The road to SoBe, Pt. 1

Shena Corrado is pursuing a master’s in hospitality management at FIU. She is working as the student associate coordinator for the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Feb. 25-28, managing the assignments of 1,000 student associates. We asked Panthers such as Corrado who are working on “SoBe” to share their experiences leading up to the event.

Week of Jan. 18, 2010

Shena Corrado is the student associate coordinator for the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

My team and I are interviewing each and every one of the 1,000 students working on SoBe within a two-week period. It’s our responsibility to place them according to their interest, skill level, availability and the needs of the festival’s event managers.

To make this daunting process easier, we use a database I created last summer with FIU professor Dale Gomez. After many months of planning and fine-tuning the student interview and placement process, we were ready to go. Interviews started at 8 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 15. Our office was open ’til 7 p.m.

Early that morning I met with interviewers to go over last-minute questions before the student associates arrived and the interview process began. I supervised the first few interviews to ensure everything went well. There were a couple of students who had minor issues, so I spoke with them directly. All in all, it went rather smoothly.

My staff did a fantastic job! They asked all the appropriate questions and moved through the schedule quickly. I was very impressed.

In addition to overseeing the interview process, I spent several hours completing administrative tasks, responding to student e-mails, verifying event manager requests and updating the database with event manager additions and revisions. I also e-mailed the team of interviewers the weekly interview schedule, highlighting major points.

I left the office at 8:15 p.m., but I had more work to do at home. I e-mailed a note to the interviewers congratulating them on a great first day, along with an attachment of updates and reminders for them to follow for the rest of the interviews.

This was a good beginning, but there’s still a lot to do. SoBe is just around the corner.