The fully virtual internship format provided more opportunity for growth and connection for today’s future workforce, equipping them with transferable skills and a pathway for success, writes Maura Quinn, assistant vice president, campus recruiting programs at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
This spring’s unexpected overnight shift to a remote, distributed workforce gave companies everywhere little time to prepare their employees for the changes that were to come. While many employees have worked remotely at some point over the past few years, gaining experience with the quirks and challenges associated with working from home along the way, new college graduates just starting out in their careers have no prior experience working remotely and were forced to enter a brand-new workforce with very little knowledge on how to best succeed.
The companies that chose to quickly pivot and forge ahead with their internship programs, albeit in a completely virtual environment, faced many new challenges in the recruitment and onboarding process, going above and beyond to make candidates feel welcomed and included over a computer screen. However, along with these challenges came myriad benefits that didn’t exist in a pre-COVID-19 world, leading some companies to lean into remote internships and recruiting programs for the foreseeable future. This piece will examine the benefits of fully remote internship programs, and why companies should consider continuing parts of their programs.
Reaching Candidates From Different Backgrounds
While most companies already had their internship roster filled when COVID-19 hit, shifting to virtual onboarding and summer programming in 2020 positioned managers well for recruiting interns for the 2021 program. Instead of being limited to a select group of schools for the annual on-campus recruitment conferences and events, the virtual landscape presents companies with an unprecedented opportunity to engage with a range of colleges and student bodies that are free from geographic boundaries. No longer constrained by budgetary or personnel limitations, recruiters can expand their talent pipeline beyond the large or local college pool to reach smaller and more remote colleges that either don’t hold on-campus recruiting events or if they did, the events were too small for companies to allocate travel resources toward.
The virtual approach also opened up the door for companies like Liberty Mutual Insurance to connect with students at trade schools and other non-traditional institutions, as well as different geographic locations, which helped increase the diversity of the candidate pool. This exposure gave many candidates a more equal chance for potential employment, breaking down the barriers like location and resources that may have prevented career opportunities, in a pre-COVID-19 physical setting.
Learn More: 4 Best Practices for Technical Hiring at Startups in a Distributed Workforce
Cost Savings in Recruiting
Switching from on-campus to virtual recruitment processes saved companies money that they would have used for recruitment travel and sponsorships of university career fairs and conferences. When the workforce went virtual this past year, Liberty Mutual Insurance reallocated these resources to set up interns with functioning virtual offices at home and to provide support to college career education centers that were one of the first areas to see funding cuts.
Whether on-campus or virtual, career services centers play an important role in preparing students for their careers and many organizations stepped up to ensure that this critical on-campus resource survived.
Learn More: 4 Tips for Recruiting Top Talent During a Pandemic and Building Back Better than Before
Emphasis on Mentorship and Connection
If there ever were a time that cultivating connectivity in the workplace is important, it would be now. Many interns participating in remote internships this past summer were in a unique position as most had never even set foot in their physical office or met their colleagues in person. Luckily, with the shift to a remote, distributed workforce, many companies put mentorship and learning and developmentOpens a new window initiatives at the forefront to ensure these junior employees felt engaged and included.
Creating connection points took on greater importance this year when interns and employees alike struggled with the dual challenge presented by a global pandemic and domestic racial injustice. Liberty Mutual Insurance met this challenge by giving our employee resource groups a larger role in our internship program, ensuring that in addition to an intern’s assigned advisor, they would have connections with mentors and advisors who may better reflect their own experience. The virtual format allowed interns across the country to engage directly and frequently with employee resource group members who hold senior leadership positions across the company in a way that would not have been possible in-person.
Reinforcing connection points also helps recreate manager interaction that is so easy in a physical office setting, where managers pop by an employee’s desk, touch base, and then potentially go the rest of the day without connecting, feeling confident they’re on the right track. Leaning into virtual, managers have had to switch to more frequent check-ins throughout the day to counter the difficulty in gauging an employee’s well-being remotely. A benefit of these more frequent communication touchpoints is that it gives managers more opportunities to mentor and connect with new employees.
Learn More: Â How to Level Up Mentors for Virtual Mentoring Success
Looking Forward
With all the workplace challenges COVID-19 created, it has also unlocked a legion of perks, leading companies big and small, to continue with some form of a virtual format for years to come. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that having a growth mindset, being adaptable, and being tech savvy are really great qualities to look for in our candidates and the future of the workforce.
How do you think the virtual internship format can provide more opportunity for growth and connection for today’s future workforce? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window .