You may have heard us say this before, but we consider every single employee who works for us an Argyler, no exceptions. Which means, every Co-Op is without a doubt, just a part of our culture and our brand as much as our full time employees are. We don’t consider Co-Ops temporary employees, because on many occasions, our Co-Ops have turned into full time employees.
We prefer to have our Co-Ops do real work. One, because we need them to. We have a lot of work to do, and the Co-Ops we hire are really smart. So instead of wasting their skills by making them paper push or go on coffee runs, we immerse them in our world to get them learning and working as soon as they feel comfortable. And two, because we don’t think it’s fair to waste their time and their skills. Being in college is a prime opportunity to learn and develop (pun intended) their skills. As well as learn if Salesforce development and configuration is what they want to be doing. If it is, then great — us too! If it’s not, that’s okay! We are happy to be a part of their journey and hope their experience with us has helped them along the way.
RIT Partnership
This has been a pretty prevalent theme over Red Argyle’s 10 year existence. We tend to hire a lot of developers (Co-Ops and full time) from the Rochester Institute of Technology. This doesn’t mean that we only hire folks from that institution, but it does mean that we have found that RIT has an incredible program that produces a lot of top-tier talent. Out of our developers, 16 are either RIT alumni, or are currently enrolled at RIT.
Over the past four years, we have made our relationship with RIT a partnership. Meaning, we work closely with RIT staff to determine the best way to reach RIT students. We work with RIT to set up application portals and info sessions to prospective RIT students. It has resulted in some great Co-Ops over the years and we so much appreciate all of the collaboration from RIT staff and students.
What Our Co-Ops Do
We don’t throw our Co-Ops into the fire straight away. We give them time to get allocated with us and our work. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing real work during the amp up process. It just means that before they present their own work to our client’s, there is a little more attention from our other full time developers and sometimes other Co-Ops. However, there is a good chance that sooner rather than later, as a Co-Op you yourself are presenting the work you did to a client.
Our Co-Ops in our program do real work for real clients. Not only does it give them Salesforce experience and technical experience, we hope it helps them grow professionally. We’ve had many Co-Ops that by the end of their tenure with us, haven’t necessarily led projects, but have been at the forefront in leading the engagement. As a Co-Op with us, you will have daily interactions with clients, our internal team, as well as having plenty of time to actually do your work.
Since we started our Co-Op program four years ago, we have hired seven Co-Ops to full time, and three which are currently part time while they finish up school. We have had 21 total Co-Ops come through the door, and everyone who has been offered a full or part time position with us has accepted.
Wrap Up
First and foremost, our goal is for our Co-Ops to come out with a better and more elaborate skill set than they did when they came in. Without repeating what was already said in this post previously, we’ll wrap it up by saying we’re proud of the success of our Co-Op program. But more importantly, we’re proud of the people that have been through our Co-Op program, because at the end of the day, those are the people that make this program such a success.
We are appreciative of all of our former and current Co-Ops, and we can’t wait to see who else we get to work with in the future!
