In response to the January 28 article by Ms. Shellenbarger on unpaid internships and paid placement services, it is encouraging to see the Journal bring attention to this matter and understandable that the coverage was one-sided to make an important point.
Naturally, the OTHER side is that finding quality internships needn’t cost a dime. And by “quality,” we take aim at businesses and organizations that are savvy enough to groom AND pay potential future employees for contributing real work value and productivity.
In fact, we at The Internship Institute advocate that all interns should be paid and that no student should have to pay to gain practical work experience.
If it pleases your readers, I wish to cover four distinct points with brevity. First, the root of the problem at colleges; second, the crux of the issue at businesses; third, how students can find internships on their own, and; fourth, the remedy to these timely workforce gaps.
College career centers are – by and large – grossly under-funded and short-staffed (about a 1:1800 ratio by one study[1]). Less than half of students EVER visit their center. Less than half of centers do anything directly to help students find internships. Hardly ANY career centers provide internship and job placement services. Enough said.
Second, when it comes to internships, most businesses either don’t know what they’re missing, don’t know what they’re doing, or don’t have the tools to do it right. The real problem is with managers, the majority of whom have poor misconceptions about the value of having interns to increase efficiency, productivity and competency to save time, cost and mistakes. The first step is to dedicate time and effort to get proper training for supervising and mentoring students effectively.
As evident as internships are to some, they remain a huge ‘blind spot’ on the face of the American business community and education system. As a looming talent crisis increasingly becomes apparent and today’s workforce struggles to do more with less, internships represent an unprecedented opportunity to infuse the economy with an untapped pipeline of student talent. They also ready an emerging workforce to succeed, reducing the widening gap between labor and business competency. Managers can especially boost their productivity, gaining the equivalent of 200-plus workdays in a calendar year, through a properly managed internship program.
In fact, we’ve launched a federally funded (WIRED Grant) program in Northeastern Pennsylvania to promote and establish more quality internships. The “Internship Seeding Initiative” involves advanced training for managers, resources to simplify programs, and takes aim at productivity as the key driver for a mutually beneficial internship experience.
Moving on, there are a number of ways students can find paid internships for free so parents don’t have to buy it for them. Aside from the obvious, they will want to network through student chapters of their respective professional associations, contact their local chamber of commerce, and talk to classmates they know who had good internships and are willing to make an introduction. One outstanding way to secure opportunity is to do informational interviews by identifying and contacting the right individuals at select companies to ask if you can buy someone a cup of coffee. It is a “soft sell” that can pay huge dividends.
Career advice aside, let’s look at the big picture and how to solve this mess. It wasn’t entirely accurate for me to say that students shouldn’t pay for internships because the reality is that most of those who do them for credit have to pay for those too. It’s interesting to wonder where that money goes when they’re not paying a full-time tenured professor or the facilities overhead for a classroom. It’s time for colleges to evolve by right-purposing that revenue to provide students with relevant support.
The solution is to make every college junior earn three-credits for work experience and service learning internships and reallocate [or rebate] the tuition to fund and scale a universal, private network of Internship Readiness and Placement Centers on every college campus. This summarizes our Learning Experience Access Program (L.E.A.P.)[3].
Among many things, this network would complement career services offices by absorbing all internship and employer relations functions and personnel. Most centers do everything else anyway (i.e., résumés, interviewing, job fairs, etc.). These LEAP Centers would spearhead ApprentiCorps, a program to create internships for non-profits and give students the opportunity to fulfill their graduation requirement. It makes sense to match the need for helping hands with the need for hands-on experience and solve both. This letter only scratches the surface of our “College-to-Employment Vision and Action Plan.”
Overall, internships represent a “triple threat” opportunity -- helping managers strapped for time, a workforce strapped for resources, and preparing the next generation of workers eager to make their mark. Students can be their own ambassadors to the right opportunity without it costing a thing, except maybe some tuition credits.
I would love the opportunity to discuss these issues in greater detail and explore how we may shed more light on the deeper issues at hand.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sources:
[1] University of Michigan-Dearborn (Regional Career Center Study 2008)
[2] The Internship Institute Student Productivity Study (updated 2007). See capsule at www.InternshipInstitute.org/paradigm.asp
[3] The Internship Institute College-to-Employment Vision and Action Plan www.InternshipInstitute.org/gapremedy.asp.
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