Brook Gura, 21, was hoping to work at Tesla as a recruiting intern in the company’s human resources department. But her wish did not come true as the the automaker revoked her offer less than three weeks before she was supposed to start, the senior at the University of Texas at Austin told Business Insider.
Brook Gura said that she spent about three weeks interviewing with the company earlier this year before signing a contract with Tesla on February 29. She shared, “It was exciting. I was looking for a big corporate internship. And it was close by. I wouldn’t have had to relocate.”
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To work at Tesla, she turned down internship offers at other companies as well and was very excited about the compensation too- $26 an hour. She was supposed to be at Tesla for 12 weeks starting May 20 and was told that he would get more information about picking up a company laptop the first week of May.
And then came layoffs at Tesla…
Tesla announced layoffs last month that would affect 10% of the company’s workforce. This did not worry Brook Gura in the beginning as she thought, “Interns are relatively cheap compared to full-time employees. I figured if they were trying to cut down, I might even be working more.”
But then she got a call as well as an email from a Tesla recruiter informing her that the company had done more layoffs. Through a LinkedIn post from another intern, she realised that they had lost their offer.
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What Tesla told Brook Gura about her internship
In the “pretty short” conversation, Brook Gura said “they just explained the company was making cuts that were going to start impacting interns, and that meant me. There wasn’t any room for negotiating.”
“I was upset. This was not the only internship offer I had. I picked Tesla out of other organizations,” she said.
What Brook Gura learnt from this ordeal
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Brook Gura said that despite the ordeal, she’s trying to stay positive and look to the future.
“Taking the time to think about this, I have learned that rejection is redirection,” she wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “While I am incredibly disappointed that I will not have the summer I intended to have, I know that this moment will only help me grow stronger as a professional. What bummed me out the most is I didn’t even have the chance to showcase my skills.”
