Industries like consulting, investment banking, law, and technology commonly have these early access undergraduate programs to channel candidates into their internship programs and junior talent pipelines.
The descriptions of the programs themselves are sometimes hard to decipher… leaving many students, career services partners, and parents wondering… What ARE these Early Access Programs?
Going by various names – insights programs, future leaders’ programs, talent development programs, campus associate programs – all aim to accomplish similar goals in terms of exposure, experience, and recruitment. The programs refer to an opportunity for undergraduate students to get an early look into and experience with a particular company, industry, or career path.
Some key things to know about undergraduate early access programs:
- Designed specifically for current undergraduate students, most often sophomore and juniors. Some are open to freshmen.
- Programs aim to give students a preview of what it would be like to work at a particular company or in a particular industry.
- Components of the programs often include: events, panels, networking opportunities, shadow days, internship components, or actual short-term internships.
- Programs are usually very competitive. Companies use them to identify and engage talented students as potential future full-time hire candidates.
- Locations of programs are often aligned to a company’s workforce location strategy; many can be found in: NYC, San Fran, LA, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Baltimore, Boston.
- Companies tend to host students in person, covering all expenses for students to partake in-person.
- Arguably the most important component found in many of these programs is… the early access interview opportunity.
- Interviewing for and receiving an offer coming out of these programs is the goal.
- Companies tend to hire roughly 10-30% of summer internship classes from these programs.
- For those program participants who attend but do not receive an offer, there may still be an opportunity to revisit as part of the “general” application review process.
These programs tend to take place in Q1-Q2 of the year prior to the summer internship program itself. Meaning… an early access program taking place in March 2024 would then pipeline talent into the Summer 2025 Internship Program.
In summary, these programs let ambitious undergraduate students get valuable hands-on experience and recruitment opportunities in roles or firms they may be targeting. The experiences give both the students and companies a chance to evaluate fit and interest in future employment.
Andrea Benson, Managing Director
Andrea Benson is a Managing Director at Prospect Rock Partners. Prior to joining, Andrea spent 13 years at Bank of America across the IBD (M&A), HR (Campus Recruiting) and Tech (CIO) divisions respectively. Most recently, Andrea was the Global Head of Campus Recruiting and Operations at Morgan Stanley. She holds extensive knowledge of the global recruiting landscape and has a vast network given her tenure in the campus recruiting space. She holds a B.A. from Stonehill College, and lives in New Jersey with her husband and young son.