SkillsRI internships give young job-seekers crucial career training
Skills for Rhode Island’s Future sets young job seekers up for success with its summer training program and internships with RI businesses.
Jim Hummel, The Rhode Island Spotlight
- Skills For Rhode Island’s Future is a nonprofit that matches job-seekers with employers through customized training.
- The PrepareRI program offers high school seniors a week-long boot camp to prepare them for six-week paid internships around the state.
- The program focuses on teaching professional skills such as punctuality, critical thinking and appropriate workplace conduct.
- SkillsRI also includes workshops for small-business owners to help them develop technical, accounting and marketing skills.
At 8:30 on the first Monday morning of summer vacation, Nina Pande had the attention of 260 high school seniors in an auditorium at Rhode Island College.
“This is serious business,” said Pande, executive director of Skills For Rhode Island’s Future, a nonprofit that focuses on workforce development. “Not everybody gets a trophy. Just because you made it here, it doesn’t mean that you automatically get to the finish line.”
SkillsRI’s weeklong boot camp in late June – dubbed PrepareRI – did just that: got the students ready for what to expect during their six-week internships at companies across Rhode Island in July and August. They ranged from an engineering firm in Providence and a recording studio in Lincoln to a restaurant in East Providence and a veterinary office in East Greenwich.
These were not get-coffee-for-the-boss internships. The students were put in the middle of the action on the first day, because the businesses that partner with SkillsRI know what they’ll be getting.
And Pande was clear about expectations: Be on time, no cell phones, dress appropriately. After all, these were paid internships, and Pande counted on everyone to be professional and earn their paycheck. It’s the first time some of the students had heard the message.
“It’s a privilege to be here,” she told them. “And while all of you have worked very hard to get your internship, this boot camp week is going to let me know if you’re the right ones for that internship.”
How SkillsRI bridges the gap between jobs and job-seekers
SkillsRI was founded in 2016 with a mission of creating solutions to match unemployed and underemployed people with employers in Rhode Island. The agency customizes training and partnerships with employers, schools and community organizations across the state – often using multilingual staff to assist.
“So we’re trying to figure out how to retool some of the workforce, to say instead of starting with the candidate, let’s start with the employer: What are the skill sets you need, what are you hiring for, what does an ideal candidate look like?” Pande said in an interview.
The PrepareRI boot camp for rising high school seniors is one of several programs that include a different kind of boot camp for adult job-seekers, and a business hub that provides support services for owners.
Over the last decade, the leaders at SkillsRI found that solutions to workforce challenges have evolved.
“The workforce is changing at such a fast pace that schools and institutions just simply can’t keep up with the pace of change that’s happening in private industry,” Pande said.
“Employers are not necessarily looking at degrees in a traditional sense. They’re looking at people who have critical thinking, people who can think outside of the box; think of people who are innovative and have this growth mindset,” said Pande, adding that many employers are hiring more for potential than what’s on a person’s résumé.
On a rainy Saturday in April, more than a dozen owners of Spanish-speaking businesses gathered in a conference room at SkillsRI’s downtown Providence offices for a workshop on how to improve their businesses. It’s part of the Rhode Island Small Business Hub program launched in 2023.
“A lot of those small business owners don’t have necessarily the business skills,” Pande said. “Everybody has great ideas, but they also need the technical skills to back it up. They need accounting skills. They need marketing skills. They need all of that.”
High expectations, impressive results
Back at Rhode Island College, the high school seniors fanned out to classrooms across campus, gathering in groups of two dozen for workshops led by SkillsRI staff and representatives from Leadership Rhode Island. They started with ice breakers and moved to skills and expectations in the workplace.
It was an aggressive schedule – just like a job – with a morning meeting for everyone, then workshops with business partners, state government officials and local businesses. Everyone gathered at the end of the day in the auditorium at Gaige Hall before leaving at 4:30 p.m. At the end of the six weeks there was a graduation ceremony with awards and a keynote speaker.
More than 3,000 students have gone through this program over the years, and Pande says it’s rare that someone doesn’t succeed. This year, 260 interns were chosen from 1,200 applicants in a process that began last fall.
“By the end of the week of boot camp, they don’t want to leave. And they say we wish we could be here another week and learn,” Pande said, adding that she will hear from some graduates of the program years later. “They point to this internship as that catalyst for where their life is now. They credit this program for feeling like they were prepared for college or entering their first job interview.”
Pande said with the price of college today, students finding out what they don’t want to do may be as important as choosing an area of study. And getting a taste of it over the summer can help them choose a career path.
Ingredients for career success
On a steamy Friday morning in early August, Jayden Ferreras arrived ready to work in the kitchen at Incred-A-Bowl restaurant in East Providence. Donning a chef’s jacket, he gathered ingredients he’d need to season beef for a Korean BBQ Bowl.
Ferreras, a senior at The Met School in Providence, wanted to learn more about the restaurant and catering business when he applied for PrepareRI.
“I didn’t realize what actually went into the business of a restaurant,” Ferreras said. “They taught me how to prep, how to cook. You know that feeling when you start something new and it’s such a feeling you don’t want to lose? That’s the feeling I got every single day at the internship. And a sense of family.”
Sterling Spellman, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Russell, said she loves working with young people; this is the second year she’s had interns from SkillsRI.
“Sometimes I find that people don’t want to hire young people, because they feel that maybe they don’t have the skills yet,” Spellman said, “But how do they get the skills if they’ve never had the experience? You can give them nuggets, gems, share life with them and they’re able to take that and go their way.”
Spellman said having a paid internship is a game-changer for many of the students. “Because some kids, believe it or not, are helping at home with bills. Or if they’re not helping out, then they need to pay their own cell phone bills, or their own clothes for school. Times are hard, right?”
Ferreras said working with Spellman and her team gave him a new appreciation for what it takes to run a successful restaurant.
“There were times when I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I just tried to observe my surroundings, see what needed to be done, and what could be done,” he said.
Spellman said she hammers home how developing relationships is critical to succeeding in the workplace. “When I’m on that stage at boot camp, I’m talking about the importance of your network being your net worth. I get the kids on LinkedIn saying: ‘Miss, I never thought about that.’”
Ferreras, who wanted to try something new, said at the end of the internship: “It’s probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
The Rhode Island Spotlight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that relies, in part, on donations. For more information, go to RhodeIslandSpotlight.org. Reach Jim Hummel at Jim@RhodeIslandSpotlight.org.