All 27 summer interns at iCIMS, a software tech company, gather for the company wide “College T-Shirt Day.” iCIMS actively recruits New Jersey college students in an attempt to keep tech talent in the state.
By Matt Lobosco
New Jersey students seeking to gain valuable internship experience close to home can now do so at one of the fastest growing companies in the tech industry.
iCIMS, a company that sells talent acquisition software which other companies use to recruit job candidates, has created an internship program with the intention of bringing the best talent in New Jersey to the company. All 27 students interning for the company this summer are New Jersey residents and the majority of them attend schools in New Jersey, including Rutgers University, Monmouth University, TCNJ and Stevens Institute of Technology.
Some interns also attend out-of-state schools such as Lehigh University, The University of Pittsburgh and The University of South Carolina. In total, nine schools are represented by this summer’s interns.
“We are focused on recruiting and keeping New Jersey talent in New Jersey,” said to Vice President of Talent Irene DeNigris.
Interns are placed in a variety of departments ranging from marketing to software development. According to DeNigris, the company typically looks for students majoring in areas such as statistics, computer science, business, marketing and communications.
Responsibilities of each intern vary from department to department. At the outset of the program, each intern is assigned a project devoted to the department he or she will be working in. As the end of the summer approaches, interns will be presenting their projects to their team as well as leadership within the department. Examples of projects for interns this summer include working with the company’s content strategy team and constructing email campaigns to send out to prospects to engage them about the company’s software products.
In an effort to prevent New Jersey’s best intern and entry-level talent from taking other job opportunities in Silicon Valley and at other tech companies, iCIMS is very aggressive in its recruitment of college students within the state. As the tech industry continues to grow rapidly across the country, iCIMS wants to offer great opportunities to New Jersey students within their home state.
“We see big tech brands as our main competitors,” said DeNigris on the race for recruiting young entry-level talent.
iCIMS gains access to students by building strong relationships with the top colleges and universities in the state. The company reaches out to students of these schools through career fairs, information sessions and on-campus interviewing.
The company’s internship program is primarily for rising juniors and seniors at the undergraduate level. However, there are opportunities for Masters’ degree students in the company’s technology labs department. The summer internship program lasts for 10-12 weeks with all students starting at the same time. Internships are also available in the fall and spring, but positions in the fall are limited to summer interns who continue with the company while in school.
All interns are paid and work out of the company’s main headquarters in Matawan. However, iCIMS will be opening a second headquarters in the Bell Works building in Holmdel later this year as the company looks to create more jobs.
Kaitlin Anilonis, a rising senior at the University of South Carolina who is interning in the company’s corporate communications department this summer, said her experience at iCIMS has been “extremely valuable.” She said her daily responsibilities as an intern include a wide range of tasks such as drafting materials to secure media coverage, drafting blog content, crafting internal announcements for employees and creating and reacting to posts on the company’s social media platforms.
Anilonis added that the atmosphere at iCIMS is very positive and that everyone is eager to help interns complete their projects and help them learn as much as possible during the program.
“Everyone is hardworking and friendly, which makes it a great environment to work in,” Anilonis said.
This article was first published in the July 13-20, 2017 print edition of The Two River Times.
