On Co-op Students

I've had the privilege of hiring several co-op students in my career. I'm trying to be less biased on the co-op process in general, so here is what I look for when I hire a co-op, what I measure them against, and my best advice for co-op students in general. 

Hiring Co-op Students

I'm trying to be more specific and less biased here, so here's my shortlist of character traits I look for and ultimately evaluate against:

  • Being a fully-formed human being: emotionally mature, independent, willing to grow 
  • Quality and depth of thinking, bonus point for showing their process
  • Disagreeableness, willingness to present unconventional perspectives and back them up
  • Problem-solving, specifically around ambiguous or no-right-answer questions
  • Communication skills: oral, written, graphic
  • Resilience, can take tough feedback and improve accordingly
  • Grit and resourcefulness
  • Curiosity, humility, and willingness to learn
  • Product intuition, or an intuitive sense for what works and what doesn't in the chosen field
  • ENTHUSIASM - in the words of Kevin Kelly, worth 25 IQ points - would much rather have someone mediocre on paper who really wants to work here than a genius who doesn't

Green flags:

  • Entrepreneurial or startup experience
  • Experience working in a minimum-wage job
  • Strong opinion on something unconventional or unpopular
  • Having worked or lived abroad, speaking another language
  • Proof of having taken the initiative towards personal growth (ie courses, YouTube tutorials, books, etc.)
  • Learning in public: a portfolio, blog, social media account, or other public proof of learning or experience
  • Past experience in the role, or something similar
  • Asks great questions at the end of the interview

Things I don't care about:

  • Brand names on your resume - I'd even go so far to say working at a brand name company (Apple, Google, Facebook) can be a net-negative in my experience, but I don't hold it against folks highly, especially this early in their career
  • Grades / signs of intelligence - if you've made it this far, you're smart, moving on
  • Discipline or Field of Study - PM is pretty discipline-agnostic and we'll teach them the Product side if we need to
  • Extra-curriculars - unless it applies to the points above, not important for me
  • Level of experience - I put some weight into what experience can build in terms of maturity and proof of capability, but a young superstar will outperform an older dud every day of the week

Red flags:

  • Lack of humility or a know-it-all attitude
  • Does not ask any questions at the end of the interview
  • Clearly focused on the wrong things, like salary, prestige, or influence 
  • Unclear on why they want the role or their career direction
  • Poor quality of thinking
  • Poor communicator
  • Speaking poorly of a past manager, company, or colleague
  • Lack of maturity
  • Lying 
  • Overexaggerating their impact 
  • Boring

Process:

  1. Submit a resume for review. I will often ask for examples of work to accompany, including a portfolio, website, social media account, or any other public proof that you are capable of doing what you said you could do.
  2. Interview. I will often ask a series of questions to evaluate: communication skills, enthusiasm for the role, fit within our team, and (for lack of a better term) general vibe. This is often a test of whether I feel I would enjoy working with you for extended periods of time.
  3. Project. Sometimes this happens before the interview, but I ask candidates to do a task for me to demonstrate their skills. This is not meant to be timed, or put them under tremendous pressure, but rather to evaluate them at their best. Best-case-scenario this is included in the job posting. I am ultimately evaluating their depth of thinking, technical ability, communication skills (written, graphic, etc.) and enthusiasm for the role (ie do they do the project or not?). This is the best way I've found to evaluate performance, and comes highly recommended from a mentor and friend (HT: Gilad).
  4. If required, additional interview.


Evaluating During The Co-op Term

I do my best to present clear guidelines on how I evaluate all of my co-ops at the beginning of their term, so there is no ambiguity around what I expect. It is a failure on my part as a manager if we get to the end of the term and disagree on the evaluation. Having a template to work from gives clear guidance on what success looks like, how performance is evaluated, and ultimately how to achieve the target we are both aiming towards. To be clear, I want all of my co-ops to achieve an Outstanding (or at least Excellent), and setting clear targets on how to do that is helpful for both of us.

At ecobee, we have 6 company values that I use to measure against. The bullet points listed are my measure of the Outstanding level, but often I will look for the individual to find ways to not just meet the criteria below, but shine beyond what is written.

Cultivate Curiosity

  • Student actively seeks opportunities to develop skills in specific areas of interest. For example, taking initiative on potential projects/tasks to work on or maximizing 1on1s with a diverse range of people 
  • Courageous and humble in requesting and gathering feedback
  • Receives feedback well and responds taking action

Aim for Impact

  • Achieves meaningful outcomes for the business within their co-op term
  • Proactively identifies areas of impact
  • Prioritizes effectively and communicates this proactively to their manger

Think like an Owner

  • Student is independent and has exceptional self-management skills 
  • Able to solve difficult problems on their own
  • Presents thoughtfully curated options and a recommendation when a decision requires additional feedback
  • Adapts effortlessly to changing priorities

Give Respect and Build Trust

  • Completes deliverables on time at an exceptional quality, and builds a reputation for being dependable
  • Preemptively unblocks work items by asking for support and/or clarification, well ahead of deadlines
  • Builds strong relationships with colleagues
  • Student is an essential core member of the team and provides unique value through their role. Employer would be delighted to have the Co-op return for full-time. 

