Agronomy Intern (Summer 2020)
Are you interested in joining an industry leader who is passionate about growth? At Southern States Cooperative (A Farmer Owned Cooperative since 1923); we are focused on helping our employees and our customers grow, by being the very best at offering challenging and rewarding career opportunities to our employees and providing superior products, services and growing solutions for our valued customers. We want to hear from you, so come grow with us!!!
Southern States' Summer Internship Program is for college students and gives students an opportunity to experience and contribute to our overall success. Students must maintain a GPA of 2.50/4.00 or above and be currently enrolled and attending a college or university. The program offers competitive pay and will extend for 10-12 consecutive weeks 40 hours per week.
How you will impact Southern States Cooperative:
Provide an opportunity for learning and engagement in various functional areas within the Agronomy field. Position will serve in various capacities within each functional area which will allow for on-the-job- training. The program allows the opportunity to develop specialized knowledge, skills, and operational experience for the intern while assisting the location in meeting its operations objectives.
The primary responsibility for this internship will involve crop scouting and tissue sampling. The intern will utilize Winfield's NutriSolutions 360 tissue sampling phone application to take samples from customer's fields. This data will then be submitted to Winfield for analysis and results.
- Week 1: Assigned to General Manager for general overview and initial assignments. Focus areas will be a general understanding of Southern States and the complexity of the business. Clear expectations of the goals/objectives, roles and responsibilities, along with expectations from the program will be covered.
- Week 2: Under close supervision perform duties as assigned by operations and sales. Shadow other employees to learn techniques to deliver high quality customer service.
- Weeks 3, 4 and 5: Works with Agronomist, Agonomy Sales Managers (ASM's) and Agronomy Operations Managers (AOM's) to resolve questions and concerns.
- Week 6: Works with District Precision Ag Specialist on soil sampling, making fertility recommendations and scouting. Assists with calls on customers to solicit sales, handles questions about products and makes recommendations on best practices related to our products and services.
- Weeks 7, 8 and 9: Work alongside associates to assist in areas of the location while shadowing other employees to gain additional knowledge of working in an Agronomy environment. Recap report to include observations within each week, relationship to their coursework, positives/negatives as well as "learnings" from their internship.
- Week 10: Spend time with General Manager on wrap-up and future plans.
What you need to succeed:
- Requires good written, oral and interpersonal skills
- Excellent customer service
- Must be team oriented and skilled in working within a collaborative environment
- Computer skills required
- Able to use iPhone and iPad technology including the use of mobile applications
- Must have valid driver's license and be 19 years old to drive company vehicles
- Requires lifting up to 50 pounds
- May require climbing, stooping, bending and crawling on a frequent basis
- Possible contact with hazardous chemicals and working in adverse weather conditions (rain, snow, cold, heat)
Southern States is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against based on their race, gender, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or other protected classification.