As a small company and a startup, one of our foundational decisions was to be ruthless in how we resourced our team. In other words, we set a plan in place to hire some of the industry’s top talent, use those team members to build and deliver on our differentiators, and outsource all other non-essential functions, like Human Resources. For those functions, we contracted a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) to ensure we could have access to a robust HR operations infrastructure, a wide set of benefits, and were in compliance with laws and regulations.
So, when we found two potential interns knocking on our virtual door, interested in getting important industry experience while also contributing to our mission and vision, we had to make a choice: pass on the opportunity or figure out a way to move forward. And just as we are embracing the future of the insurance industry, we also chose to embrace the opportunity to build Joyn’s first internship program.
Many voices went into creating this program. With the guidance of our PEO, we determined how to set up the program operationally and ensure it was in compliance with all laws. And members of Joyn’s Advocate Team worked on how to structure the program, pulling from their own experiences and best practices.
Ultimately, we determined that for the program to be successful, it should help the interns as a meaningful addition to their resumes while also compensating them fairly and allowing Joyn to benefit from their work. To make this happen, we aligned their experience with their field of study, embedding them within a team and treating them like any of our other team members during the 13 weeks that they are with us.
Meet Joyn’s Summer 2023 Interns:
Alicia is currently pursuing a double major in Economics and Spanish at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She was attracted to an internship at Joyn because she “was intrigued by Joyn’s commitment to embracing technology and data-driven solutions to deliver a faster experience.” Those focuses, she said, aligned with her interest in exploring the intersection of economics and technology.
Working alongside members of the Operations and Distribution teams, Alicia has already developed an understanding of processing submissions from end to end, shadowed team members on distribution calls to gain exposure to the client-facing side of the industry, and worked on a variety of other operations projects.
Jessie is a rising junior at Cornell University, studying Computer Science and Mathematics with a minor study in Architecture. Jessie was attracted to Joyn because of the opportunity to acquire practical technical skills in areas like data analytics, quantitative analysis, and data visualization. Jessie also hopes to become familiar with the dynamics and challenges in the insurance industry.
Jessie is currently involved in several projects that encompass geospatial mapping for brokers, conducting tier analysis, and creating a website for external reporting purposes.
We are so happy to have Alicia and Jessie on the team as the members of our inaugural internship program, and we look forward to welcoming more interns next summer.
