Helping Interns Navigate their Remote Organizations

The intern experience is unique. You come into a company with little experience and much to learn but with only a few months to get the most out of the internship. Ideally, you’d finish the internship with greater clarity on your career path and hopefully even a mentor or two.

For companies as well, interns are a valuable part of the organization. They come in with fresh perspectives and the potential to be a long-term member of the company.

Yet, interns, like most everyone else, are having to work remotely as a result of COVID-19. For such a group, this poses an even greater challenge because of the time-sensitive nature of their role as well as their desire to navigate and connect with leaders in their organization. They need to be able to learn about their company, to leverage opportunities, to shadow potential mentors, and to find the internal resources they need to connect with coworkers of similar backgrounds, interests, and experiences.

How interns are using Sift to navigate their organization

A group of interns at Rocket Mortgage, America’s largest mortgage lender, spoke to us about how Sift helped them navigate their remote intern experience. We found that interns leverage Sift to:

Connect with their remote teams

Working remotely has greatly restricted interns’ ability to leverage in-person connections. According to Jacob Sapolin, a Sales intern, being able to shadow senior leaders is a valuable part of his internship experience, however, that’s been difficult in a remote work environment. He explains, “It was much easier to shadow people in summer 2019, because I could just go up to their desk and ask to shadow them for the day. It’s harder to do that when we’re working remotely. Sift makes it easy for me to find, and connect with, people I want to shadow in this remote experience.”

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With Sift, Jacob continued to get value from his internship by finding the people he wants to learn from. Another challenge that can come with the remote experience is how to learn more about members of your team you’ve never met in person.

Emily Boudreau, an Elite Talent Acquisition intern, has never met her 55-person team in person, since they’ve been working remotely for the extent of her internship. To her, Sift is an essential part of her day. She emphasizes, “I’m Sift’s biggest fan! I use Sift more than five times a day, and it’s been really helpful for me to get to know my team. Getting to know someone on a personal level can be tough while working from home, but Sift’s Profiles help me to see peoples’ interests, experience, and more before I connect with them.”

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Interns like Emily and Jacob have been able to use Sift to get value out of their internships and connect with their teams, even when in-person interactions are restricted.

Navigate their organization and leverage internal resources

A big part of any employee’s onboarding process is learning to navigate their organization. Sift’s Org Chart has been a vital part of interns’ onboarding – even helping them identify new career opportunities.

Jason Kaip, a Business Support Specialist Intern, says, “I use the org chart more than anything. It’s super helpful for me to get to know my team and leadership, but also to learn more about other parts of the organization. I’m considering an internship in a different part of the organization, so the org chart has helped me learn more about other roles.”

Not only that, but Sift is also helping interns get their jobs done. Michael Cobb, a University Recruiting Intern, uses Sift to coordinate the marketing initiatives that he’s tasked with. He describes, “I use Sift to see what other people do, and to find their emails. I work on marketing initiatives, and was recently coordinating an initiative targeting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). I used Sift’s Explore function to find people who attended HBCUs.”

Find mentors

And what’s an internship without a mentor or a recommendation that you can take with you? Interns have been able to use Sift to find, and connect with, potential mentors who have common interests or experiences.

Kyra Boyd, a Talent Brand intern, uses Sift to find people with similar interests. She explains, “Being in a huge company for the first time is overwhelming, and it was helpful for me to use Sift to see peoples’ interests, connect with them and then use these commonalities during our first conversation. This has also been super helpful for me to find leaders who I want to shadow and connect with.”

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