High School Students Gain Hands-On Experience in Facilities Management with CUFO Virtual Summer Internship Program
Sixty-six students from two New York City high schools, Bronx Design & Construction Academy and Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology, spent their summer creating solutions for recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce as part of the University Facilities and Operations summer internship program.
During the six-week program that ran from July 12 to August 20, students learned about workplace challenges focused on diverse recruitment and retention. The student interns were tasked with identifying new ways to advertise jobs online that target diverse, qualified applicants, especially recognizing how trades positions have evolved from a more manual focus to a heavier emphasis on technology today (from wrenches to iPads). The students also created a career plan for retaining staff for facilities trades and information technology. This included identifying training and professional development opportunities to help trade workers move up the ladder in their careers.
To help complete the project, students were grouped with teachers at their school and met with CUFO’s Human Resources Program Managers Terri Caldes, Ann Bloom and Jillian Vincenty on a weekly basis to receive feedback and recommendations as they worked on their individual projects. Students also had the opportunity to meet with CUFO team members from across departments to learn about CU employees’ personal career growth/journey.
By the end of the program, the students confirmed not only having an understanding for the need of a targeted retention and recruitment process for diverse applicants, but also an appreciation of what goes on “behind the scenes” during the employees’ lifecycle.
“We were all really impressed with the presentations completed by the students and the unique approaches proposed to reach the next generation of applicants, including an idea that that human resource professionals should use an electronic business card with a link to the organization’s careers website that is updated in real-time,” says Human Resources Program Manager Ann Bloom. “We are so happy to have been able to continue hosting the internship because we learned a lot from the students as much as they did from us.”
During the regular academic year, the participating students from Bronx Design & Construction Academy study trades including HVAC, plumbing, architectural engineering, carpentry, or electrical engineering while the Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology students study software engineering, digital design, and animation, or information technology. CUFO’s summer internship aims to provide knowledge to high school students interested in developing careers in facilities management.