Everyone wins with the Lowe’s summer internship program.
Lowe’s gains a talent pipeline to fill jobs a year or more down the road, and interns get invaluable work experience. And quite likely, a job offer.
This summer, 160 interns from 71 schools are getting the opportunity of a lifetime. Their summer gig is designed to lead to full-time employment once they finish school.
“Our interns gain practical experience that will be useful to them long after the internship is over,” said Toria Weltz, Lowe’s senior manager of early talent acquisition and the leader of the summer internship program. “But the goal of our internship program is to convert those interns to full-time employees. About 80 percent of our interns are given an offer of full-time employment. We’re focused on it being a pipeline for future leaders into the organization.”
The interns are spread out in business lines from merchandising to marketing and from HR to IT. The bulk of them are about evenly divided between Lowe’s corporate office (65) in Mooresville, North Carolina and the technology office (64) in uptown Charlotte. Ten interns are working virtually, and 21 are working in retail locations.
Most are undergrads – juniors and seniors – but a few are candidates for law degrees, MBAs and Ph.D.s. They come from a wide range of public and private institutions across the country, including historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and primarily Hispanic-serving institutions.
“They're all in project-based internships,” said Weltz. “They are working, embedded, in whatever team they’re assigned to. They each get a manager and a mentor. They will be part of the work that the team is doing, but in addition, they are given a project that they complete during their 10 weeks, and they report out to senior leadership of their business line at the end of the summer.”
Ashley Ruf is a University of Florida student expecting to graduate next May with a BSBA in finance and a minor in real estate. She’s spending this summer in the online merchandising department.
Throughout my summer at Lowe’s, I am eager to have the opportunity to climb a steep learning curve in a short amount of time. Taking the initiative to meet my peers and build a network with my mentors, I plan on being intentional, valuing the relationships that I build and taking advantage of the collaborative environment that I will be immersed in.
“Learning to be comfortable with any ambiguity and to be resilient in the face of adversity is a main goal of mine this summer,” she continued. “I am always looking for an opportunity to expand my horizons … challenging the status quo and learning to pivot along the way.”
Luke Lorton is a returning intern and student at Virginia Tech University who expects to graduate in December with a degree in industrial and systems engineering. “Being a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Lowe’s is a great place to apply some of the classroom knowledge that I have been accumulating for the last four years,” he said. “Last summer, I was placed in a leadership role in a Regional Distribution Center (RDC) where I learned about the supply chain process. This summer, as an Inventory Replenishment intern, I hope to gain more experience in the technical aspects of how Lowe’s operates its supply chain.”
Lowe’s makes the internships as full-service as possible. Housing is even offered for interns who need it. “We have a large group of interns staying on campus at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte,” said Weltz.
More than anything else, interns ask for networking opportunities, Weltz said. And they get those in formal and informal settings.
Being in the corporate building provides many more connection opportunities, and I hope to make connections in as many aspects of the business as possible. Further, I hope to understand how each business is connected and how they work together toward the success of Lowe’s as a company.
“All of our C-suite executives will be coming in to speak to the interns, and that’s a very popular event,” Weltz said. “We offer other panel discussions, too – a merchandising panel, finance panel, past intern panel. We do professional development courses, as well – in conflict resolution and unconscious bias, for instance. We do a community service event in conjunction with our community relations team. We also have a mentoring and training session with our business resource groups.”
An office internship may not be a day at the beach, but there’s plenty of fun to be had during the 10-week paid internship program that runs from May 31 through Aug. 5. Weltz and her team plan a variety of social outings for the intern crew. One highlight will be a night out at a Charlotte Football Club (FC) game. That’s the new major league soccer team in the Queen City.
“We give them opportunities to get together and network in a in a more free, open forum – in a social environment,” she said.
To ensure that everyone gets the most out of the 10 weeks, Weltz’s team offers training to the managers and mentors on best practices for having an intern.
“We train them on giving reviews,” Weltz said. “We even create new talent review documents that are intern-specific but also align with our organization's values and standards.”
Weltz and her team remind managers and mentors that the interns have something to teach them, too. “We always encourage managers and mentors to learn from their interns. ‘They have things to teach you as much as you have things to teach them,’ we say. It needs to be a symbiotic relationship.”
The interns get to review their experience, and their feedback helps shape the program for the next summer.
What does it take to be a Lowe's intern?
“I will always take attitude over skill,” said Weltz.
“If you’re going to come into a technology position, you certainly need the basic technical skills,” she continued. “But we want to see a positive attitude, a drive for continuous learning. Wherever our interns are in their journey – and some are non-traditional students who maybe went into the military before completing their education – we want them to be curious. A common theme among all them is that thirst for knowledge. We want them to bring their unique voice and ideas to our organization to help us grow and innovate.”
Meet more of our Lowe's summer interns by clicking through the gallery below.
