From intern to full-time: Interns for Industry helps students get ready for the workforce

Ava Coulter, marketing and communications specialist with the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, learned a lot about marketing while attending the University of Nevada’s College of Business.

When she landed a public relations internship at the Abbi Agency, she quickly realized there was a lot about marketing she didn’t know.

“The College of Business primarily taught a lot of analytical thinking and marketing analytics on the creative side,” Coulter said during an interview with NNBW. “But Abbi Agency has such a robust internship program. They kind of took a chance on me since I had no experience in the public relations field, and that was the most valuable part of my internship and where I got most of my media relations experience.”

The importance of hiring interns to help upskill younger workers and new college graduates to better prepare them to enter the workforce is a main focus of EDAWN’s second annual Interns for Industry luncheon. The event runs May 1 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Atlantis Casino Resort. Panelists include internship experts from UNR, Truckee Meadows Community College, ITS Logistics and Panasonic Energy.

Internships are a bit like building a credit score – you have to have some type of credit foundation in order to gain access to higher levels of credit, and you have to have a foundation of work skills in order to land a job. Both can be difficult to build without some help.

Taylor Adams

Taylor Adams, president and chief executive officer of EDAWN, said internships allow companies to have solid “Day 1” employees who are ready to start contributing.

“Once they get on the job, employers are going to train them and continue their lifelong learning journey,” he said. “We want to make sure that young people who are entering the job market are ready for that first day and have the skills they need to receive that initial training.”

Adams said the Interns for Industry event also helps regional employers gain insight into the quality of talent that is available in Northern Nevada. Similarly, it can help college graduates and others new to the workforce gain exposure to the wealth of excellent job opportunities and many Tier-1 employers within the region.

“Internships provide great experience for people who are entering the job market, and they help them understand the requirements of working full time,” Adams said. “In many professional disciplines, and even in a number of trades, (internships) are a first-look into something you might like doing. It’s a great way to round out skill sets while getting a sense of what the work world looks like.”

Internships also create opportunity.

After Coulter’s internship ended, she was hired for part-time employment at Abbi Agency but left Northern Nevada to study abroad for a semester. She completed a second internship at Environmental Systems Research Institute in Redlands, Calif., before returning to Reno and snagging a marketing internship at EDAWN — an opportunity she eventually parlayed into full-time employment with the economic development agency.

“With EDAWN, I really got to do everything I learned within the marketing field,” Coulter said. “I got to take my public relations skills with the Abbi Agency and analytical skills from my degree and social media skills and put it all together.

“Internships really expose you to the knowledge and learn-by-doing skills that you need, as well as the connections you need,” she added. “It teaches you to leverage those connections to land where you want after graduation.”

Adams said that EDAWN created a position for Coulter based on her contributions to the organization.

“We encourage employers to do exactly what we did – if you have an intern you like, you keep ’em,” Adams said. “Ava is amazing. We created an opportunity for her on the back end of her internship, and she’s very much become a part of the fabric of our organization that we couldn’t do without.”

Abbi Whitaker, co-founder and CEO of the Abbi Agency, said internships have been a part of her agency for the past decade. Interns go through a 12-week training program dubbed the “Abbi Academy” and spend time mentoring with agency experts in media buying, social, creative, web and public relations to gain a holistic understanding of how a marketing communications agency functions.

Courtesy of ITS Logistics
The ITS Logistics interns are AJ Dossey, left, and Katie Windfeldt.

Interns earn important career certificates from Hubspot and Google, Whitaker said, and they also work alongside account directors on projects and give presentations on the effectiveness of campaigns at the end of their fellowships.

“We want every fellow who comes through our academy to leave with real-world certificates that will benefit them in their next job,” she said. “It’s a lot of work for an agency to put together a robust fellowship program, but we have had applications from all over the United States. We are really proud of what we have created.”

Internships are a great way to increase staff — about 20 former interns have been hired as account coordinators at the agency, Whitaker said. Perhaps the most gratifying part, Whitaker added, is when former interns enter the workforce in various public relations or communications roles and hire the Abbi Agency.

Sarah Mahmoud, senior manager of talent acquisition for ITS Logistics, said the nationwide third-party logistics and supply chain company accepts a minimum of five college interns each school semester at its corporate headquarters on 50 W. Liberty St. in downtown Reno.

Interns typically begin in ITS Logistics brokerage division and rotate through multiple business divisions in order to gain a wider range of skills and industry knowledge, Mahmoud said. The company prioritizes college seniors, followed by juniors and underclassmen. Its conversion rate of interns to full-time employees at ITS Logistics is between 70 to 80 percent, Mahmoud noted.

“The goal is to work with them and support them by giving them additional skills that they can transfer to the workplace,” she said. “We really look to put them through a rotation that will give them a great understanding of the entire logistics industry.”

For information on EDAWN’s Interns for Industry luncheon, go to edawn.org/events.