Speaker: Randi Keller, University Relations Manager, Dish Network
Please state your full name, title, organization, and the award name.
Randi Keller: Hi, my name is Randi Keller. I am the University Relations Manager here at Dish Network, and the award that we are accepting is Recruiting Excellence.
Talk briefly about your program and what sparked you to develop it.
Randi Keller: The Dish Internship Program is 10 weeks. It's very intentional. The students have a project that they work on the entire 10 weeks and then present at the very end. We also layer in networking events, social events, Denver- specific events. The development of this program is to bring new top talent into the organization upon graduation, so our main goal is to basically have a 10 week interview and hopefully make full-time offers to all of them at the end.
What were you trying to achieve? Did you achieve what you expected?
Randi Keller: Our university relations program goals at Dish is to convert high-performing interns to regular full-time employees upon graduation, and our saying, is, "recruit once, hire twice." So really, we want to make sure that we're finding the best future employees at the start of the internship so that the decision to convert and give them offers before they leave our program, is an easy one. We're achieving this year over year, getting higher conversion acceptance rates. So we will continue to, to drive and the program to, to get higher conversion rates at the end of each program year.
Were there any surprises—any results you weren’t expecting?
Randi Keller: I wouldn't say that we've had any big surprises with the program. It's been in place for 30 years now. So we have a good foundation, solid foundation, and we know what to expect. However, one thing that I wasn't maybe aware of, or prepared for, is the way the whole company comes around this program, especially the 10 weeks when the interns are here. It's excitement around the building. Everyone's all hands on deck and really caring about the experience that our interns have.
How did you develop this program? What processes did you use?
Randi Keller: Because the program here at Dish is very established, and the foundation has been in place for about 30 years now, our focus has been developing the internship candidate experience. Some of the processes that we put in place revolve around communication plans and recruitment process so that the interns are feeling like they're in the loop every step of the way. From the time they've been contacted to the time they start here at Dish.
From your perspective, what was the single most important outcome of this program?
Randi Keller: For me, the most important outcome of the program is to make sure that the students leave here with a really great experience, so great that they want to come back the following year. They want to work for us once they graduate, and they want to tell all their friends, their family members that they had a great time, and they learned—that's very important— that they learn something they take back with them to school, things that they can apply to projects or course work and even, you know, in the future, if they don't come on.
If someone wants to replicate your program, what do they need to know upfront (the first steps to take, potential pitfalls to watch for)?
Randi Keller: If someone wanted to replicate our program, I would say that they definitely need to be super organized and have a great team around them to make sure that nothing is slipping through the cracks or getting missed. Documentation is very important, and some things to watch out for maybe is just being able to support your decisions and the direction you want to go, through data and even comparing to best practices with NACE or other companies.
