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Meet Early-Career Talent Beyond the Schools You Already Recruit From

For employers looking to expand beyond the same campuses and candidate pools, Parker Dewey provides another way to engage students and recent graduates through paid project-based work.

  • Reach students from colleges, universities, and academic programs across the country
  • Connect with candidates from a wide range of majors, backgrounds, and experiences
  • Engage early-career talent through real work that builds familiarity with your organization
graduates holding diplomas

Reach Beyond Your Usual Recruiting Pools

Meet Early-Career Talent Beyond the Schools You Already Recruit From

If you’ve recruited from the same handful of schools for years, you’re likely reaching many of the same candidate pools.

Parker Dewey gives you another way to engage early-career talent. Students and recent graduates nationwide use paid project work to gain experience, explore employers, and build professional relationships.

They come from research universities, community colleges, graduate programs, and institutions of every kind. Some are just beginning to explore career paths. Others already know the industries and roles they want to pursue.

Through focused, paid projects called Micro-Internships, you can engage candidates through real work while introducing more students to your organization and the opportunities you offer.

Early-Career Talent From Across the Country

  • Academic Programs

  • Partner Colleges, Universities, and Organizations

  • Open Eligibility

  • Skills Come From More Than One Path

Talent Is More Than a Major

The people applying to your projects bring more than an academic program to the table.

They may be student-athletes, first-generation college students, veterans, international students with work authorization, graduate students, community college students, career changers, bootcamp participants, or people developing new skills through workforce and non-degree programs.

You can also meet candidates with skills organizations need right now, including:

  • Power BI
  • Python
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Accounting
  • Excel
  • Marketing
  • Operations

A résumé can tell you where someone studied, what credentials they have, and what they’ve done before.

A paid project gives you another source of information. You can see how someone approaches an assignment, communicates, solves problems, responds to direction, and applies their skills to real work.

team of 3 at the office with different professional backgrounds

What Their Interest Tells You

Not every early-career candidate is going to be interested in every employer; this is precisely why the actions they take matter.

Someone who joins Parker Dewey has actively chosen to pursue professional opportunities and build experience. Someone who goes a step further and applies to your project is signaling genuine interest in the work you’ve posted and an interest in engaging with your organization.

For employers, that creates a different starting point than simply putting your brand in front of a large audience.

The goal is to reach candidates earlier and give the right candidates a meaningful reason to consider your organization in the first place.

Paid project work can help you:

  • Engage people who have actively chosen to learn more about your organization and the work you offer.

  • Build genuine consideration by giving candidates firsthand experience with your team, work, and industry.
  • Learn more about a candidate’s skills, communication, work style, and interest through real work.
  • Reach people outside the schools, programs, and recruiting channels you already use.
  • Build relationships with candidates based on substantive interaction rather than another recruiting message.

Meet Some of the Talent on Parker Dewey

Students on Parker Dewey bring a wide range of skills and experiences to real-world projects, from marketing strategy and AI research to payroll, compliance, and operations.

Through Micro-Internships, they put their knowledge into practice, build professional experience, and show employers what they can contribute.

  • Being able to apply what I’ve learned in my courses to a real marketing project made everything feel much more real and gave me a lot more confidence in my abilities.

    Emma SiegelUMass Amherst, Isenberg School of Management | Marketing | Social Media Strategy & Competitive Analysis

  • I’m very blessed because not a lot of students get a full-time job in their field before they graduate.

    Tre AdamsIndiana University Northwest | Business Administration | Payroll, Compliance & Office Operations

  • There are a lot more parallels than some people would think. I got to go to a convention after my internship to present on what our group did over the summer. For my Micro-Internship, I used a lot of those same presentation skills and even some of the same knowledge.

    Trey NewtonSouth Carolina State University | Computer Science | AI Research, Coding & Presentation Skills

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Give Someone the Chance to Show You What They Can Do

By engaging students and recent graduates in short-term professional projects, you can find talent you may not find through traditional recruiting channels, give candidates a meaningful reason to consider your organization, and gain firsthand insight into their skills and potential.

At the same time, students get what they’re actively looking for: a chance to learn about your organization, contribute meaningful work, and show why they’d be a strong fit.

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Ready to hire with more confidence?

Talk to our team about how Parker Dewey can fit into your early-career hiring strategy.

Talk to Our Team