Companies with great internship programs

Their campus team also hosted a virtual event, EXECELerate, specifically for interns during their annual development summit. GM interns this summer left with not only the experience of their roles, but a strong sense of the company culture. From vaccines to toothpaste, this global healthcare company has a hand in almost every aspect of the health industry. This gave summer interns the opportunity to work across a variety of brands and projects—from helping devise marketing strategies to help people quit smoking with Nicorette, to developing a digital education program for digestive health with TUMS, to developing a new advocacy program for Flonase.

Despite their diverse experiences across different brands, interns say that their experiences all had a common thread: the ability to truly own a project, to be deeply immersed in brand marketing, and a supportive company culture, from managers to executives. Beyond the professional focus of their internship, interns also had the chance to form close bonds, participating in fun activities like virtual trivia and game nights.

This summer HP onboarded over interns on its very first virtual internship program. With this in mind, the team made sure professional development and networking were top priority in the internship program.

By making strong open communication a key component to their virtual internship strategy, HP helped students make strong and lasting connections throughout the company. IMC Trading. So IMC, a Chicago-based trading firm, wanted to ensure that their interns were still able to experience the city they would have called home that summer. On top of getting to experience local life, interns had a fulfilling summer filled with professional development. In addition to their work, interns were matched with mentors, attended chat series with senior employees to discuss their experiences, and had access to organized networking opportunities.

But, despite the mileage, they found a way to make their interns feel connected. Interns also participated in weekly virtual team meetings with coworkers scattered across different offices, an experience that an in-person internship based in a single office would not have provided, as well as Zoom happy hours, games, and cooking classes.

When organizing this new virtual experience, it was important to the team to design an experience that really captured the full LifeAtKohls experience. Alongside these more professional activities, the team made sure to also add in some fun ones like virtual yoga sessions and zoom trivia nights. Lincoln Financial Group. Lincoln interns agree that what made their virtual experience special this summer was the people. Beyond the Executive Speaker Series, where leaders talked about their career paths and how to be successful in the workplace, mentors worked on a daily basis to help interns develop in their careers.

For example, one manager scheduled time each day to help his intern learn insurance-based software, others were more than willing to schedule virtual chats with interns to talk about their career experience, regardless of their department.

Lincoln also had a job shadowing program for students to learn about different roles within the company by virtually following an employee in their duties.

Overall, interns found their colleagues, from their fellow interns to executives, transparent, accessible, and willing to go out of their way to help them grow. You might know cybersecurity corporation McAfee from those alerts that pop up on your computer warning you of hackers — but interns know it as an incredible place to work. Rather than give interns grunt work, McAfee treated them like full-fledged members of the team — allowing them not only to make significant impacts on projects, but take the lead.

Interns praise the work environment as supportive and inclusive, and shared that the company genuinely invested in their growth with things like regular constructive feedback, workshops, and seminars.

The company also went above and beyond to make the interns feel like part of the family, with activities like coffee with CEO Peter Leav, a virtual escape room, and happy hours and picnics over Microsoft Teams. Merchants Bonding Company. The Iowa-based insurance company welcomed an intimate class of four virtual interns across three different departments: information technology, commercial surety, and claims and compliance.

Through panel discussions with recently-hired Merchant employees, interns learned how to manage their time, negotiate salaries, and understand benefits packages.

For a pharmaceutical company focused on lab work, transitioning most of its interns to a remote environment is no easy task. Yet, Merck managed to exceed expectations.

Rather than running reactions in the lab, engineering and science students created their own podcasts and public information videos , and worked on Blockchain technology. To help students stay connected across departments, the company implemented an intern speaker series as well as one-on-one networking opportunities.

Their team even made sure to set up an AMA ask me anything approach with incoming students to make sure everyone knew what to expect before the start of the program. National Grid. This summer National Grid, virtually welcomed interns. The Campus to Career team mailed each student a laptop and a National Grid t-shirt to properly equip them for the work ahead.

As well as work virtually hands-on with managers on projects, this year interns were given the opportunity to support their local communities through the new Gridterns Give Back program.

