First Co-op Complete!

First Co-op Complete!

I wish it was just my first co-op.  That was well over 25+ years ago, back in 1993.  What I did just complete was being the mentor to my first full term co-op, from the same school, Drexel University and I can say the program seems to still be extremely strong.  My co-op experience back in 1993 was so memorable to me. I can probably name everyone I worked with on that first co-op. As I reflect on these past six months and my first co-op student, I thought I would highlight a few topics so you can see why you might want to do this yourself and how we made our program unique.  Let’s review these four main items.

• ·        What is a Co-op Program?
• ·        Why might you want to participate in a co-op Program?
• ·        What did we do to make the co-op program special?
• ·        Some advice for co-op participants?

What is a Co-op Program?

From my own co-op perspective and from being a mentor, a Co-op program consists of providing a student real world experiences through building meaningful work so that they help the organization and at the same time also giving the co-op student different opportunities to understand where they might want to take their career. It’s a partnership between the company and the student. 

Why might you want to participate in a co-op Program?

Bringing a co-op into your organization can be done for a variety of reasons.  I suspect the primarily reasons you’d look to do this is either to broaden your pipeline for future employees, assist you on special projects or quite possibly look to bring in new ideas to your team.  Within our company, we’re almost always looking for spectacular individuals for our teams and finding great talent takes a lot of work.  I also don’t hire just Leads or Architects.  I must balance the team with a range of skills to grow individuals and eventually give others new growth opportunities.  Looking to bring co-ops into an organization can create that pipeline of talented employees.  During our company’s engagement with over 10 co-ops these past 6 months, I heard we gave a few of them jobs at the end of this last session.

Before you and your organization decide to bring in a student, please consider what a co-op program should not be. As I did some research on co-ops, I was horrified to see something that said, “Co-op’s can provide short term recruiting needs or fill short term coverage.”  I absolutely disagree with this statement as your primary reason for bringing a co-op into your organization. While I agree they can assist you in initiatives, if the main driver for you is to fill a recruiting need or coverage, please don’t get a co-op.  You should understand that you’re going to make a huge impression on a young individual.  Having a co-op takes time and effort and it’s not to put on some individual project or have them fill in for others away on vacation.  Imagine what their impression will be of your organization if you assign them tedious tasks.  I took these statements of having them fill in for coverage so you’re not going to give them the time and assistance it takes to give them a meaningful experience.

What did we do to make the co-op program special?

I can’t say what other companies do for their co-op programs but I suspect we did go above and beyond what most companies do.  I’ve heard some real dreadful stories where co-ops are really put in a corner and basically do paperwork for hours and hours or left alone to do nothing. I remember doing call support when I wanted to code myself.  Sure they are getting paid but when you’re young and come to an organization, I think you honestly are excited to learn and provide value.  Our co-ops were technically assigned to one mentor and worked in a specific role most of the time but they also had team training and growth opportunities as well. The co-ops performed these activities together or as part of our formal program:

·        Self-learning time: Multiple online training classes

·        Class-room learning time: Multiple classes on topics including Integrity, our business culture and retirement specific classes related to our business

·        Lunch and Learns: Monthly sessions to meet Executive leaders to discuss their career and lessons learned from them.

·        Co-op Presentation & Graduation ceremony:  Presentation to all mentors and executive leaders on their experience, highlighting accomplishments and lessons learned as well as ways to improve the co-op program.

Working in IT, we put our co-op within a specific agile/scrum team.  He worked side by side on all the same activities as any other developer.  We attempted to treat this individual no different from any other developer.  We did of course look to provide this individual with any and all training they needed.  They were given a Pluralsight (online training platform) license and he watched courses to learn best practices in software engineering.  He paired programmed with other software developers to gain hands-on development skills. In addition, we looked to grow his individual brand by assisting him on improving his resume for the next co-op as well as helped him create a LinkedIn profile that highlighted his strengths and accomplishments. My co-op student was enrolled in Computer Science and we had him performing mostly software development tasks but we also exposed him to the Quality Assurance and DevOps fields.  We did this to stretch his experiences and show him there are other opportunities besides just coding. 

