Starting a career can feel like a catch-22: you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.
Rather than expecting early-career professionals to arrive fully formed, the employers on this list are building intentional pathways for interns, recent graduates, and entry-level employees to learn the business, build practical skills, connect with experienced colleagues, and take on work that actually matters. By taking a broader approach to candidate recruitment, these companies are showing that they invest not only in their product but in their people.
Here are 13 companies creating stronger foundations for the next generation of professionals.
Location: Columbus, OH
As a multinational financial services company, Wells Fargo has a broad portfolio of Early Careers programs includes internships and full-time development programs designed specifically for undergraduate and graduate students. The company provides specialized training to strengthen both technical and professional skills while preparing participants for long-term success.
One of the Early Careers programs is the Technology Program pathway, which provides structured internship and analyst opportunities — in 2026, more than 560 technology interns participated across the United States and India and 500 analysts. Throughout the program, both interns and analysts participate in learning sessions, networking opportunities, team-building activities, leadership exposure, and career development programming.
Internships in the Technology Program are designed for students pursuing STEM-related degrees and provide structured development, exposure, and learning experiences and can lead to full-time analyst opportunities. Technology Program analysts go through induction programming built to make them productive quickly, understand the business, build relationships, and develop career skills.
Overall, Wells Fargo’s Early Careers programs give participants exposure to Wells Fargo's products, services, business strategies, and corporate culture to help them understand how they contribute to the broader company mission.
Location: Remote
Healthcare operations software company LeanTaaS, whose iQueue platform helps hospitals schedule operating rooms, infusion chairs, and inpatient beds more efficiently, treats its internship program as a recruiting pipeline rather than a summer-only experience. Interns are placed on real projects across data analysis and product implementation, working cross-functionally with the Data Analyst, Data Engineering, and Customer Success teams. The company backs that with structured mentorship, professional development sessions, and direct access to leadership: interns regularly meet with CEO Mohan Giridharadas, who has been known to schedule ping-pong matches with them personally.
That access pays off. Interns have built their careers at LeanTaaS, including Marc Rosenthal, who interned as a Data Analyst on the Infusion Centers team before returning as a full-time Product Implementation Specialist. Rosenthal credits the internship with teaching him not just the technical side of the business but foundational professional skills — like running a meeting or writing a clear email — that he says will serve him throughout his career. LeanTaaS also reimburses employees for continued-education resources, giving early-career hires a concrete way to keep building skills after they've converted to full-time.
Location: Westlake/Cleveland, OH
Content management and digital workplace software company Hyland treats its paid summer internship program as substantive work, not busywork. Interns collaborate with experienced professionals on real projects and are assigned individual mentors, with additional access to company leaders.
Hyland invests in all of its employees — not just interns. The company’s Mentoring Circles pair employees with mentors and small peer groups to build specific skills, backed by 24/7 virtual education and year-round workshops. The company also runs Tech Outreach programs like coding clubs, camps, hackathons, and workshops that have reached more than 5,000 students since 2014, many of whom later became Hyland interns or employees.
Location: Dublin/Columbus, OH
Cardinal Health, a healthcare services and technology company, gives recent graduates a structured, 12-month entry point through its Embark Early Career Development Program. Embark participants can pursue tracks across data and analytics, information technology, finance, marketing, supply chain, and manufacturing, reflecting the reality that healthcare careers extend well beyond clinical roles.
By combining entry-level employment with structured development and defined pathways, Cardinal Health turns the transition from college to career into a program that allows them to try out various departments to get a better idea of what fits.
Location: Detroit, MI
General Motors designs and manufactures vehicles as well as the technology behind EVs, autonomous driving, connected vehicles, and manufacturing. Its TRACK (Technical Rotation and Career Knowledge) program is built specifically for early-career technical talent, rotating participants through functions like engineering, manufacturing, operations, finance, and product development so they build both technical depth and a broader view of how the company runs.
Support starts before day one: every incoming TRACK employee is paired with a current program member through GM's Buddy/Mentor Program, giving new hires someone to help them navigate the transition and connect with leaders and peers across the business. As highlighted on their mentor program page, former participant Barbara Scabello went on to become South America Safety Manager for Manufacturing, overseeing workplace safety for more than 10,000 employees across four countries.
