When you’re contemplating what kind of internship is best for you, there are a lot of questions you might ask yourself. Is this going to look good on my resume? Will I partake in meaningful work? Will it be enjoyable?
Your time is precious. Especially those summers during college when you’re setting yourself up for future success. This being the case, it’s natural to have questions like these and wonder if a company is truly able to give you what you want out of an internship.
Recently, we dove deep for answers. In our conversations with a few current interns at Oxford, one of the leading staffing and consulting companies across North America and Europe, we learned why they chose to work at Oxford and how the company has supported their careers.
What we learned is that meaningful work, mentoring, the encouragement of future growth, and Oxford’s work-hard-play-hard attitude are all factors that contribute to the appeal of Oxford and its internship program.
Doing Real Work With Substance
Lyla Krol, a current intern with Oxford and student at the University of South Carolina, originally thought “interns would do mundane tasks, like printing stuff and going to get copies.” However, this preconception was quickly flipped on its head when Lyla found herself doing work that directly contributed to Oxford’s bottom line like assessing job openings and resumes in order to find matches or assisting account managers in securing sales.
For Chloee Swartz, who is also a current intern with Oxford and an undergraduate student, working with coworkers, consultants, and cold call recipients who she had never met before helped her grow her skills as a communicator which will benefit her in any and all future opportunities she might embark on.
While there are plenty of work-related interactions between interns and employees, there were also training and advisory interactions in which interns got the chance to shadow full-time employees to learn a little more about what their jobs are like.
Shadowing & Mentorship
The opportunity to follow an experienced professional along in their daily role to find out how to perform a role right and wrong is an invaluable experience. So the fact that Oxford allowed their interns to shadow full-time employees meant a lot.
For Evan Johnson, a current sales and recruiting intern at Oxford and student at the University of Wisconsin, shadowing full-time employees gave him a better scope of what the company was all about and how all the departments worked together.
When we spoke with Chloee about what shadowing was like, she explained how they would listen in on recruiting phone calls, and afterward, the recruiter would walk her through the call and how it went, if it was good or bad, and what they could have done better.
Being able to see what these recruiters’ jobs were like firsthand gave Chloee knowledge that she uses today in her current role. In fact, the knowledge she gained may have even contributed to her receiving the role she is in now.
Setting You Up For Future Growth
You may have noticed that Chloee, Evan, and Lyla are all still current interns with Oxford. That’s because they were all given job extensions following their summer internship, an offering that is reserved for the most exceptional candidates but also given out to several of those who participate in the internship.
Currently, all three of them are working from campus, earning money, and working flexible hours while gaining real experience that they can take with them into their future careers.
What’s unique about Oxford is that they want you to succeed no matter what, whether that’s with them or somewhere else. When we were chatting with Evan, he mentioned that some employees he interacted with said they would connect him with people in other industries or write a reference letter if he needed it for another job. While it sounds unusual for someone within a company to offer help getting a different job, this just goes to show that Oxford employees truly look out for the interests of one another.
Work Hard, Play Hard
Yes, internships and jobs are meant to be something you put a lot of effort and hard work into, but they should also be enjoyable experiences. At least that’s what Oxford thinks.
In our conversation with Lyla Krol, she spoke about how the community aspect and social integration at Oxford’s Beverly, Massachusetts office made her experience that much better.
For Evan, those lunches were valuable to him because he got to interact with people he normally wouldn’t be able to interact with. Evan stated that “a lot of the time you wouldn’t really talk to anybody else on other teams because you’re focused on your task at hand. But with those lunch opportunities, we got to network with more of the office which was really beneficial for me.”
It’s clear that Oxford creates an environment where people can grow not just as professionals, but as people too. They are a company that understands if the place you work is fun and enjoyable, then employees will show up and reciprocate that positivity in their work and daily interactions.
If this is a company that you could see yourself working for, one that grows and supports your success every step of the way, then check out some of Oxford’s open roles.
