Graduating senior Alec Bocarius landed an eight-week internship with Yelp in the summer of 2018, giving him experience in the workforce for sales and marketing. Bocarius is a business major and founding father of the fraternity Pi Kappa Phi on Sonoma State University’s campus.
The internship was based out of the Yelp headquarters in the financial district of San Francisco, where Bocarius made roughly 120 phone calls a day to businesses across the United States and managed roughly 50-60 business Yelp accounts at a time.
“Yelp was a very different feel and workplace. It was super energetic and everyone is always up to help you grow. I handled yelp business pages and managed their advertising strategies; I finished eight weeks with roughly 75 sales pitches.”
Bocarius had previously worked at a car dealership for two years until he realized he wanted to grow in the business and sales field. He began applying for anything he could find on LinkedIn, where Yelp eventually gave him a call back just two weeks before the internship position was set to begin.
After the eight week internship, Yelp offered Bocarius a full-time position, but the experience helped Bocarius grow into better career offers at other companies, although he hasn’t yet graduated from Sonoma State.
“I would have never gotten sales experience if I wasn’t put into a position I was not comfortable in [at the Yelp internship]. The experience at Yelp helped me build communications and sales skills, and how to be personable with people as well as work efficiently. They tested my boundaries and in turn, I finished top of the interns with the most sales pitches presented to business owners.”
Bocarius’s involvement on campus is what he believes set him off for his internship and work opportunities, from the business department to his experience as a founding father of a fraternity.
“The Sonoma State business department is absolutely fantastic and professors are not only open to answering questions and help, but they are there to help us grow. Having teachers like that only motivated me more to do what I’ve been told I couldn’t all my life.”
Pi Kappa Phi was founded on April 29, 2017, and their mission statement is “to create an uncommon and lifelong brotherhood that develops leaders and encourages service to others for the betterment of our communities.”
“My favorite memory at Pi Kapp was having the ability to get us chartered and passing down such a big legacy to younger brothers. It was a huge eye-opener for me and an opportunity to build something bigger than myself on campus while also helping those in need.”
Currently, Bocarius works in a remote sales position for a manufacturing and sales company called AGM Global Vision. He spends six to seven months out of the year traveling to major cities in the U.S. for trade shows and hopes to achieve even higher career goals in the coming year.
“This next year I am hoping to achieve sales goals past $40,000 in commission for the whole year. I expect to go full time in January and am traveling to Las Vegas, Reno, Dallas, Malaysia, London, and Brazil.”
Alec looks forward to graduation in the spring and going full-time at his current job in 2020.
