Fetching coffee, making copies or doing routine data entry isn't likely part of the job description if you're an intern for J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.
Students fortunate enough to land one of the fewer than 90 internships at the Fortune 500 company also have a decent chance of later landing a full-time position there. Annual growth at J.B. Hunt is routinely about 15 percent, so the possibility of getting invited back for full-time work is strong for those with potential.
Throughout its history, the Lowell-based company has a reputation for promoting from within the organization. Current Chief Executive John Roberts and board Chairman Kirk Thompson both worked their way up through the company ranks, and while neither was classified as an intern when they started with J.B. Hunt, both executives' stories underscore the importance of just getting through the door.
It's a strong selling point for interns considering a career in the transportation and logistics company.
"We don't want them put in a corner doing busy work," said Mark Greenway, J.B. Hunt's vice president of human resources. "We want them doing something meaningful. We want them to feel like they're contributing and really learning the business. Concurrent with that, we want them to have exposure to the rest of the organization. Interns aren't just here for data entry. That isn't giving them a look at the company and what we're about."
J.B. Hunt's approach mirrors that of many of the state's largest and most recognizable companies. From corporate heavyweights, such as Tyson Foods Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Acxiom Corp., to smaller, but well-known marketing and public relations firms, such as Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods or the Sells Agency, interns are viewed as valuable assets.
That sort of commitment is exactly what internship coordinators at universities like to see. Students need meaningful exposure to the companies where they work and the incentive of potential future employment, said Jesse Mason, director of Cooperative Education Internship and Placement Office at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
"We stress from the employer perspective that students are provided with real work," Mason said. "Make it exciting. Make it meaningful. Students who go through a boring internship are not likely going to want to work for that company. For both companies and students, they should start the program with conversion in mind."
Take Little Rock's CJRW as one of the state's best-case scenarios of how conversion works. The company annually hires between five and 10 interns for six-week positions. Its first intern, Ron Robinson, got his start in 1962 and later returned as CEO and chairman.
Robinson is the "R" in CJRW.
"We have a lot of folks that do internships here and then come back and start careers with us," said Sam Smith, CJRW director of human resources. "They'll go elsewhere, then come back. It's a great talent pool for us, one that we have come to rely on for filling positions."
Because companies are investing money and time in these interns, they take the task of filling those positions seriously, whether it's an agency like Stone Ward sifting through 80 applications to fill five spots or the thousands of applicants reviewed at Wal-Mart for hundreds of openings nationwide.
Recruiting isn't just limited to Arkansas colleges and universities, although those are often strong feeder programs for the state's businesses. Acxiom, like Wal-Mart and Tyson, has its pick from across the country with offices in San Francisco, New York City and Nashville to fill an average of 71 interns a year. Their average grade point is 3.6 and about half wind up with full-time positions upon graduation.
Mark Todd, senior VP of finance at Windstream, said the company wants to know candidates "have taken on more responsibility than the minimum that is necessary to get a degree."
"When we recruit professionals for our spots you can't just focus on grade-point average anymore," Todd said.
Wal-Mart has its pick of summer interns and nabbed 19 MBA students from among the nation's top business schools to work in one of the most critical areas of the company -- finance and strategy.
Wal-Mart has more than 300 interns companywide, including a few dozen employed in its Global E-Commerce business based in San Bruno, Calif. About 275 will be working in Bentonville for the summer, said Colby Webb, senior manager of corporate finance and strategy. Eighty of those are working on an MBA.
Webb said Wal-Mart receives thousands of applications from potential interns and that it may have as many as 300 applicants vying for one position though more than one student is hired for some jobs. This year's program, which started at the end of May, includes students majoring in everything from television and film to English and computer engineering to general business.
For slots in business and finance, Wal-Mart scours landmark schools like Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke and the University of North Carolina.
"We don't have interns just to have interns here at Wal-Mart. We look at it as a pipeline of talent to our company. We see them as the future of our company," Webb said. "Students work on projects that are connected to real-life business situations and problems."
One of the interns, 26-year-old Kate Hollman, is finishing her first year in the MBA program at Northwestern University in Illinois and also works at a Wal-Mart store in Niles, Ill. She already had a Wal-Mart job before she applied to be in an intern. Her bachelor's degree is from Princeton.
She'll start her internship Monday and would "like to come out of the summer with a deeper understanding of Wal-Mart's business and retail in general."
"I think there's a huge cache of having Wal-Mart on your resume, especially with the size and success of the company," Hollman added.
Tyson Foods Inc. also brings on hundreds of interns annually. More than 1,000 apply each year for jobs ranging from spots in the corporate headquarters to field interns dealing with poultry or animal science and agriculture divisions.
This year, the company has about 200 interns, a figure that translates to more than one per department.
"If there's a division, more than likely they have an intern," said Megan Cherry, account manager for Tyson's college recruiting.
Interns from out of the area are provided with housing. In addition to compensation, perks include kickball tournaments, a trip to the local minor league ballpark and a cookout. Interns also volunteer at the NWA Food Bank.
While volunteering or recreational opportunities might not seem like much, those sorts of activities could play a part in an intern's future. Interacting with fellow interns and, when possible, decision makers within a company is one of the biggest pieces of advice given by Erica Estes of the University of Arkansas Career Development Center.
Networking ranks high on the to-do list, right along with asking for additional responsibility and dressing the part, Estes said.
Pay also is key.
Internship coordinators encourage their students not to work for free. Sure, they're getting valuable experience and making connections that could help them down the road, but interns should look for chances to cash a check, earn college credit or, best-case scenario, both.
"Not only do you want to be rewarded for your work, employers who are hiring down the road place a lot of value on internships where a student is paid or receives credit," said UALR's Mason. "The bottom line is, if a student wasn't doing the work, then who would do it? Would the company pay for that work? We find that 90 percent of the time, the answer is 'yes.' These are tasks people would be paid by a company to do."
Intern pay at well-known businesses headquartered in Arkansas can range from a $2,800 stipend at Stone Ward to $20 per hour at Windstream Communications. Tyson, Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt all declined to divulge what interns are paid, but said compensation is "competitive."
"Internships are a win-win because we get to take a look at someone's abilities and work ethic and they get a chance to test drive us," J.B. Hunt's Greenway said, speaking about his company, but summing up the feeling of others. "We get to see if they're a fit for the organization. They get valuable experience while seeing if this is the kind of company they want to work for; not just J.B. Hunt, but the industry in general."
Information for this article was contributed by Cyd King, Tina Parker, Jessica Seaman and David Smith of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
SundayMonday Business on 06/08/2014