.png){kind=logo}
The Pillars of an Award-Winning Program
Williams was selected as a 2024 Campus Forward Award Winner for their unwavering commitment to seeking out and hiring early career talent and investments in nurturing and retaining the next generation of diverse talent. Please see below for the highlights of their approach to early career recruitment.
Multi-Faceted and Thoughtful Approach to University Recruitment
The university recruiting team at Williams connects with students on and off campus and applies several innovative approaches to sourcing and recruiting early career talent. These include aligning with the company culture of being present, involved and engaged with students to create an outstanding candidate experience, strong partner school career services relationships, and a creative digital strategy to engage students nation-wide. Williams' engagement with students starts early with detailed job descriptions that outline the work an intern or new hire will be doing and participation in/hosting more than 140 on-campus events in the spring and fall. Williams' employees, called Campus Champions, collaborate with students during resumes reviews, interview prep sessions, career readiness skills presentations, and networking sessions to provide support to students during their career search journey. This personal touch continues during the interview process, where Williams creates transparency regarding the skills they are recruiting for by providing candidates with the competencies and questions that they will be asked during the interview and continuous and timely communication with candidates on where they are in the recruiting process. Candidates who receive and accept an offer are invited to participate in an on-campus or virtual "Signing Day" to celebrate them and their internship or full-time role.
Innovative Use of Technology
Creating a positive candidate experience is critical to establishing strong relationships with your candidates. Williams has incorporated technology into their processes to faster communicate with candidates, follow-up with them as needed and create and implement a first-rate keep warm and onboarding strategy once a candidate has accepted their offer. This includes the opportunity to provide ongoing information about the company to keep new-hires aware by signing them up for the company newsletter and inviting them to participate in a new hire "journey" to meet and engage with their intern peers and collaborate with the Early Career team. Williams also offered optional professional development to keep new hires engaged before their start date. Technology also played a major factor in seamless interview scheduling, the interview process and event management, to ensure that candidates knew when and where they needed to be for their interview, who they would be meeting with and timely follow-up, to create a positive interview and event environment.
Impactful Internship Program
At Williams, interns are empowered with impactful projects that contribute to business objectives. As a hybrid internship program, interns work closely with their leaders, mentors and teams so they are set up for success and understand how the work they are doing fits into the big picture. Williams interns have numerous opportunities to network with senior leaders and early career peers during Intern Institute (a three day in-person professional development summit), Feature Friday discussions, involvement with Employee Resource Groups, visits to and asset to see the core of the business, and end of summer presentations. Interns also collaborate in their specific locations to implement and host a community charitable event, with funds raised going to one of the many non-profits that Williams supports in that location. Williams is heavily invested in supporting early career talent and ensuring the success and positive experience of interns. This contributes to a 76% conversion to full time rate.