Matthew Gass was in middle school when he last came to work at Lowe’s. That time he was with his dad as part of Take Your Child to Work Day. This time around the Marketing Management junior at Virginia Tech is an intern in the Tool Rental department as a Tool Rental Business Analyst Intern.
“I've been around Lowe's my entire life with my dad. He's been there for almost twenty years.”
When the 19-year-old was deciding where to intern his dad suggested he consider Lowe’s. “It was kind of a no-brainer for me. I knew it was a great company to work at and I'm so excited for my project and I have a great manager and mentor.”
Like many who come through the internship program, Gass is hoping it will lead to a job offer down the road.
“I think they've said it's close to 80% of interns in this position get offered employment upon graduation,” Jovanhy Trejo says. The senior at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is interning in Inventory Replenishment Planning. "I could definitely see myself here. It would be a great opportunity, for sure."
I feel like the work culture here is nice. Everybody's pretty friendly and helpful. So far, I’m just learning a lot from my manager and my mentor. I think I could definitely see myself here.
Lindsay Rifenburg is proof hard work during an internship can pay off. Last summer during her senior year at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Rifenburg was an inventory replenishment intern supporting the hardware team. This summer she is celebrating one year as an official Lowe’s employee in the same department.
“It’s awesome to be able to go into your senior year and know you have something lined up with a Fortune 30 company and know that you already built a network so you can kind of jump in and hit the ground running right away after graduation.”
Rifenburg says her internship truly made the transition to the working world seamless.
“Interning for Lowe's is a pretty exciting opportunity. We're not a busy work type of internship, so you're given a project to work on throughout your ten weeks here and the goal is that throughout that project you get a really deep understanding of the team you're working with and that division of the business.”
Nia Reed is also proof a Lowe’s internship can help shape a career. Reed was an intern in 2019 and was officially hired this spring after she finished earning her master’s degree in communication at Valdosta State University.
“During the internship, I was able to experience a lot of different sides of communication. Seeing how the company ran and the culture of the company and how it was changing, I knew that I wanted to come back to Lowe's.”
Reed loved her team and says she knew she wanted to be a part of something similar once she entered the workforce. “It's a very positive, welcoming atmosphere and the team that I worked with, everyone was really hardworking and they always got the job done but they always had fun doing it.”
Now working as a Brand Public Relations and Corporate Communications Analyst, Reed says, “The internship prepared me for this job and it really helped me kind of find my voice. The fact that I've already been in this space with these people, I've already done some of this work, it definitely prepared me for what I'm doing now because I had done it previously. So, it’s just kind of picking up where I left right back off.”
Allison Curtis is still finding her way – literally. A rising senior at North Carolina State University, Curtis is interning in the marketing department with the promotions and partnership team and admits, the campus can be a little overwhelming when you first start at Lowe’s.
“It didn't really set in how big of a company Lowe's is until I was here this week. I was walking around with my manager, and just the scale of Lowe's is insane,” Curtis says. “I was sitting in the orientation room and just looking around at everyone that was there and there are people from 24 states, 71 different colleges. I feel extremely lucky to get to be a part of this and have this experience because I don't think I would get this anywhere else. There aren't many other places like Lowe's, where I can get this professional experience.”
Mara Rosado agrees. The 25-year-old will be heading into her third year at Wake Forest Law School and was considering spending her summer at a law firm when Lowe’s held on-campus interviews last fall. “I applied to do a legal internship. That's very different from other opportunities that we have in law school. Usually, we would have firm jobs, which are definitely more time and work-intensive, crazy hours and whatnot. When I got the opportunity to be at Lowe's, I absolutely took it. It seems like there's a way better work-life balance. Just from the moment I interviewed, everybody seems extremely nice and more diverse, I would say, than a law firm.”
Like the others, Rosado is hoping to end the summer with a job.
“That's definitely the big-time goal. If I were to get an offer, I don't think it would be really that much of a question!”