Work for the Planet

  • Preemptively aligns work with core sustainability initiatives
  • Proactively identifies areas for improvement in sustainability-focused initiatives

Start with the Customer

  • Deeply internalizes product goals and initiatives
  • Proactively identifies areas for improvement in customer journey and create a plan to resolve
  • Begins with “what would be great?” and finds ways to achieve this goal without compromising on user value


Advice for Co-ops

  • Have a long-term plan. Don't pick your next co-op based on what is shiny and new and pays the best, pick your next co-op based on how well it aligns with your long-term goals and intended career trajectory.
  • Go through the side door. Some companies rely on the typical co-op system to vet candidates and find the best option, but in my experience, the best candidates are the ones who want to work with you so badly they are willing to bypass the whole system to make this happen. Huge bonus points for finding a way to circumvent the system and stack the deck in your favour.
  • Big risks equal big rewards. I did a co-op term in Germany, and that was a step-change for me personally and professionally, and helped me to eventually work on a cool project with a friend, which led to starting a business, which led to Venture for Canada, which led to getting my first job at Mosaic, which led to my second job at Nymi, which led to where I am now. Taking the risk of doing a co-op overseas, getting paid effectively nothing, in a country I did not speak the language was a crazy thing to do in hindsight, but it set the stage for future success. Now is the time for you to take bigger risks.
  • Learn in Public. This blog is my way of learning in public. I obviously don't have all the answers, but it is a chance for me to show my work and my process, and get something out into the world. Having a public portfolio, or something that demonstrates your ability, will take you much, much further than a line on a resume. If you can demonstrate your passion by putting your work out into public, risking criticism and ridicule, you will hit another gear of growth. I wish I did this earlier.
  • Show your passion. I want to work with people who want to work with me, plain and simple. I wrote above that enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points, and I firmly believe that is true. By the time you get on the shortlist of people being considered, everyone is excellent, and the deciding factor is often determined by who wants it more. Show how passionate you are, over and over again, and good things will come to you.
  • Gain life experience. My first criteria above is about being a fully-formed human being, and it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, because there's no way you're going to be fully-formed at this phase in your life. It would be somewhat disappointing if you were! However, the best way to grow quickly into a professional, or someone who is fully-formed in the workplace, is by (ironically) gaining life experience. There's lots of ways to do this, but here are some of my favourites: travel, take a class in something that scares you, do a project that feels way too difficult and publish about it, start a blog, meet new and interesting people, make great art. 
  • Get good at communicating. Presenting information, either written, verbal, and in a presentation to a group, are vital life-long career-spanning skills. The sooner you can become excellent at all forms of sharing ideas, the more successful you will be. There are many amazing resources about this, including books, YouTube videos, and courses, but by far the best way to be a better communicator is to practice. Having a blog is (effectively) free and allows you get more reps in, but I would highly recommend building a feedback cycle. This could be hiring an editor, finding a mentor who will review your work, and/or having a friend or loved one provide feedback. Bonus points if you learn to use AI for this.
  • Take great notes. The best lifehack I've found for career growth from co-op to fulltime is to be the person in every meeting who takes notes, captures ideas and action items, and shares them afterwards with the team. Make this a habit and build a reputation of doing this, and you will be invited to more important meetings. More important meetings = better projects = more responsibility = faster path to success.
  • Ask more questions. One of my biggest criticisms of co-ops in general is they don't ask enough questions. No one expects you to know what you're doing. I would rather spend 5 minutes answering your questions (bonus points if I can do that async) than having you spend 5 hours heading in the wrong direction. Being explicit, specific, and thoughtful about what questions you ask and why will help fast-track you from flailing, unknowledgeable intern to confident, competent employee. Further, developing a set of default questions to ask of all projects (timeline? success criteria? priority?) will help you greatly. This is especially true in an interview. Don't ever leave an interview without asking at least 5 really good questions. Prepare these ahead of time.
  • Leverage the hot new tools. When I graduated, social media was in its heyday, and many of my older colleagues were not yet on Facebook or understood the marketing power of tools like LinkedIn, YouTube, and Snapchat (is that still a thing?). Being a huge nerd, and a millennial, I was effectively an expert at all of these at an early age, but wasted my opportunity to make a meaningful gap for myself. The hot new thing right now is AI, and I can tell you with confidence it will change everything, so the sooner you get comfortable with it as a tool, the more useful you will be. Understanding its advantage and disadvantages, and when to leverage its capabilities, will put you a step ahead of colleagues who are older and more experienced in other ways, leveling the playing field. Double-down on your strengths.
  • Above all else, find ways to be useful. Remember that this opportunity is not about you. You are gaining valuable experience and skills along the path of fulfilling your actual purpose: being useful to the company that hired you. No matter how much HR nonsense is spewed your way about how companies care about investing in their employees, don't forget that you are not the main character in this story. In the words of Zig Ziglar, you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want. Help your team first, and yourself second, and it'll all work out in the end.