I'd like to use the Nortel example.
Nortel, as time went on, had different mechanisms to support training of highly qualified personnel. They had institutes in different universities, and they came to know certain departments. They came to know the graduate students. They hired a lot of summer students. For them, it was the experience of working in that company, and it didn't much matter what the project was. You had the experience of how a company is run and where your project fit in the company's business. They kept looking at those students and would hire them.
It informed, as well, the type of training universities could provide to their undergraduates and graduate students. I think the whole ecosystem benefited from that experience. At the NRC, we had superb researchers and technicians who came from that training experience through Nortel.