a business analyst.

In the summer of 2011, Costigan interned in New York at the global news agency Thomson Reuters. That’s where he had a 25-floor-long elevator conversation with an executive who soon moved on from Thomson Reuters. But when Costigan contacted him at his new company—eBay—about an internship there, the wheels were already greased.

By last summer he was spending 12 weeks in San Jose, Calif., working for an eBay team called Emerging Verticals, which develops strategy for new categories on the global e-commerce giant’s site. He and his boss created the strategy for a new category, gained upper management’s approval, and the category will soon go live, according to Costigan.

Although armed with a political science major, a few economics courses, and some solid Excel experience, Costigan was nevertheless surprised by the amount of responsibility he was given at eBay. “I had a meeting with the CEO to explain my work and I was fielding questions from upper management throughout the summer,” he says.

Costigan received a job offer on his last day of summer work, and soon accepted. Until he officially joins the company in July, he’s working 10 to 15 hours a week for the Emerging Verticals team and receiving emails that keep him in the loop. 

From his experience, Costigan has some advice for job hunters: “Meet and talk to as many people as possible. No matter what field you want to go into, you’ll find that adults love to buy coffee for interested and ambitious young people. I drank a lot of free coffee this summer and learned so much from a diverse set of people in the process. People love giving advice—take advantage of that.”