Critical Enabler
Written by Celeste Altus
MAE 2012 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 (February)
Any way you illustrate it—science majors stocking shelves at Wal-Mart, or master’s degree holders slinging coffee drinks—there is no denying this is a challenging employment market. In November 2011, the U.S. unemployment rate was 8.6 percent, with more than 13 million people out of work according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The housing collapse and recession have put more and more people on the unemployment rolls and have sent college graduates scrambling to land the few jobs available once they receive their diploma.
This makes it important for college graduates and students alike to do everything they can to stand out in this fickle employer’s market. One way they can get ahead of the competition is working before they officially start working, via internships. “In today’s market, internships are absolutely critical,” said Scott Anderson of EduLaunchpad, a company that works directly with students and parents in helping them prepare financially for college. “A degree and experience will typically beat out a degree alone.”
Just as extracurricular activities are essential rather than optional to get an edge on college acceptance, internship experience in the field—or more than one internship—is the new normal among college graduates, experts say. “In this current competitive economic climate, having at least one internship on your resume is important,” said Richard White, the director of career services for Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “A second or third internship is even better.”
Dollars and Sense
Michael Dakduk of the national organization Student Veterans of America said he thinks the value of a paid or unpaid internship is in making industry contacts; basically, it expands your network. “While it feels like a step backward from your military days of leadership and unique responsibilities, it should be viewed as a necessary complement to a college degree,” Dakduk said. “This is especially true if you are not working, or if you want to change career fields.” He said veterans should not discount unpaid internships. “If an unpaid internship opportunity presents itself, take it! Your post-graduation success may depend on it.” As part of the SVA Employment Initiative, a program that works to find jobs for student vets, the organization recently announced it would be supporting internships; through money the organization has on hand, the SVA will pay stipends to veterans who need to take an unpaid internship to advance their career.
Money should not be one’s motivating factor in choosing the right opportunities, though. Sometimes a smart internship choice will help a student weed out the kind of work he or she does not want to pursue, so in that case its value is immeasurable.
Narrow the Field
Tanine Rennick of Fairfax, Va., studied investigation sciences at Nebraska Wesleyan University and did an internship with the Maricopa County medical investigators and death investigators office in Phoenix, Ariz. She learned a lot and found it beneficial for a variety of reasons. “I thought it was very, very helpful,” Rennick said. “I was kind of toying with the idea if I wanted to work out on scenes as a crime scene investigator or in the laboratory, and this internship helped me decide that I would much rather be out on scene and not stuck in the lab all day. The shifts go by fast and you get to see so many different things. I learned a lot about how all the different agencies work together at a scene as well.”
Often students can find their perfect internships through services right on campus. Rutgers has a career services center that provides access to internship listings through its Career Knight portal. The university hosts an internship career day in early February and has 10 other on-campus career fairs that attract many employers that are seeking student interns, said White.
“Making face-to-face contact with recruiters is one of the best ways to pursue an internship,” he said. Rutgers has 15 career counselors available for individual counseling, sessions and resume critiques. Students can work with the counselors to develop internship search strategies.
Michael True, director of the Internship Center at Messiah College, runs a national email list on internship issues and said he believes students can benefit from internships in more ways than just polishing up a resume. “Personally, they can boost their maturity and selfconfidence, improve human relations skills, and gain a greater clarity about career decisions,” True said. “Academically, they can integrate classroom theory with real-life experiences. Professionally, they can develop skills to effectively conduct a job search, write a resume, interview and build a network of professional contacts.” He added that if it is paid work/learning experience, it could help subsidize tuition costs or help pay for transportation expenses.
True agreed internships are a must. “Internships provide a reality check for students regarding the workplace,” he said. The internship experience allows students to sift through the myriad of choices of where and how they would like to work, he said, adding that “a clearer perspective is gained regarding which type of work environment fits best with their personal values.”
If a student’s school does not have a strong career center, he or she can still pursue internships independently, True said. “The Internet provides a host of websites … A simple Google or Bing search of the web for a specific position: for example, ‘event planning internship in Baton Rouge, La.,’ comes up with several possibilities. Another place to look is the member directory of the local chamber of commerce. They are often online and sorted by category of business. They provide contact information and links to their websites.”
Indiana Tech takes into account the whole experience when guiding its students in to their internship placements, said Cindy Price Verduce, director of the Career Planning and Development Center. The center helps place students in the best internship for his or her career goals. “We ask, ‘What is your dream job?’” Verduce said. For example, she said the center recently had two students studying marketing come in to look for internship opportunities. After talking with both, the counselors learned one wanted to go into the travel industry and the other, the funeral industry. With those kinds of variations, it is important to find an internship that will really help the student achieve success.
Indiana Tech offers a course about internships, which covers everything from how to dress to professionalism, with tips such as “meet all deadlines” and “communicate respectfully and tactfully your ideas and suggestions.” Even skills like table manners can make a difference. Verduce said a student once told her, “No one is going to hire me because of how I eat.” “Yes,” she replied, “But they may not hire you because of it!”
Students are encouraged to keep a journal of their internship, with notes, facts and figures of what they are learning and how they solved problems during their short time with the company. Those anecdotes can be used for the student to evaluate his or her internship and in interviews to show how hands-on experiential learning has lead to leadership, Verduce said.
The school does a series of mock interviews with students to prepare them for the real thing. When the interviews are over, students are coached on how they answered questions, their body language, and how they came across. This can help those who will make excellent employees but get nervous during interviews. “Some students have good skill sets but don’t know how to go about presenting that,” she said.
Timing is Everything
So when is a good time to get started? “In my opinion, students should be looking for internship opportunities even before they get to college,” said Anderson. Additionally, he thinks students should be contacting individuals and companies in their career interest area while they are still high school students or in the service. “These contacts are for gathering the wisdom of those who are working in career areas that they are interested in,” he added. “Employers are far more likely to open conversations with students who are asking for advice rather than asking for a job.”
Some companies are looking at students as early as freshman year. As an example, accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers has been known to go on campus in recruiting efforts as soon as students start college classes.
When asking employers about how they got to where they are or recommendations for a student interested in the company’s field, Anderson suggests that the student always make sure to ask for permission to follow up with them in the future should they have any more questions. This gives the student the opening to develop a relationship with these employers. “It could possibly lead to a mentorship. Those employers will become the source for advice, internships, and much more likely employment,” he explained.
Strategic Positioning
Through internships, companies create a pool of job candidates; it is a long-term opportunity to show a company that you would make a good permanent employee. “It’s like a six-month interview,” Verduce said. When and if an intern fits in with a company’s culture, hiring is simple, without endless human resources paperwork, training procedures and the like. So in that sense, internships save companies time as well.
Verduce was quick to point out that all different kinds of internships have value, and the big name corporate internships are not necessarily better than smaller companies or even mom-and-pop businesses. It all depends on how much the student’s work is valued there and how well the student is at leveraging their new networking contacts when it comes time to look for a job.
White, of Rutgers, agreed. “Keep in mind that there are many different internships and different employers, all of which have value: paid and unpaid; full time and part time; working for companies, nonprofits, or government agencies; on site and off site,” he said. “Students come into an organization with fresh eyes,” True added. “After a few weeks, interns may come up with an idea of how to improve a product or service or process. They need to be willing to develop ideas, put them into an executive summary and present them in a tactful way to their supervisor. Students may be surprised by how receptive organizations are to their input in this way.” ♦