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The Pillars of an Award-Winning Program
Stanley Consultants was selected as a 2023 Campus Forward Award Winner for their unwavering commitment to seeking out and hiring early career talent, their emphasis on diversity & inclusion, and investments in nurturing and retaining the next generation of talent. Please see below for the highlights of their approach to early career recruitment.
Demonstrated Investment in Early Career Hiring
With the forward-thinking skills required to lead employers through digital transformation, early career talent is more and more important to today’s organizations. We value their input, ideas and voice. We feel strongly that today’s new employees are our firm’s future leaders. Thus, a key element of our corporate strategy is to grow organically, primarily through the employment of recent college graduates. We focus on recruiting the best talent straight from college and providing them with opportunities to lead and participate in career development, networking and educational initiatives. Our active Young Professionals Group (YPG) supports this effort by working to improving retention and engagement and improving our bench strength and capabilities. The four key pillars of our YPG are: mentoring; innovation; collaboration and recruiting/welcoming new members.
Innovative and Multi-Faceted Approach to University Recruitment
We personalize our recruiting approach; we communicate our social responsibilities and we map out opportunities for growth. We bring in our early career talent with social media and drive them to our website to highlight the people, our leadership just as much as the company.We have enjoyed great success in recruiting early career talent by developing long-lasting partnerships with many of the best engineering colleges in the country. By working closely with professors to help arrange events, the students become familiar with Stanley Consultants through on-campus activities such as lunch and learns and mock interviews. They also meet our engineers and group leaders, who are often alumni, when they guest lecture in their classes. We routinely participate in over 20 career shows each year, however we have often developed relationships with many of the top students before the official career fairs are held. Alumni typically work the booth at the career fairs, reinforcing the benefits of working at Stanley Consultants.
Overarching Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
Each year Stanley Consultants employs interns in our offices across the country who are not U.S. citizens. Those who accept our full-time offers following college graduation are eligible to receive sponsorship from Stanley Consultants. The firm provides legal and monetary support.In addition, Stanley Consultants supports the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) through sponsorships, mentoring and providing guest speakers at events.During Engineers Week, Stanley Consultants has coordinated “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” events with middle school girls. At the events, female engineers from Stanley Consultants spoke of the variety of opportunities in engineering, various types of engineering careers and recommended what high school classes would provide a good overview of engineering.Company members have also spoken about opportunities in engineering at an annual University of Iowa event to support minorities and diversity.
Impactful Internship Program
Our employee lifecycle begins with interns. We identify top students and build a relationship with them so that “Stanley” becomes a household name. Once on board, interns are kept engaged with site visits, contributing to ongoing projects, and learning what it means to be a consulting engineer. After the first internship we remain connected, with the goal of a second internship or fulltime employment. Graduates join as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT), and often can pick which of our offices to locate in. These EITs play a critical role as the foundation of our bench strength program.Next season we plan to hire 37 interns, a significant number for a company with 800 employees. The interns y will be assigned to multi-discipline project teams to learn how engineers from different disciplines (civil, mechanical, electrical, environmental, etc.) collaborate on critical projects.
Growth and Development of the Next Generation of Talent
A brief overview of three of our multiple programs. Peer Connector Program: Each new hire is assigned to a peer connector who serves a positive ambassador, communicating company culture and non-job specific but important information and providing a social connection. The peer connector guides the new employee through the first few months, introducing them to coworkers, the office, how we do things and helping them to feel at home. Early Career Development Program: This program for interns and new employees delivers a high-level overview of company and business acumen information. Held every two weeks throughout the year, the discussions, led by company leaders, cover topics from Stanley history to updating your internal resume. It allows new employees to meet a variety of people through a networking time where a topic is discussed in breakout sessions and then shared with the larger group. Young Professionals Group: Our active Young Professionals Group (YPG) seeks out and includes interns and new employees to improving retention and engagement. Key pillars of the YPG are mentoring; innovation; collaboration and recruiting/welcoming new members.