Clint McDonnough doesn’t recall ever having an internship himself. In fact, when he joined Ernst & Young LLP — then Ernst & Ernst — you simply got your four-year degree and started working right after graduation.
But the Dallas office managing partner acknowledges that things are a little different these days at the accounting and financial services firm. Now, students must go through a five-year program, and internships are nearly required to get in with the firm. While things have changed, it’s definitely for the better.
“The process is much different than when I got hired, …” McDonnough says. “Nowadays, probably about 95 percent of the people we hire have had an internship with us and have had the opportunity to see us up close and personal on a day-to-day basis.”
And that means that he and his 1,400 people have also had the chance to see them, so when they go to hire full-time employees, they have a better picture of a candidate than just what’s on a piece of pretty resume paper.
“It’s one of the best things that we’ve come up with,” McDonnough says. “It takes the guesswork out of hiring so when you make a full-time offer, you’ve had experience with the campus activities, the interview process, the in-office interview — you’ve had them for eight weeks of full-time employment basically. You’ve had an extended period of time to get to know and work with them, so it really takes the guesswork out of the recruiting process for us, and it takes the guesswork out of that student’s mind of whether this is a good place for (him or her) to work.”
Creating a strong internship program entails getting on campus to build relationships with professors and students, and then offering students a meaningful work experience.
