OKLAHOMA CITY (OBV) – The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s annual InternOKC event continued its tradition of providing young Oklahomans the knowledge and strategies they will need to prosper as professionals.
The event was held last week at the Skirvin Hilton, carrying on a tradition that is nearing 20 years strong.
InternOKC, a day long professional development conference for summer interns in Oklahoma City, provides college students the practical strategies and tools that will help them succeed as young professional.
The first InternOKC event was held in 2007, and the purpose was to keep Oklahoma’s best and brightest here in the Sooner State, according to Lee Copeland, Director of Talent Programs & Partnerships for the Greater OKC Chamber.
“It was back in a time in which the state and Oklahoma City as well were experiencing a pretty significant brain drain for young talent. And so we were losing our college graduates to other markets,” Copeland said.
The narrative has since dramatically shifted.
“If you check the data from our Board of Regents, we know that we’re retaining a high level — as much as 80 percent — of our in-state graduates. They’re staying in the market,” Copeland said.
Oklahoma City employers are currently benefiting from a high-quality selection of young, entry-level talent that want to remain in the OKC job market, according to Copeland.
But despite the rise in young professionals remaining in Oklahoma City, InternOKC is not letting up on its mission to keep top talent here at home.
“One of the primary pillars of InternOKC is to remind young talent that Oklahoma City is a great place to start their career,” Copeland said.
InternOKC’s second pillar is informed by feedback from the Greater OKC Chamber’s employer partners.
“Which is an opportunity for professional development, to [address] certain skill gaps that can exist in young talent coming into the labor market, despite whatever technical training that they’ve had,” Copeland said.
Foundational professional skills are the building blocks of a career, and InternOKC strives to build that sound structure within young professionals, according to Copeland.
“InternOKC takes the feedback of our employers, and we have developed three competencies that we think are essential to best position young talent to grow and thrive in our market,” he said.
Copeland listed the three competencies as follows:
- The role that relationships play in a professional journey;
- Habits and practices that must be developed to help an aspiring young professional grow; and
- A mindset of resiliency that helps aspiring young professionals overcome failure and fear to be able to thrive as a professional.
“Those three pillars really inform a significant portion of the event,” Copeland said. “We have employer partners all over the greater Oklahoma City area that employ summer interns. And so, we put this event on as an event to help augment their experience as interns and give them some pretty great exposure for the city, and then to augment their professional development with coaching from some great keynote speakers.”
This year’s conference had a little over 230 interns from more than 40 different employers of varying sizes from across Oklahoma City.
The Greater OKC Chamber did survey work with employer partners to learn which skill gaps they are noticing among interns.
The information gained from those surveys was used to tailor programming during the conference. Five breakout sessions were led by trainers who worked with interns to fill those skill gaps.
One of the breakout sessions was focused on professional communication. It was led by Alison Abbott, Chief Operating Officer of Freestyle Creative.
“She went through the program in 2007. And so, this was kind of what she’s learned about professional communication and the kind of advice that she would give to her younger self,” Copeland said.
Cassie Niemann, a well known and highly respected business coach and trainer, led a breakout session that provided a framework for critical thinking and making critical decisions.
Heather Wilson, an HR leader for EMBARK OKC, led a breakout session on how to manage priorities and projects. Wilson focused on how to set boundaries to better guard time and better manage priorities and projects.
Michael Shellabarger, Manager of Talent Development for Love’s Travel Stops, led a breakout session on developing emotional intelligence, which helped the participants better understand what emotional intelligence looks like, how they see themselves and how it shapes how they regard individuals they work with.
Travis Lightsey, Director of Career Development for Rose State College, led the final breakout session, offering participants a framework on how to find their true calling rather than just finding a job that pays the bills.
“InternOKC, as well as any events that offer professional development for young professionals, is very important because it allows young professionals to get a head start on what it truly means to network and really figure out what they’re supposed to be doing with the opportunity of interning with a company and getting a head start on their career,” Lightsey said.
Being an intern is an illuminating part of a young person’s career exploration process, according to Copeland.
“They’re on a path educationally, and it’s a way for them to understand what does this learning look like in a real world setting. To begin to measure, ‘what do I know’ versus ‘what I think I’ll need to know,’ as well as what does it look like to actually do a particular job for a living,” Copeland said. “There’s some value in career exploration, for sure. Part of it is building a breadth of experience.”
Copeland said it’s not uncommon for today’s young people to have little work experience.
“So, in many cases, [internships are] an introduction to the labor market. And for sure it’s an introduction for many into what it looks like to begin to navigate the professional world,” he said.
Internships also help future professionals develop their personal network.
“That’s why we talk so heavily about the need for mentors and getting input on how relationships are key in your professional journey. Those first internships could either result in their first job opportunity or it may result in an adult that becomes a mentor,” Copeland said. “It’s a lot of different resources and experiences that are essential as they start their career.”
Many employers regard paid internships as an opportunity to vet future talent for their organization, Copeland said.
“It’s an opportunity to see what kind of students are out there, what kind of talent is available in the market and for them to begin to think about, as part of their succession planning, ‘Where are we going to have needs in the future? And how do we begin conversations with that future talent to fill those opportunities as they come up?'”
