NASA's Future Is Hiding In Plain Sight
Planet Labs Turned Its Interns into Company Leaders with This Program, Firstround.com
“Seeing the actual hardware there really excites people when they come around,” [Chris] Boshuizen says. You know that you’re working on game-changing solutions the trick now is to convince bright new talent that they can and will have a meaningful role in that work as well. You want to come armed with tons of examples and compelling stories about what past interns have had the chance to do and what they’ve been able to build. This is your best weapon for standing out. If you can bring some visuals of what work and life is like during the program showing off how hands-on interns get to be that’s even better.”
Keith’s note: Guess where this company’s senior management came from – and where they learned how (and how not) to do this? Does NASA apply their lessons learned? Of course not. NASA can’t even be bothered to make note of their ongoing success in space.
Intern and co-op programs are the best way for companies to find ideal candidates to hire full time. Working side by side with professionals, the interns and co-ops quickly learn what working in the “real world” is all about.
Reading resumes, phone interviews, and even face-to-face interviews are pale substitutes that often result in hiring employees who looked great on paper and interviewed well, but ultimately end up being a terrible fit for the company.
Not everybody can intern or co-op. I think I learned more on the football field about real world problems and issues than I would’ve ever learned on an internship.
there is a place for everyone
It is true that not everyone can intern or co-op. That said, some universities require that you intern or co-op if you’re in their engineering program (e.g. University of Cincinnati). I doubt that would mesh with college football, since that’s essentially a full time job.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean about “real world problems” other than how to work with other people (e.g. leadership skills), which is definitely a good skill to have. Still, we’ve hired people (who weren’t co-ops or interns) that work well with others, but have poor technical skills. We’ve also hired other people who have great technical skills, but struggle to “work well with others”.
The perfect candidate would be someone with both technical and people/leadership skills.
It’s hard to compare the two if you haven’t done an internship or co-op. Interns and co-op students do have a decided advantage when it comes to having done work relevant to where they might go to work. It’s certainly an advantage if you want to eventually work where you’ve done your internship or co-op.
Since I was in summer school for workouts, I was able to assist my professors on a lot of real good research. Didnt need an internship.
Good for you. Obviously yours is the universal experience. Note that there can be big a difference between what happens on co-op/internship and what happens when you’re assisting with research.
Also consider NASA has interns but are there job opportunities after? Many will choose NASA instead of Google or Facebook but NASA isn’t hiring (ok, there may be a few openings here and there along with contractors but not at scale of G and FB).
The article notes the value of interns seeing and working with actual hardware – most young engineer and scientists desires.
Too bad there is less and less of that available at NASA, as more and more work is contracted out.