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Early-career hiring is harder and riskier than ever. It doesn’t need to be.

Resumes and interviews can’t show you how a candidate actually performs. Real, paid projects can, so you have real evidence when it's time to decide who moves forward.

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Hiring for AI Skills? Evaluate Judgment, Not Just Tool Use.

AI is changing what your hiring signals mean. Get eight interview questions, follow-up prompts and sample answers to spot real judgment in early-career candidates, plus why project-based work is still the best evidence.

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The process is broken, and it's costing you time, money, and candidates.

The average early-career hire takes over 75 hours of work and costs more than $6,000 to fill. Even then, 55% of new hires leave within the first year, and candidates who lose interest along the way don't wait around for you to catch up.

And this is because a resume and a 30-minute conversation were never going to tell you how someone performs, or whether they're actually engaged.

When we launched as Trane Technologies, we faced challenges with brand recognition at the University of South Carolina. Over a few years, our efforts to brand our company to students in this highly competitive program had failed to convert to any hires. After hosting a few Micro-Internships, we made multiple hires the next year.

Shannon WadeEarly Career Recruiting Lead, Trane Technologies

How it works

Reach candidates early. Keep them engaged. See real work along the way.

A Micro-Internship puts your project in front of motivated students and recent grads through our network of 3,000+ schools. Candidates apply because the work interests them, and stay engaged because they're doing something real, not filling out another application.

Most tools make you choose: keep candidates warm, or evaluate them. The same work does both here. Once it's done, you have over 14 data points on how they communicate, problem-solve, and deliver: real evidence, not just a good feeling.

  1. Tell us your goal

    A role to fill, a skill to assess, or work to get done

  2. We open your project

    To candidates across 3,000+ schools who are excited to apply

  3. See real performance

    Candidates complete real, paid work, and you see how they actually perform

  4. Decide with confidence

    We deliver structured feedback and candidate insights, and you decide who to move forward with

How we work with employers

Solutions

However you’re approaching early-career hiring, there’s a way Parker Dewey can help.

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Operational simplicity

We built it so your team doesn’t have to.

  • Compliance and worker classification

    Handled

  • Payroll and payments

    We’re the employer of record

  • Candidate sourcing

    Through our network of 3,000+ schools and programs

  • Project design

    Over a decade of data to define the right scope and deliverables

  • IP and NDAs

    All work product belongs to your organization

  • Your time investment

    As light as 15 minutes, as involved as you want to be

Trusted by teams who hire early-career talent at scale.

Ready to hire with more confidence?

Talk to our team about how Parker Dewey can fit into your early-career hiring strategy.

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