Fikst’s Co-op Program Part of Successful Business Strategy
Main photo: Adrienne Clark (left), E’11, mechanical engineering, and Kristopher Kurtin, E’17, mechanical engineering, at Fikst in Wilmington, Massachusetts.
For nearly two decades, Fikst Product Development, a mechanical engineering services company, has run a successful co-op program with a focus on teaching and supporting students. It has helped shape the company culture and led to smart business decisions.
In 2005, when brothers Doug and Paul Sabin founded Fikst, a mechanical engineering services firm in Wilmington, Massachusetts, one of their first orders of business was to hire employee number three. They were looking for someone eager to learn and decided their best option would be a co-op from Northeastern.
They did not regret their decision. The success of the first Northeastern mechanical engineering co-op led to more Northeastern co-op hires and evolved into a co-op program that is now nearly 20 years old. Over the years, the program has helped define the company culture and continues to help it make sound business decisions.
To date, Fikst, which became a subsidiary of Re: Build in 2022, has hired 91 Northeastern co-ops and of those 91,16 became full-time employees.
“Co-ops are part of our culture,” says Adrienne Clark, director of engineering operations. “I think the founders realized early on how incredibly valuable these students can be as contributing engineers to the client-facing work that we do every day.”
Clark, E’11, mechanical engineering, was a Fikst co-op who was hired full time in 2011. She recalls that as a co-op student, it was not uncommon for one of the founders to sit with her so they could work through a problem together. She says one of the greatest benefits of the co-op program is the positive impact it has made has on the culture.
“Our founders coached co-ops and made sure that type of relationship wasn’t confined just to co-ops,” Clark says. “The idea of making everyone a better engineer has stayed with us and trickled up to make sure everyone has the support they need.”
From a business standpoint, the co-op program enables Fikst to staff client projects with a balance of high-level and entry-level employees, which allows the company to better manage and distribute costs and skills. Additionally, hiring co-ops is one of the ways Fikst hires recent graduates with higher confidence. Getting to sit next to a co-op while working with them and teaching them for 6-months provides all of the information necessary to determine if someone is a good fit for the company.
One of the key success factors to the company’s co-op program is the working relationship Fikst established with the co-op team in the College of Engineering. “We’ve always worked closely with the advisors to help connect with good candidates, and during this last cycle, a group of co-op advisors visited Fikst to see firsthand how we work, and the type of work we do.” says Senior Mechanical Engineer Kristofer Kurtin, E’17, mechanical engineering, who oversees the co-op hiring process. “This really helped them understand what co-oping at Fikst looks like and the type of candidates who would be successful here.”
Kurtin says that when hiring co-ops, he is looking for students who understand the experience is about learning. “We know they’ve learned a lot in school, but we want to help them take all of that classroom learning and learn how to apply it to real-life problems,” he says.
“It’s understanding that there are a lot of things they don’t know and that’s okay,” Kurtin adds. “It’s about being very interested in how the world works and wanting to figure out what you don’t know.”
Fikst hires students throughout the co-op lifecycle, believing that students on their first co-op have as much to offer as those on their third. Kurtin says the company encourages experienced students to step out of their comfort zones and tackle work they’ve never done before.
As an example, Kurtin says a student may have previous co-op experience with computer numerical control (CNC) machining and he may encourage them to join a team working on microfluidics. “They are typically a little bit hesitant, but we can teach them,” Kurtin says. “It’s nice to develop a new skill rather than continuing to flex the same muscle.”
Clark adds that the interview process typically reveals where the student will be a good fit. “We have a variety of projects going on at the same time and we will get to know the co-ops during the interview process,” she says. “We try to match their interests and skill set to the opportunities that we have available.”
The company typically does not hire students for more than one co-op because it wants to encourage them to have a variety of experiences. “We’ve had students who really want to come back,” says Clark, “but we encourage them to use co-ops as an opportunity to explore their interests. To me, the most valuable thing about a co-op is in trying different things and figuring out what you like and don’t like.”