Bryan Hanson wants to convert more interns.
The group president of Covidien Surgical Solutions has seen more than 500 interns pass through his North Haven and New Haven research and manufacturing facilities in the past 10 years.
After spending $3.5 million on the largest medical technology program in the state, Covidien has hired 66 of those interns as full-time employees. Hanson doesn’t know if that 13 percent conversion rate is good compared to similar programs, but he wants it to go up. He’s particularly interested in retaining students trained in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
“I’d like to keep the talent here in Connecticut if I can,” Hanson said. “If we are going to spend the time and the money here, we want to make it so the interns end up working here.”
Hiring young STEM workers is important, Hanson said, because the company sees its future in science and technology innovation, much like the state of Connecticut. Covidien invested more than $600 million in research and development in 2012 and plans to launch 50 new healthcare products in the next two years.
“We need to have very skilled people here in Connecticut because what we make is not easy,” Hanson said.
The issue of wanting more young STEM workers is not unique to Covidien, said Thomas Phillips, president and chief executive of Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford.
The STEM and manufacturing industries have a skills mismatch right now, even though unemployment is high, Phillips said. Groups like Capital Workforce Partners try to help these industries find and train the right employees for their businesses.
“We have to keep the employers in Connecticut,” Phillips said. “It is a challenge not only for the talented people but for the companies that want to hire them. We have to make sure there is enough for what they need in Connecticut.”
Organizations like Connecticut Innovations, with its Technology Talent Bridge program, and the University of Hartford’s Space Grant are working to train more students in the STEM fields.
For Covidien, the challenge isn’t finding enough interns as much as it is convincing them to stay. The company now has more than 70 interns pass through its programs annually, but once they are finished, many head off to other markets like New York City and Boston, said Hanson.
The company will reconfigure its intern screening process in future years to raise the employment conversion rate, Hanson said. Potential interns will be asked if they want to work at Covidien; if their interests lie in places where Covidien will have open positions; and if they are interested in the healthcare field.
One straightforward way to convert interns to full-time employees is to use pupils near the end of their schooling, said Judy Greiman, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges.
If Covidien wants to hire interns straight out of its program, the company should look for students in their last year of college, Greiman said. College seniors are more likely to have completed all their internships and be ready to enter the workforce with a full-time job, rather than sophomores or juniors who will seek another internship after Covidien.
“The employers are getting a student that has had various internship experiences,” Greiman said.
Covidien has 3,200 employees in Connecticut, including 1,400 at its North Haven manufacturing site, which is the largest facility for a worldwide company with $10 billion in annual sales.
The other 1,800 Covidien employees in Connecticut fulfill various roles, including research and development, sales, and administrative.
With a few modifications to the internship program, Hanson hopes more of those employees will be trained under the Covidien intern program.
“We are a big presence in the community,” Hanson said. “We want to give back to the community, and one way we can do that is to provide job opportunities.”
