Winners and finalists : Intel Corporation

Company background

Intel is building on their historical strength in silicon innovation and global manufacturing capacity to create new products and technologies that help people live happier, more productive lives.

Operational countries

For 40 years Intel has been leading and bringing new technology to the marketplace and offer a bulk placement scheme in: UK, Ireland, Poland, Russia, The Netherlands and Germany. For other European countries, we also offer placement schemes at a smaller scale.

Challenge

The purpose of the internship programme is for Intel to identify a pipeline of graduate hires after graduation. It is proven to be an efficient method of selection & provides a great opportunity for students to develop new skills.    

Name of work experience scheme

13 months internship programme

Steps to implementation

The Intel placement scheme has been developed many years ago across all regions. Each country has adapted their schemes based on local higher education environment and local business needs.

Benefits

• The underlying benefit of the Internship is the pipeline to recent college graduate (RCG's) conversion. The Internship positions aer considered the primary pipeline for the recruitment of recent college graduates.
• By taking on interns an internship scheme accredited with the NCWE Work Experience Quality Mark, and building long standing relationshps with university establishments, Intel aims to attract the higest calibre of students
• Interns provide fresh ideas and other different perspectives thus adding value to the organisation.

Results

• Focus on writing clear job descriptions for all our placement & graduate vacancies (no acronyms, specific day to day responsibilities).
• Business groups have been focusing on keeping in touch with ex-interns with strong hiring recommendations as graduates.
• Pilot scheme introduced to encourage shadowing in other departments, enabling students to spend a day in another department to discover other business areas within Intel.
• Increased presence of interns and graduates at recruiting fairs has enabled Intel to demonstrate that we are confident that our placement scheme is successful.

Key tips

• We followed university advice to use our interns returning to university for their final year as "Intel ambassadors".
• We designed a leaflet for second year students highlighting our placement scheme opportunities and asked our interns to distribute them when they returned to campuses.
• We added a student testimonial on the Intel web site and have recorded a podcast with an Intel UK placement student in order to encourage other students to join our placement scheme. 
• No set deadlines for our internship applications (closed when all candidates have been hired). This minimises confusion with students and universities.