Highlights, So Far, From Our 2021 Summer Internship Program

Internships have never been more important than now. 

When COVID hit companies were forced to let go of thousands of employees and many canceled their internship programs. But, we didn’t. We powered through.

At 1Huddle, we know the importance of an internship and mentoring youth within our community. Regardless of working from home or in the office, we continued to take in a new batch of interns each semester.

Here are a few highlights from our current Summer 2021 Internship Program:

We hired 50% of our interns from the Newark area.

The world is different and it has definitely made an impact on many aspects of our internship program. So, even though our 2021 Summer Internship Program was a bit different than the ones in the past we still stayed focused on running a high-quality program that gives young people a real opportunity to work in a great work environment.

We made it our goal to hire local — at least 50% of our summer interns had to come from Newark and the surrounding areas. We’re thankful for all the City of Newark has offered our company and our team. This was a no-brainer.

We worked with awesome local partners.

So, the first people we reached out to were our local partners and friends, including:

• Covenant House
• NJ All-Star Project
• Newark One-Stop Career Center
• North Star Academy
• Rutgers University
• People’s Prep
• and many of local schools.

We had a standout intern on Week 1!

Fernando.

This guy came in on Day 1 and hit the ground running. Fernando, a Newark resident, caught the eye of our CEO after just one week. How? He scored over 1-million points on 1Huddle across 421 training games in just his first week.

Yes. We said one million… 

What better way to impress the CEO at the company you’re interning for than by beating them at their own game? Fernando topped the leaderboard on our employee training game platform and didn’t just but his fellow interns, he beat everybody.

Fernando was that guy. And, trust us, he let everyone know where he stood on the leaderboard. Here is his official quote:

“What I like most about 1Huddle is moving up in the rankings and leveling up every day. My favorite part is scoring a lot of points and winning all the rewards.“ –Fernando Vasquez, 1Huddle Summer 2021 Associate & Essex County College Graduate 

At 1Huddle, our internship program is about a lot more than just some additional support for a few weeks a year. It’s about paying it forward. It’s about creating connections. It’s about challenging others. And, it’s about offering opportunities and encouragement to help the future of our workforce to get a better jump start than some of us had when we started our careers.

So, we are encouraging business leaders to not slow down and continue to offer learning opportunities to young people across their communities. This is the future of our work, the people.

And, you never know when that next Fernando will walk through your doors.