20 days to give the intern a positive experience and instill corporate culture – all within a remote working environment? Though it might seem impossible, the SOCAR Turkey HR team is up for a challenge.
Keep reading to learn more about the process design and ultimate success of SOCAR Turkey’s 20-day summer internship, held fully online, in 2022.
Turkey's largest industrial holding company, SOCAR Turkey is one of the main players driving Turkey’s leadership within the global energy field. SOCAR Turkey operates primarily in petrochemicals, refining, natural gas transmission, distribution, and logistics. Thanks to its strong corporate culture (which was perfected over 10 years of Turkey operations) and the value it places on employees, the company has achieved an employee satisfaction rate of 98% and remains among the best employers in Turkey – all with a whopping 5,300 headcount.
In order to help attract future leaders to SOCAR Turkey, the HR team developed various young talent projects. The most crucial of these was a Summer Term University Internship program for second, third, and fourth year students which aims to contribute to the personal and professional development of young talent.
It is critical to show the spirit of working at SOCAR from the university period, as the priority is given to the interns in the recruitment processes of “new graduates”.
To better adapt to the ever-changing business dynamics of the world, this year the internship was transferred to an online platform. The most challenging step in the setup of the internship was to emulate the feeling of being a part of the SOCAR family despite remote work conditions.
Planning:
The first step of the process was to determine the number of interns to be recruited, in line with the headcount budget. Then all business units were informed accordingly, and intern requests were collected. Placement applications and job unit requests were matched based on candidate evaluations. During the application stage, each candidate was given the opportunity to choose the internship period (June/July/August) and the unit(s) he/she would like to work at.
In order to ensure managerial support, a presentation explaining the importance of the internship within company strategy was prepared. Then, weekly briefings about the evaluation tools and process timline were made. This way, unit managers were kept well-informed at every stage of the evaluation process.
Understanding hiring managers’ expectations and needs in advance allowed HR to better select which interviews to present in order to ensure placement sufficiency. This allowed for a quick process with fast feedback.
Analyse, the digital recruitment platform offered by Peoplise, was used for application collection and evaluation.
Incorporating automatic flows meant that application collections (pre-assessments), aptitude tests, and video interviews were all carried out with minimum effort from the HR team.
The Peoplise platform made it possible to create an easily navigated, visually branded career page full of content.
Criteria-based pre-selection processes, a general aptitude test, and three video questions were used to evaluate the candidates. After the criteria was determined for each stage, the Peoplise platform automatically sent feedback to unsuccessful candidates while extending invitations to candidates who met the criteria for the next stage. All video interviews were watched and evaluated by HR.
Thus, within an impressive 2-week period, the SOCAR recruitment team had managed to narrow a list of 3,575 applicants down to 251 candidates for final evaluations. After ensuing HR decisions and offer extensions, 82 interns began their summer internships at SOCAR.
Internship Program Content
In order for the internship program to be productive for both parties, content would have to be determined correctly. The Talent Acquisition Team, the group of people responsible for designing the Internship program, started by reviewing feedback received from previous interns, questions asked at university events, and benchmark studies. Based on these insights, they altered the internship agenda to include Leadership Talks and meetings with formet SOCAR interns
We carried out benchmark studies and made sure we understood intern expectations. We looked into what kind of training interns were interested in - not only technical but also soft skill training. The Talent Acquisition team prepared a program enabling interns to fully experience life at SOCAR in a mere 20 working days by communicating with trainers and mentors about the content. Not only would this be invaluable in giving our interns the best experience, but it would also allow us to benefit from our internal resources. So all of but 3 of our trainings were carried out by internal trainers. We realised that interns wanted to see, listen to, and meet with people from within the company
SOCAR Turkey Talent Acquisition Manager
Throughout the program, interns were provided with career development opportunities such as development training, CV preparation sessions, interview techniques, and an Owiwi personality inventory allowing them to see their own strengths. At the end of the internship program, an “Internship Evaluation Questionnaire” was sent to all interns.
Communication
In order to announce the program and direct interested candidates to the application microsite, external communication was carried out via SOCAR's Instagram and LinkedIn accounts while company employees were notified by email. Unit managers participating in university campus events made sure to provide information about internship opportunities.
Especially for companies planning new graduates, university events allow students to get to know the company. A large majority of candidates, especially from the Gen Z pool, researches career opportunities by following company social media accounts. Corporate culture and social responsibility projects are meaningful to candidates and every company should ensure they convey this information on such platforms
SOCAR Turkey Talent Acquisition Manager
When designing the process, great importance was placed on timely feedback. Providing personalised responses to candidates asking questions by phone or e-mail and providing both positive and negative feedback were the two main pillars that made the process stand out.
The HR team also made sure that selected interns were informed about the next steps not in a collective but rather in a ‘personal’ manner. This allowed the HR team to open the door for communication, providing a safe space for incoming interns to pose any questions they might have about the upcoming days. Entry document submission details, program schedules, and mentor information was also shared in these emails.
Before the start of the program, dedicated whatsapp groups were established for each time period so that the HR team could remain within immediate reach throughout the internship.
Throughout the program, our interns shared many posts on their Instagram and LinkedIn accounts, and at the end of the internship they shared valuable feedback as part of the “Internship Evaluation Questionnaire”.
Results:
The SOCAR Turkey HR team received a whopping 3,575 applications in 2 weeks. Thanks to the detailed planning and process automation driven by Peoplise, the online exam and interview stages were completed in 2 weeks. Interns received information about their placement in less than a month, and they were able to start gathering required documents prior the end of the academic year in May.
SOCAR’s university internship program was particularly special due, but not limited, to factors such as assigning a mentor to each intern, encouraging them to work on a topic determined by both, and supporting the intern’s development with personality inventory and trainings. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Internship Evaluation Questionnaire showed the intern satisfaction rate as 95%. Some internship features most appreciated by the interns included content, communication, and accessibility.
This case is a perfect example that with the right attitude and attention to planning, even a relatively short 20-day internship can prove productive and contribute to employer visibility