Applicants
Selection Process
BECOMING AN HCC INTERN
Health Career Connection attracts talented, diverse undergraduates, and recent college graduates who have a demonstrated commitment to health care, public health, behavioral health, biopharma and/or working with underserved communities. HCC has designed a rigorous process to select interns and find the best fit between their talents, passions, and goals and host organizations’ needs and learning opportunities. This process has resulted in consistently high satisfaction among both interns and host organizations.
ANNOUNCEMENT: The application for a Summer 2024 internship with HCC is now open! December 11th is the final deadline to apply.
ELIGIBILITY
HCC supports undergraduate students and recent college graduates interested in:
Public health disciplines
- Health services management
- Health policy and advocacy
- Health education and behavior change
- Environmental health
- Nutrition
- Public health informatics
- Maternal and child health
- Community health
Topical areas
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Health finance
- Health information technology
- Analysis of big data
- Health consulting
- Quality improvement
- Human resources
- Community health improvement and health equity
- Building healthy communities
- Medicine, nursing, and dentistry combined with public health
- Life sciences
- Behavioral health (mental health and substance use)
- Health workforce development
- Process and performance improvement
HCC does not provide clinical or research experience though we welcome students with these interests combined with one of our priority areas and/or open to exploring health career alternatives. Our placement opportunities provide experience and exposure in the public health, health care, behavioral health and biopharma health fields.
HCC APPLICATION PROCESS
Online Application
HCC staff carefully reviews applications to assess if prospective applicants are a good fit for both the HCC Program and placement opportunities. The online application includes:
- Application questions
- Resume or CV
- Short essay questions
HCC Interview
HCC staff interview selected applicants in each region to further assess interests, motivations, talents, and fit with local opportunities.
Host Organization Interview
Selected candidates are sent to interview with potential placement sites.
Final Placement
HCC gathers and analyzes feedback from host organizations and intern candidates. HCC makes final placement decisions feedback to make final matches based on fit.
INTERN SELECTION CRITERIA
HCC’s founders and staff have been placing interns for over 33 years. Based on our experience, we use a combination of factors, in partnership with our host organizations, to select interns using a holistic review process. Some of the key factors are:
- Demonstrated interest and commitment to health care, public health, primary care, behavioral health, and/or life science careers
- Quality of fit with host organization expectations and opportunities
- Content and quality of applicant’s essay responses
- Educational experience including grade point average (no minimum GPA required) and health-related coursework
- Participation in pipeline, pathway, or enrichment programs
- Ability to work 10 consecutive weeks, full time (40 hours per week) primarily during typical business hours, during the internship
- Diversity of the cohort- racial and ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, geographic, citizenship status, sexual orientation, etc.
- Interest in and commitment to improving health and health equity for underserved populations
- Leadership and initiative (experience in student organizations, clubs, student government, community organizing, etc.)
- Geographic, transportation and technology factors that enable interns to successfully complete the program
- Interpersonal skills and ability to be flexible, adaptable and resilient
- Lived experiences or social, economic and/or educational challenges and hardships that candidates have overcome
- Relevant experiences working on health-related programs or projects
- Articulated reason and rationale for interest in Health Career Connection
- Language skills, and cultural and community knowledge relevant to potential internship placements