Rather than suspend its internship program, Hormel Foods devised a virtual experience that worked for everyone.
By all accounts, the internship endeavor was a success, which has given Sheehan cause to celebrate. She knows the program, ranked fourth throughout the United States by Vault in the retail and consumer products category, is important to emerging professionals and to her company alike. Indeed, it’s not unheard of for Hormel Foods to receive 3,000 applications for the roughly 60 spots available each summer, yielding a pool of handpicked exceptional talent that serves as a major recruitment pipeline for Sheehan and her team. On average, 70 percent of interns go back to school having signed up to work for Hormel Foods after graduation. Years later, you can find many of them looking back on long and successful careers with the company.
One of the reasons for these recruitment and retention statistics is the company’s strong culture. Though she’s never set foot in a Hormel Foods building, Kenyatta Hutchinson, a University of Georgia student and one of 2020ʼs sales interns, developed a feeling early on for the kind of values at play within the 129-year-old company.
“I applaud Hormel Foods for being transparent throughout this whole process,” she says, recalling the many times established team members reached out with words of support and encouragement to make her feel valued. “My recruiter went the extra mile and checked in on my mental health and how I was handling all of the changes [brought about by the pandemic].”
Even for members of a generation raised on sophisticated technology, learning and performing a high-stakes job remotely was largely uncharted territory. Bryan Zhang, an accounting and finance intern from Indiana University, knew he was missing out on so-called water-cooler conversations and cafeteria catch-ups, but he and his fellow interns have been bolstered by the belief that they stand on the precipice of something big, a new way of doing things, normal 2.0. According to Monx Cullen, a sales intern from the University of Tennessee, the interns’ experience of using digital tools to get their jobs done and connect with constituents without the need to meet in person will be a major advantage down the road.
“As companies come out of COVID-19, the question will no longer be, ‘Is there a reason to do this online?’” Cullen says. “The question will be, ‘Is there a reason to do this in person?’