The Home Depot is offering students a chance to shape the future of retail through its summer internship program, which jumped 15 spots this month on Vault’s annual 50 Best Internships list. The program has become one of the most unique and sought-after internship experiences in American business, and there’s still time to apply for summer 2018.
Last year, approximately 80 percent of The Home Depot’s interns received offers to stay with the company. But the competition is tough – more than 20,000 students applied for 240 positions. About 98 percent of the interns – students from elite schools like Harvard, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and the University of Virginia – said they had a favorable experience.
The interns manage highly visible projects in various parts of the company, from Information Technology and Merchandising to Marketing and HomeDepot.com. Many work directly with Home Depot’s executive leadership team and all interns have regular meetings with the C-Suite.
“It’s a dynamic, exciting place to be,” said Evie Owens, a second-year Merchandising intern and senior business major at Georgia Tech. “My manager gave me a project that was very important to the team and the resources to run with it. Then, they took my recommendations and actually implemented them.”
Two years ago, CEO Craig Menear challenged a team of interns to conceptualize the future of Home Depot big box stores and present their ideas to the company’s board of directors. Today, their work has come to life through customer-friendly improvements like wayfinding solutions and lighting enhancements that can be seen at the “Pilot Store” in Kennesaw, GA.
Other intern innovations include a VR application featured at SXSW 2017 that simulates distribution center environments and a review categorization tool that helps HomeDepot.com optimize its product pages for shoppers.
“This is not your average internship experience with coffee runs and copy machines,” said Arlette Guthrie, vice president of Human Resources and an alumnus of the internship program. “We’re tapping into this pool of elite talent and innovative thinkers to help us stay on the leading edge of retail. We want our interns to jump into our world and get their hands dirty.”
Watch the video below to learn more about the program, or students can check out opportunities and apply online at careers.homedepot.com/campus. In the coming months, The Home Depot will also post a series of stories on Built From Scratch highlighting various internship roles across the company.
