Standing Out From All The Rest – Our Internship Program

Written By: Megan Knapp, M.Ed.

Our Team is unique in how we support our young professionals across the organization. We’re committed to creating a world of possibilities filled with endless opportunities for career exploration, professional development, and mentorship.

These opportunities curate an exceptional and meaningful internship program experience for our early career professionals to imagine what’s next and elevate their careers with us.

As I approach my one-year anniversary with Parsons, I am so proud to be a part of such a great program & team (Chelsea Tekesky ?&?Mariah Kushin ). It brings such fulfillment and joy to help in advancing young professionals’ careers.

Our internship program runs year-round, with our main program taking place in the summer (June – August). During this time, we host anywhere from 150 to 180 interns across North America on various projects, locations, and expertise areas. Our program is centered around creating a valuable experience that allows students to engage in hands-on skills, real-world projects, and challenging tasks.

Our?#internshipprogram ?encompasses the following:

1. Internship Preparation:?Before our interns join us for the summer, we have a dedicated Early Talent team who is preparing for a successful summer program. Interns will be contacted regularly by their future manager to ensure they feel prepared to start on their first day. In addition, the Early Talent team will host preparation trainings and send an intern toolkit to get some initial questions answered as they step into their onboarding experience at Parsons.
2. Manager Training:?In addition to making sure our interns are prepared, we also want to ensure our managers are prepared for our interns to join! The Early Talent team provides our managers?with several preparatory trainings as well as a manager toolkit so that they are set up to successfully support each of our interns.
3. Professional Development Events:?The Early Talent team strives to develop a series of summer events that are centered around professional development. Interns will receive this schedule in their tool kit and be sent calendar invites on their first day. These events focus on topics such as learning and development, resume building, interview preparation, job searching, the importance of mentorship, and more.
4. Social Events:?Our internship program is also centered around having fun. We want our interns to connect with their colleagues and find ways to foster an inclusive and welcoming workplace environment. Throughout the summer the Early Talent team hosts a series of social events such as game nights, coffee and conversations, trivia, scavenger hunts, and various networking opportunities.
5. Feedback:?Receiving feedback is one of the most important parts of our program – We want to ensure that our interns and the individuals supporting them are satisfied with the experience. Throughout the summer, interns will receive many opportunities to provide feedback on various events, their expertise, their leader and team, the Early Talent team, and more. We then take this feedback at the end of the summer and utilize it to develop changes and improvements across the program and our organization.
6. Parsons Culture Opportunities:?We want our interns to feel like regular, full-time employees, therefore, we want you to engage in various aspects of company culture. At the beginning of the summer, interns are introduced to a variety of opportunities to engage in throughout the company. This includes?diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts , a mentorship program, our?Parsons Gives Back ?group, our internal social networking page - Workplace, the ability to conduct informational interviews, and more. We hope that our interns identify with one or two of these opportunities and take the time to step outside of their day-to-day tasks to really dive into Parsons.
7. Mentorship:?We have a mentorship program specifically for our interns. We have found individuals throughout the organization who are directly interested in mentoring early career professionals, specifically, our interns. Interns who opt to participate will be assigned a mentor and will meet their mentor during their first week. This mentor and them will meet throughout the summer to explore professional and personal development topics.
8. Celebration:?We enjoy a good celebration, and take full advantage during the summer to treat our interns. The Early Talent team finds various ways to celebrate our outstanding interns and all the work they do through various prize giveaways, swag kits, social media shout-outs, intern recognition awards, our annual intern appreciation day celebrations, and many more surprises.
9. Continuous Conversions:?Finally, and most importantly, we aim to provide full-time opportunities to each of our interns upon graduation and/or completion of their internship experience. We hope we’re able to find that perfect fit with opportunities available across the globe in various project areas. If our interns aren’t at the point of graduation or full-time employment, we aim to provide returning internship opportunities. We see our interns invest in us; therefore, we want all our exceptional interns to continue to imagine next and elevate their careers with us.

Want to get a better look into our internship program??Click here to learn more!

Interested in applying for an internship? Visit?our job page ?to explore our current openings and to learn more about our company culture?click here.

#ParsonsCareers ?#WeAreParsons ?