The Future of Hiring: How HCA North Florida Uses Micro-Internships to Build Its Workforce
A Scalable, Low-Risk Way to Identify and Hire Top Early-Career Talent
Hiring early-career talent has always been a challenge. Many students and recent graduates struggle to land their first full-time job, while hiring managers hesitate to take a chance on candidates without experience.
For HCA Healthcare’s North Florida Division, which operates 15 hospitals and more than 100 sites of care, this challenge was all too familiar.
- Heather Malloy, Manager of Application Services, needed to fill roles on her team but wasn’t sure if hiring a recent graduate would be the right move.
- Jackson Canfield, Associate VP of Academic Strategy & Engagement, saw an opportunity to use Micro-Internships—short-term, paid project work—as a low-risk way to evaluate early-career candidates.
- Harishma Ashok, a graduate student at the University of Central Florida, was applying for jobs with little success. When she landed a Micro-Internship at HCA North Florida, she saw it as an opportunity to prove herself.
What started as a short-term project turned into a full-time hire—and within 10 months, Harishma was promoted.
Now, HCA North Florida is expanding its use of Micro-Internships as a scalable, cost-effective way to build its early-career hiring pipeline.
Here’s how it happened—and why more employers are turning to Micro-Internships to identify early-career talent, reduce hiring risk, and strengthen their workforce.
The Challenge: Finding Skilled Early-Career Talent
HCA North Florida needed a way to identify and hire high-potential early-career professionals.
Like many hiring managers, Heather Malloy was hesitant to bring on candidates fresh out of school.
"I probably would not have even interviewed her if [Jackson] had not sent that email [vouching for her]," Heather shared. "She was fresh out of school, and I needed somebody with experience."
At the same time, Jackson Canfield saw an opportunity to bring in Micro-Interns—students working on short-term, paid projects—to test their abilities in real-world work. "At that point in time, we didn't really have a great internship structure," Jackson explained.
Key Hiring Challenges:
- Early-career candidates lacked traditional experience.
- Hiring managers needed a way to assess real skills before hiring.
- HCA wanted a low-risk approach to finding high-potential talent.
The Solution: Using a Micro-Internship to Identify Potential
Through Parker Dewey’s Micro-Internship platform, HCA North Florida brought in Harishma Ashok, a graduate student specializing in Data Analytics.
Like many students, Harishma had applied for countless roles on job boards, but rarely heard back.
"I never hear back from anything I apply to on LinkedIn or Indeed, so with similar expectations, I started applying for opportunities on Parker Dewey that I found interesting," she said.
She was selected for a Micro-Internship focused on process improvement—analyzing and optimizing internal workflows at HCA North Florida.
"We weren’t doing a great job of [process improvement], and someone with a fresh perspective could probably help us out," Jackson explained.
Instead of simply completing the project, Harishma went above and beyond, identifying inefficiencies and suggesting improvements that saved the team time and effort.
The Results: A Full-Time Hire and a Promotion
Harishma’s performance in the Micro-Internship changed Heather’s perspective on hiring early-career talent.
"Everything about her screamed good hire," Heather shared.
By the time the project ended, Harishma had made such a strong impression that her supervisor encouraged her to apply for a full-time role.
"At the very end, I asked them to keep me in mind for future opportunities," Harishma recalled. "My supervisor responded and asked if there were any current postings that aligned with my interests. I went to the careers page, applied right away, and let my supervisor.”
Because the team had already seen her skills, initiative, and work ethic firsthand, she received an interview—and landed the job.
"During my interviews I had so much to talk about because I’ve built so much experience through Micro-Internships," she said. "Any question I got, I could answer and support with real experience."
Within 10 months, she was promoted—a rare achievement for new hires.
"Typically they don’t move people from one position to another in less than six months," she explained, "but they let me know that I was an exception, and I got promoted."
Key Results:
- 100% success rate, with a Micro-Internship converting into a full-time hire
- Promotion within 10 months, faster than standard company timelines
- Cost-effective hiring strategy that reduced hiring risk
Why Micro-Internships Work for HCA North Florida
After seeing the success of Harishma’s journey, HCA North Florida is expanding its Micro-Internship program to bring in more early-career talent.
"We were able to take that story and promote it to our division executive team, leading to plans for a broader pilot program in 2025," Jackson said.
Key Benefits of Micro-Internships for Employers:
✅ Lower hiring risk – Assess candidates’ real skills before committing to a full-time hire
✅ Access to hidden talent – Identify high-potential candidates who might not stand out on a resume
✅ Stronger hiring pipeline – Build relationships with top early-career professionals
✅ Immediate business impact – Micro-Interns bring fresh ideas and process improvements
For Heather, this experience transformed how she approaches hiring early-career professionals.
"She has just been phenomenal," Heather said. "She’s got a good work ethic, she’s fun to be around, and she does a good job—all the things you look for in a coworker or an employee."
Conclusion: A Proven Strategy for Early-Career Hiring
HCA North Florida’s success with Micro-Internships proves that short-term projects can lead to long-term hires.
By using this low-risk hiring strategy, the company was able to:
- Hire top early-career talent without relying solely on resumes
- Identify high-potential employees before making full-time offers
- Build a scalable model for future hiring needs
As HCA expands its early-career hiring strategies, Micro-Internships will continue to uncover hidden talent, support diversity and inclusion, and strengthen its workforce.
For companies looking to improve their hiring pipeline, Micro-Internships offer a competitive advantage.
If you’re considering Micro-Internships, take it from Harishma:
"Stop not until you reach the top, and then keep going."