Location: Dearborn, MI
Ford develops vehicles and mobility technologies spanning EVs, connected technologies, and commercial transportation. Its 10–12 week paid summer intern program puts students to work on real problems covering everything from vehicle technology and battery storage research to supply chain transformation, across divisions like engineering, software development, design, and business roles, with built-in access to executive leaders.
For recent graduates, the Ford College Graduate (FCG) Program rotates participants through multiple assignments in their first years to build skills and cross-functional networks. For instance, through FCG, Ford also has a Strategy & Planning Leadership Program that includes four nine-month rotations, the Treasury Leadership Program that spans three years of progressively challenging assignments, and the Marketing Leadership Program that uses rotational placements to develop future marketing leaders.
Location: Birmingham/Rochester, MI
OneStream is a unified platform for corporate performance management and financial planning. The company offers early-career opportunities across engineering, product, people, marketing, and other functions.
OneStream's culture is built around being bold, authentic, curious, and delivery-focused, with learning and development treated as core to the employee experience rather than an add-on. For someone early in their career, there are multiple paths to enter, from technical, product, business, and corporate roles that offer a way to build a career inside one growing company.
Location: Ames, IA
Workiva is a cloud-based platform that helps organizations manage complex reporting, compliance, financial, and sustainability processes. Rather than treating internships as an afterthought, Workiva built a dedicated internship pathway where students join real teams, take on real work, and develop professional skills alongside their day-to-day projects.
The program is a bridge between the classroom and the workplace: interns aren't limited to observation or administrative tasks, but are brought in as contributing team members as an intentional first step toward translating academic knowledge into workplace skills.
Location: Chicago, IL
Relativity, a software company that legal and compliance teams use to organize, analyze, and manage large volumes of data for investigations, litigation, and regulatory work, has an internship program with real responsibilities across areas like software engineering, finance and accounting, human resources, and marketing.
While working at Relativity, every intern is paired with a mentor, giving them a dedicated point of contact for questions and professional development, and interns also take part in team-building activities designed to connect them with colleagues and business functions beyond their immediate team.
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Cloud-based supply-chain software company SPS Commerce’s early-talent strategy combines internship opportunities and dedicated recruiting programs with mentorship, professional development, and structured career-pathing conversations.
SPS Commerce gives early-career employees opportunities to learn by doing, with its internship program designed to integrate students into the business and provide meaningful, real-world experience. Interns work alongside experienced professionals, build job-specific skills, receive mentorship, and take on responsibilities that can help prepare them for full-time roles.
Location: Dallas/Houston, TX; Chicago, IL
Pariveda is an employee-owned strategy and technology consulting firm that has built an intentional entry-level career pathway. New consultants are paired with a mentor from day one and are eligible for promotion after 12 months. In their first year, new hires attend a multi-day Dolphin School designed to onboard them into Pariveda's culture and business model alongside other new hires, and project teams help them ramp up on client, technology, and process specifics once client work begins.
Entry-level consultants work on project teams across industries, tackle business and technology challenges, and in some cases present Pariveda's offerings directly to clients. The company's Expectations Framework maps out development from entry-level team member all the way to executive leadership, giving new hires a concrete picture of where the path leads.
Location: Dallas/Houston, TX; Chicago, IL
Management and technology consulting firm Credera formalizes mentorship so new employees don't have to figure out professional development on their own. Every new hire is assigned a career coach — typically one or two levels ahead of them within their practice. The coach’s role is to introduce them to the company's culture and provide ongoing support.
Credera is intentional about keeping the relationship individualized rather than running a one-size-fits-all program: coaches work with employees on both personal and professional development and serve as a standing point of contact for questions, concerns, and career goals, which is a particularly valuable resource for someone navigating their first few years in the workforce.
Location: Lincoln/Omaha, NE; Austin, TX
Sports technology company Hudl, known for helping teams and athletes analyze performance, create video, scout opponents, and improve training, recruits interns across a range of fields for a hands-on experience built to lead somewhere. Interns are expected to contribute, ask questions, and speak up from day one rather than observe from the sidelines.
Hudl also builds its pipeline earlier than most. Through a partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Nebraska College Preparatory Academy, the company has hosted first-generation and underrepresented students at its headquarters to walk them through the hiring process and connect them with current and former interns. QA intern Reham Alaina returned for a second summer at Hudl and described feeling like part of something bigger than a single summer program, a sentiment the company reinforces with continuing education opportunities and a flexible, trust-based working environment.