DriveTime’s Summer Internship Program

 

Looking for a summer internship program? DriveTime takes interning to a whole new level! (Get it? Stairs.)

At DriveTime, we’re a team of innovators and engineers, movers and shakers, dreamers and realists – But most of all we are a family that is fueled by the success of our employees.

We view students and grads as individuals and contributors. We believe they are the minds of the future and worth the investment. Each summer we hire a class of interns in various departments at our Tempe-based home office to help drive innovation, build trust, and foster intellectual curiosity for the next generation of young professionals. Our goal is to create a fully immersive learning environment for our interns outlined by collaboration and meaningful mentoring.

DriveTime interns get to build valuable career pillars while working in departments that fit their interests and passions such as marketing, IT, accounting, law, analytics and more. Over the course of 10 weeks, our interns are treated like regular employees, helping with actual projects that drive the company, and take part in weekly workshops where they learn how to run meetings, ethics of business and participate in charity work within the community. We encourage applicants to send in their information by April 30 to be considered for the program.

Emily Burnett, the program director, offers some quick insight to the before, during and after of each summer.

Before:

The search for summer applicants begins around March. In addition to sending out positions to a handful of online employment-related search engines such as LinkedIn, Indeed and others, Emily also attends career fairs at various universities.

She then spends the next 6-8 weeks calling, interviewing and narrowing down her list of hundreds of applicants from all over the nation down to about 25-30 interns. Depending on the needs of the company, DriveTime will usually look for interns to become a member of the following departments: Marketing, Analytics, Tax, Law, IT, Retail, Inventory, and Accounting.

During:

The first week of the internship consists of an all-inclusive introduction to all elements of DriveTime. Interns are transported to the Mesa office, a dealership, and an Inspection Center to gain a complete understanding of the used car buying and selling process.

The weeks that follow are full of real-world-application work. Interns partake in a 30-40 hour work week consisting of projects, meetings, collaborations and contributing towards innovative operations.

Other benefits to the internship include:

1. Weekly Workshops

Targeted workshops focus on our interns’ personal and professional growth.

2. Competitive Pay

We’re not all work, no pay. We offer regular pay along with college credit (if college credit is requested).

3. Growth Opportunity

All summer interns have the possibility to be hired on for full or part-time work.

 

Hear what current 2018 interns have to say about their experience:

Jazney Moss is a current Senior student at Arizona State University majoring in Finance & Business Data Analytics. She “found this analytics internship program through ASU’s Handshake app. What surprised me the most about DriveTime was their culture of acceptance and encouragement. Everyone is very hard working but also authentic. My internship surpassed my expectations in terms of giving me projects that not only helped me develop new skills but build upon my existing experience in challenging new ways. I felt I was making contributions that positively impacted the company.”

 

Miles Teague graduated from ASU this past May, majoring in Communication. He discovered DriveTime and our internship through a career fair hosted on campus. He says he “was surprised to discover how much Drivetime cares for its customers. They really do all they can to allow anyone to get auto financing.” He goes on to say that he “was pleasantly surprised to find that I was given real responsibility in my role. No coffee runs for management here! I was able to do real reporting that made a difference in how we design our web experience.” Miles adds that the “weekly intern workshops always provided an opportunity to grow ourselves professionally, be that for Drivetime or for our next job. The culture at Drivetime is amazing. No matter what work you will be doing, you are sure to be surrounded by supporting coworkers (and future friends). My mentor, Shawn Curran, was my role model for the course of the internship. He’s an inspiring source of industry information and insight.

After:

The great thing about our internship is that there is the potential to stay on with DriveTime after the summer is over. Based on the department, there is a possible opportunity to stay with us part-time throughout your semester or full-time.

In fact, here from some of our previous interns that are still a part of our family today!

Shawn Curran:

Shawn interned the summer of 2007 in the Marketing department. What he loved the most about the internship was “the opportunity to try projects with different departments to find what I was most interested/passionate about.” Today, he is our Managing Director of Market Strategy.

Nicole Ridgway:

I interned with DriveTime the summer of 2017. I was an analytics Intern and rotated through the different groups within Analytics. What I liked most about the internship was how hands-on they allowed us to be with every project we worked on. Instead of typical intern tasks, we were handed challenging projects where we were taught to use our problem-solving skills and start thinking like an analyst.  We would work on similar problems that the full-time analysts do on a daily basis. I am currently a Financial Analyst on the Inventory Analytics Team.

Joshua Claxton:

Josh was a 2012 intern for our Software Development team. His favorite part was being “thrown into the thick of things immediately. Within the first couple of weeks, I was coding up the new mobile website with my team. There were no “intern projects”; just real high-value projects. This helped me grow as a developer and person faster than I thought I could.” Now Josh is “a Software Architect which means I’m responsible for the technical direction of one line of business but also advise on the technical direction of the company as a whole. I also led the Software Development portion of the intern program this year.” Full circle!

 

Why Intern for DriveTime?

We are grounded by our roots.

While we pride ourselves on rethinking the way people buy cars, a lot of effort goes on behind the scenes to make the customer experience more efficient—and that’s where you come in.

We think big, but stay small.

One of the ways we maintain our core values is by structuring personal relationships within our walls. There are no doors by design and no hierarchy to hang your hat on.

There are endless growth opportunities.

We take pride in developing our team members in a way that encourages more fulfilling career paths. We give our employees the tools to craft their own unique future.

Our collaborative culture.

DriveTime encourages its employees to think outside of typical office constraints and reach across the aisle to various departments to get a full 360-degree view of how it operates.

We’re transparent, collaborative, and building a company people love.

We’re not your traditional corporate environment filled with closed-off desks and suffocating hallways. Our home office features an open floor plan complete with glass conference rooms and plenty of natural light. But the theme of transparency goes beyond our interior design as it’s not uncommon to see different departments and skill levels work together on projects, creating common chords of camaraderie and friendships.

At DriveTime, our employees are given daily opportunities to pave their own career path with the ability to change roles and take on new responsibilities over time, evolving professionally as the company evolves culturally. A continuous pulse of intellectual curiosity drives our team members to challenge themselves and each other.