As the weather warms up, many of our students are looking towards a major milestone in their career: their first summer internship. It’s a turning point for a college student, as that experience can give them the confidence they’re on the right career path and get them in an employer’s pipeline for future opportunities, or even full time employment. But for a lot of our students, summer internships seem impossible to land — that is, until they have a Sprinternship™ on their resume.
Published
06/7/2022
Written By
Break Through Tech
- Sprinternship Program
As the weather warms up, many of our students are looking towards a major milestone in their career: their first summer internship. It’s a turning point for a college student, as that experience can give them the confidence they’re on the right career path and get them in an employer’s pipeline for future opportunities, or even full time employment. But for a lot of our students, summer internships seem impossible to land — that is, until they have a Sprinternship™ on their resume.
Break Through Tech’s flagship Sprinternship™ program is an innovative way for women undergraduates to get a competitive edge and a “foot in the door” of the traditional hiring process, which has systematically overlooked them when recruiting for tech jobs. The paid, micro-internship experience happens during academic recesses when students can dedicate the time and companies are not immersed in their summer programs. To date, we’ve connected 1350 Sprinterns™ to over 100 company partners who have hosted them. This year, we built on all we’ve learned in New York and Chicago and offered Sprinternships™ at our DC site for the first time. The experience can change students’ lives, but it doesn’t benefit only them. Our company partners are looking to access the range of perspectives and backgrounds that our Sprinterns™ bring, but they’re not sure where to find them or how to get them into their pipelines.
This past January, 294 students participated in New York City and DC — and the majority were Black, Latina, or First-Generation college students. Of our 43 host companies, 25 were returning to run Sprinternship™ programs for at least their second time. When asked why they would continue to make this kind of investment, their answers range.
The Investment
“We don’t have to stick with the typical talent pipeline,” said Ariane Grunbaum, Manager of Global Mobility, Attrition and Retention at American Express. Ariane and her team recognize the value in making space for students who aren’t always invited to the recruitment process, even if it means a little extra work up front.
Pete Irwin, Principal in Data, Analytics and AI at KPMG, said his team spent a lot of time preparing for their Sprinterns™ to arrive. “We planned a schedule with all of these activities on wellbeing in the workplace, cultural and technical skills, and job shadowing that they participated in on top of their project.” Pete said he learned that “making connections with this ambitious, diverse group of students is incredibly valuable. These Sprinterns™ have an appetite to succeed and they want to do a lot. We look forward to our next cohort.”
The Payoff
And a lot, they did. Three weeks might not seem like enough time to dig into a project, but our Sprinterns™ prove every year that that’s not true. At Mastercard, a Sprinternship™ team explored an issue with Single-Sign-On, and approached the project with fresh eyes and ultimately fixed it in three weeks. “The program’s length allows us to quickly assess the students for possible internships during the summer,” Susan Warner, Head of Talent and Community Engagement at Mastercard, added.
CVS Health, a returning Sprinternship™ host, also finds it a valuable opportunity for their employees to benefit from the perspectives of their Sprinterns™. “Our staff learns from these new experiences, too,” Sharon Wells, Senior Director, shared.
Building the Pipeline
For a lot of Sprinternship™ hosts, their investment in their Sprinterns™ doesn’t just pay off in the work they produce in three weeks’ time — they see these students as future interns, or even, future colleagues. Most of the Sprinterns™ American Express hosted this year received offers for summer internships. Others are still in the American Express talent pipeline, but were too young to be eligible this year. “We strive to do better than just aiming for the percentage of women who graduate with tech degrees each year. This program is one of the main ways we seek to close that gap,” said Stephen Fagen, Director of Early Careers for American Express Technology. Stephen says that American Express treats the program like a three-week job interview.
And for larger companies that aren’t traditionally seen as big actors in the tech space, the word-of-mouth advertising that hosting Sprinterns™ can offer them goes a long way. CVS Health continues to participate in the program in part because the program provides exposure for them to be known to students as a technology company.
Across the Country, Together
And now that Break Through Tech is scaling our Computing Program in four cities, our students are part of an even broader network. The Sprinterns™ at KPMG competed against each other in a friendly competition — a team in DC and a team in New York. It’s helpful for our students to connect across cities, and having geographic flexibility is a huge benefit to our company partners. “At Mastercard, we want to create a culture where the best people choose to be,” Susan Warner, Head of Community Engagement at Mastercard said. “Sprinternships™ have supported our goals to recruit top talent.”
We can’t wait to see the opportunities for collaboration between New York, Chicago, DC, and now Miami, in the coming years. Interested in getting involved in Sprinternships? Find out more here. .