Each summer, we bring on a cohort of interns to gain real-world, professional experience in our fast-paced, innovative organization. Our interns own it by taking on challenging projects and create possibilities for the future of our company. Seeing how much of an impact they’re capable of making in a few short months, many of our interns choose to continue their careers with CDK as full-time employees.

Today meet Ryan Larsen, one of our many interns turned full-time employees. He began his CDK journey as a Learning & Development intern during our Summer 2020 Internship Program. At the end of his internship, Ryan was offered a full-time role as a talent specialist within the HR team where he supports employee engagement, learning & development, corporate responsibility & sustainability and performance management.

Hear what Ryan has to say about his career journey at CDK:

What about your internship experience made you want to come back to CDK as a full-time employee?

I wanted to stay at CDK because of the exposure to various projects across the Talent space. I also valued that my colleagues trusted me to positively impact both the department and the business through my work.

How has CDK supported your growth as a young professional?

CDK has consistently kept me engaged at work by asking me about my interests, caring about me as both a person and an employee, and challenging me to do work that makes an impact.

Why would you recommend the internship at CDK to other students or graduates looking to gain professional experience? 
CDK is different because they care about your development and do a fantastic job of tailoring your internship toward developing skills by having you dive into action on legitimate projects from day one. From the get-go, there is mutual trust that the work done will benefit both the employee and the company.

What has been the most exciting or rewarding project you have worked on? 
I will give two answers. The first one was our intern corporate responsibility project. We started working together with greenlight for girls (g4g) to support quality and inclusive education through videos that connected STEM to our roles at the company. It was such a success that we are running the same project this summer. The second project would be our supporting our employee engagement survey. It is extremely satisfying to watch the impact of this tool on projects, teams, departments, or even the company when they can pair engagement data with actionable insights. We launched this tool last year, and it has already had a positive effect on the business.

How would you describe the culture at CDK?
The culture at CDK is very results-driven and employee-centric. CDK takes care of its employees and gives everyone the tools to make their mark on the company. I came into my role expecting to ask how I could help and instead have had my teammates ask me how they can help me develop in my career.

How are you empowered to make an impact in your role? 
I am empowered to make an impact at CDK because my team has exposed me to and involved me in high-level projects. I was introduced to engagement data through our survey tool in the Fall, and after taking some time to learn it, I now provide reports that help teams improve their engagement. This data not only supports change at the team level, but also drives company-wide actions.