Why bother having a CO-OP program - RANT

I've been hiring interns I think for the past 18 years.  I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Usually though it was the students, not with the support staff in the universities that deals with the students.

I've had issues with one particular University with one of their stage coordinators and until this summer, I had not hired anyone from that University, in probably close to 10 years.  Because of the way I was treated by their coordinator.  So finally I chose to interview a few students from there. For starters we had all sorts of issues with Skype. It was extremely painful to interview that way because the voice kept cutting in and out, if the student on the other end even moved a hair while sitting   You would think that they would have tested their Skype setup before the interview day. 

I've interviewed a student once through MSN messenger video chat who was in  Jbeil Lebanon, and although he could not receive video, I had an easier time with that interview despite Lebanon's piss poor internet service of the time. The audio and video I received from him was sufficient and he understood me. 

In the end after the lousy skype interviews, I had chosen one student. I chose to make her an offer, but not to the other two that I interviewed because I did not think they were a good fit for me.   What they were expecting me to do is to send them a message that said

Student a  - 1
Student b - 2
student c - 3

What I did was the equivalent of this. Which I have every right to do.

Student a - 1
student b - 0
student c - 0

My HR person just basically sent them the name of student a, as being the only student we were making an offer to.  On a day where she was out of the office, the coordinator decided to call her.  He called her backup who said "This isn't anything that can't wait till tomorrow, wait till she's in". So he called my colleague who interviews with me, but got his voice mail. Next he called me. That's when he started saying "It's obvious you don't understand our ranking system, so I'm calling to explain it to you". That's when I said to the guy, that I was making one offer. He says "What if she refuses, you get no one". I answered "I have students from other universities I'd rather make an offer to". He tried again to explain to me the ranking system. I told him that I've been dealing with ranking systems for coop programs for 15 years, besides if he has a beef with HR, he should talk to HR.

Student A did accept my offer and she's working with me. She was a good fit in the team, and is doing an awesome job.  Normally during the internship, the  coordinator is supposed to come for a visit. That has to be scheduled through our HR department. But no, the coordinator sent me and the student an email saying he'd be at my office on a particular day at 2:30.  Well that's nice, but 1) what if I was meeting another coordinator from another university that day 2) I was on vacation 3) there were no free conference rooms to reserve for that day and time, because it's not like I can take him to my desk, I work in a restricted area.  So I forwarded the email to HR, who called him to tell him that he has to coordinate with HR to schedule appointments with my student and I.  It's still up in the air as to when this will happen because the coordinator managed to really piss off the HR lady.

Now let's think this through. The internship program is to benefit the students. So they get some experience in the field they are hoping to work in. The support staff in the universities that help make this possible, should not be pissing off employers. They should be working hand in hand with the HR department of the companies they deal with.  We almost always have one HR person dedicated to handling everything that goes with the internship programs. I've worked with every single one of them and they were all competent organized people.  Rarely did it happen in the past that a coordinator would phone or email me directly. It all went through the HR department.  Now all of them do it. So I get phone calls and emails from 6 different schools. From various coordinators and their support staff. I get spammed by all sorts of emails from the various universities for all sorts of things I should never be emailed for.  Like each time the school has an award presentation I'm invited.  Let's be honest here. Who goes to award ceremonies other then those receiving awards and their close family and friends?

Despite the fact HR asked all of them to contact HR only, they all try me. And I have one broken record CALL OR EMAIL HR!  Apparently I was the first who had that attitude and forwarded to HR all the emails I get, and send emails to advise HR when I get phone calls. Now all the other managers who hire students do the same.

I mean the 3 main universities with COOP programs are Sherbrooke, Concordia and ETS [Ecole de Technologie Superieure ].   I have beefs with all 3. One of them tends to send me candidates from first year bachelors to masters students.  I now know why. The staff tell the students "apply to all jobs that you like and ignore the pre-requesites".    One of them spams me constantly with junk mail, despite asking over and over and over to be removed from their mailing lists.  Their website to get resumes is woefully painful. I had 15 applicants for my fall 2013 position and it took me over 2 hours to print the resumes of those that had adequate GPA. 

IT's a great idea to put everything electronically. Sadly when I interview either at their campus or when I interview in a room at work, I don't have access to even a laptop to view the resume. So I need to print them regardless. So having their whole system electronically has not improved things  but has made it more difficult. For instance it's very nice that I can do the evaluation online but it's a pain to print it so that we can keep a copy for our files for instance. Doesn't print very well. PRobably done on purpose by some environmental nazi. to discourage printing.

Same university again, about a year ago, I chose a whole bunch of candidates to interview and then never got given an interview schedule for the day I was supposed to interview at their campus.   And then the last university is the one I've been bitching about with the coordinators from hell.  I had issues with them and Skype  4 months ago. Apparently the Skype interviews that were supposed to happen today,  got completely messed up by the university . HR person sent all her instructions for how to connect to Skype via email.  When she called to ask why no one has connected by Skype to the manager, she was told that she hadn't provided the right information.  They blatantly lied to her twice today.  I'm so looking forward to meeting that coordinator. When he asks how come we rarely hire students from their university I am prepared to give him an earful, more then he cared to know that's for sure.

Then there's McGill, Polytechnique and UQAM who also sends us interns. One of them I can't really complain about. I don't get many candidates but the ones I've hired have been exceptional.  Another one for some reason now for the 3rd time in a row sends me resumes of students who are registered full time for the period for which they are applying for an internship. HR assures me that it says these are full time positions. How do those students expect to do 5-6 classes during the day and work full time? Or when I'm looking for winter positions they  are applying for summer positions. So CV's go into reject pile.   The last university, rarely sends me students at any other time then for the summer positions. But then I have so much more choice in the summer that their students don't get a fair chance sometimes.