At NextLevel Thinking, our hiring philosophy remains wonderfully simple, yet profoundly powerful, after 25 years. We have a deep desire to bless those who come to work with us, and a hope for them to bless us in unexpected ways. With that unique expectation, it’s amazing to see the growth that happens for the individuals involved and for our team as a whole. This principle is truly what drives our firm and the enduring success of our intern program.
A number of years ago, we decided to start a summer intern program at our firm. In order for this endeavor to be truly meaningful for both us and our interns, we established five guiding principles that have served us exceptionally well over the years and remain the bedrock of the program today:
1. Deliver an On-Boarding Meeting
This crucial step ensures that everyone starts on the same page. It’s where our interns are fully introduced to our organizational purpose: Challenging Organizations to Discover Who They Are, Understand What Business They Are Actually In, and Confidentially Articulate Their Why. This strategic context pays huge dividends as the summer progresses, allowing them to connect their work to the bigger picture.
2. Provide Real Work Assignments
This is the most important principle of our program, which is proudly called Your Thoughts Count. Providing real work gives interns a true sense of what a job in strategic consulting is going to be like once they graduate from college. They aren’t fetching coffee; they are moving the needle.
3. Encourage Client Interaction
The real work often entails client interaction. Our interns almost always have the opportunity to showcase their work and present their findings in front of our clients. They may be nervous before these exchanges, but the confidence they gain during these experiences is unbelievably valuable for their careers going forward.
4. Facilitate Team Interaction
Our interns hit the ground running from day one. They are fully included in, and encouraged to participate in, all internal team meetings, as well as those client meetings where their involvement is ongoing. They are trusted members of the team, not observers.
5. Deliver Feedback
Our official feedback process is called Hang Time. We aim to give our interns ongoing encouragement and targeted feedback throughout the program, culminating in a final Hang Time session at the end of the summer. During this session, we focus on two core developmental questions: 1) Let’s discuss your areas of greatness, and 2) Let’s discuss areas that, if worked on, would make you even more spectacular.
What a blessing our intern program has been! It embodies our core belief that investing strategically in people, and providing them with real-world exposure, is the ultimate win-win scenario for the next generation and for NextLevel Thinking.