Some advice for co-op participants?

If you’re looking to do a co-op or already have, there are some basics topics you should understand.  First off, remember this is a professional organization you’re attending.  They are paying you thousands of dollars a month and investing a tremendous amount of time into you.  As a co-op, you need to show up each and every day on time, dressed well and show an active interest.  That means if you are sick or have to work at home one day, ask or let them know in advance.  Try to avoid any distractions that might cause you to lose focus during the day.  That means, don’t sit on YouTube and put your phone away or even lock it away in your desk.  Occasionally using these is fine but don’t make it a habit. Make an effort to get up and talk with your co-workers and engage them in discussions by going to lunch or getting coffee. 

As co-op this is your opportunity to learn, provide value and also network, network, network.  You might think you want to be a developer writing code all the time but through your co-op find a better passion in Database or Warehouse Development. We heard a few co-op’s highlight a different area they enjoyed more than they had expected. You don’t want to spend an entire college career thinking you want to be a developer and then figure out you dislike it. Networking is so critical in today’s economy.  Most of my software leaders have already worked with others at previous employers.  I respect their input on if we should hire an individual so you always want to be networking and building meaningful relationships with them.

More than anything though, show genuine engagement in the work you’ve been assigned and the team you are working with.  Jump into your projects, ask questions on how, why and what you are attempting to accomplish.  Then deliver the best possible job you can.  As you complete each task or project, you’ll be given more opportunities.  I was so impressed with our co-op in this area.  While he had never worked on C# before, he jumped into it and learned it quickly.  Then he took advantage of the Pluralsight subscription to learn even more.  He completed nine different courses ranging in topics of Web Development, Python, C# and Machine learning. 

Start to understand that your career goes beyond 9-5!  As a co-op, I’m not saying you need to work 15 hour days.  What I do want to highlight is that you start to look at your career as being more than just your working hours. Do the best job you can from 9-5 for your employer then do something outside of work to grow your career.  Look at going to additional events like Meetups and start getting into the habit of becoming a constant learner.  Read articles and share them with your boss or co-workers.  All of this engagement and activity will greatly benefit you. 

Want to know what the hardest skill to learn is?  It’s asking for help!   As a mentor, I want you to learn new skills, figure things out for yourself, but understanding that if you are totally lost ask for help!  If you’re always asking for help, it can look bad but never asking for help can be even worse.  Asking for help or assistance shows a level of maturity.  As I look back at my own co-op, I should have asked for help more often or admitted my own failures more.  I hid them and I now recognize that was a mistake in growth I should have been learning from.

Don’t forget, a co-op starts or continues your professional brand and image.  Update your resume as you complete each project.  Look at LinkedIn profiles of Executive leaders or those you’d like to mirror and start to understand what you should include on yours.  Our co-op really took this to heart.  While this was his first co-op, he constantly updated his resume and now it really stands out among his peers.  In addition, his LinkedIn profile looks like a seasoned professional.  I honestly wouldn’t think based on his resume or LinkedIn profile that he is still in college. 

My last words…

I believe in #LearnGrowShare. It basically means, to continuously learn new things, then take that knowledge and grow it by applying what you’ve learned and you need to share that knowledge with others.  I wanted to write this to help others as they evaluate their co-op program, hopefully get feedback on ways we can improve ours and also help those doing a co-op program on what they should expect.

So how has this co-op made me #LearnGrowShare?  I can tell you, it’s not just the co-op that learned something.  I was learning too. I learned new techniques on how to coach and mentor less experienced developers. I also had to learn a different way to promote our company to them and highlight why they should choose our company over another. I’m definitely not done learning and still growing in these skills. 

I hope each of our co-ops had an amazing experience; one that allowed them to gain real world experiences and help determine where they want to go in their career. My co-op in particular was a pleasure to work with and as a full time member of the team, contributed in seeing the project move forward in our release pipeline. It was an amazing experience for us and hopefully for him. If you or your organization is considering the co-op program, I hope this assists you in making your program better.  If you have new or better idea’s, please share them.