This program allowed interns to have a meaningful experience helping others struggling during COVID NBC Universal. Out of the companies on this list, perhaps only NBC can claim that it made its interns famous—to celebrate national intern day, interns were featured on the Today Show.

NVIDIA hosted more than students from over universities around the world in their first virtual internship program. To make the experience as special as possible, NVIDIA offered fun team bonding experiences like virtual games shows, cook-along events, book clubs and more. These project topics ranged from display technology to computer vision to machine learning and more.

While it made many of the same efforts as other companies on this list, such as virtual game nights and a Lunch and Learn series, what set it apart was the meaningful relationships it fostered between interns and executives. Palo Alto Networks. Additionally, the interns were given hands-on learning opportunities throughout the summer both in practical tech skills such as machine learning and Python , as well as development through structured workshops on topics covering everything from building a personal brand to social engineering.

While most companies have recruiters and human resources departments to oversee summer internship programs, Paypal has an entire University Experience team devoted to making sure that interns make the most of their week program. Instead of entirely cancelling their packed calendar of in-person social and networking events, the University Experience organizers worked to create the same experience virtually, with seminars from top executives including one-on-one conversations with CTO Sri Shivananda , and an online intern conference where students were able to connect with one another and share their final projects with the entire company.

This summer, PepsiCo interns across departments put their skills together to work on projects with the potential for long-lasting change in the company. At the start of the six-week program, students were tasked with an Intern Challenge competition where teams worked on projects based around different themes relevant to the times, from driving sales during COVID to how to work more effectively at home , which they later presented to executive leadership.

Raytheon believes that a strong internship program will result in a high intern retention rate. The defense company provides an early career start for some students, with recent high school graduates given the opportunity to try their hand at problem solving with Raytheon teams. This year, our Internship Rankings highlight the top programs in 29 categories, including the Most Prestigious Internships , Best Overall Internships , Best Internships by Industry , Best Internships for Diversity , Best Internships by Employment Factor , and, new this year, Best Internships by Role , including computer science, data analytics, engineering, IT, sales and marketing, software development, and software engineering.

This past summer, Vault surveyed more than 11, current and former interns from more than internship programs. In addition to asking interns to rate and review their own internship experiences, we asked interns to rate the prestige of other employers to determine which internships are the most desirable. Interns were presented with a list of top companies and asked to rate each company on how prestigious its internship is on a scale of 1 to 10—with 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.

Vault averaged the ratings for each employer, then ranked the companies in order, starting with the highest score as No. Google ranks No. NASA takes one giant leap in the rankings this year to No. Apple falls—but not too far—to No. Survey respondents tell us that Apple, which ranked No.

Microsoft holds steady at No. Tesla soars three places to No. They offered lunches with past interns who were hired full-time so you could ask them any questions you had. They also offered lots of perks like free screenings of current films, boxing classes, Summer Fridays, and more. Vault also broke out the rankings further to include Top Internship for nine industry-specific categories:.

In addition to ranking the companies with the best internship programs, Vault discovered some interesting facts about students, internships, and the internship search:. If you have just graduated and are hoping to follow a career in engineering, then you might be feeling a little lost as to where to start. Engineering is constantly evolving, and working environments are ever-changing.

Networking Tips for International Students Like many other international students, I was very focused on the academic part of student life when I arrived in the U. In my junior year of college, I suddenly felt this job-seeking urgency. My Challenge for the Class of Dear Graduates,.

By: Vault Careers. Published: Oct 15, Google 2. Apple 3. NASA 4. Microsoft 5. Facebook 8. They described opportunities to take initiative with projects and present their business ideas to professionals.

They also mentioned how they made lasting relationships with employees at Capital One and how that proved to be one of the most beneficial parts of their internship.

Plus, these interns showed that Capital One provides a great experience for interns of any department, as they were all from different fields. Companies that are serious about attracting the best full-time candidates will invest in their interns. The programs listed above are just a snapshot of the opportunities available out there — regardless of your industry of interest, be on the lookout for the internships that can help you grow and gain meaningful experience! Resources Library Blog.

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