Market Trends
Internships. A viable and growing option for employers and employees
by Tom Halasz
Director of the Career Center at the University of South Carolina
Internships, the "New Entry Level Jobs"! Much has been published recently of the importance of having had an internship in the process of securing full-time employment and rightly so. Internships and co-operative education experiences (also known as experiential education) provide students an outstanding opportunity to showcase their talents to a prospective employer for an extended period of time. Students are able to determine fit in the organization, assess the potential for future employment, try a region of the country, explore a company of a certain size and build on their skill set. Many employers utilize internships as an "extended interview" in gauging the students' capabilities, assessing their ability to work with others, observing their work ethic and measuring their capacity to learn. The goal for many students is to get a job offer from the company with which they intern with and to increase their starting salary. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)* internships result in a significant increase in starting salary. NACE reported that "students in the Class of 2010 who had internships received an average salary offer of $41,580. Meanwhile, their classmates who didn't take internships received an average starting salary offer of $34,601." This differential existed within all areas of study, with the greatest discrepancy among computer science majors where "those with internship experience received an average starting salary offer of $58,920 while those without internships received an offer of $45,000." Clearly, internships make a difference in starting salaries.
For employers, the benefit of the "New Entry Level Jobs" results in new employees that can deliver results immediately upon being hired. Students need to appreciate that employers are looking for employees who can make an immediate return on their investment. The days of extensive training programs to prepare new employees to contribute to an organizations' "bottom line" are over. Yes, employers will continue to have training programs but the focus will be to keep their employees current on the latest technologies and industry standards; not to prepare them to work. With businesses focused on productivity to an ever greater extent; the demands for a greater variety and depth of skills for new employees will increase, resulting in an increased importance of internships for both employers and students.
To say that internships and co-ops are simply screening tools for employers or job search devices for students is to underestimate the value of experiential education. These experiences are critical in helping students decide on the type of employment that they pursue. Students in high school and early in the college experience should strive to get as many experiences as they can fit in. Experiential education opportunities will help them select their college majors and test out the knowledge they acquire in the classroom throughout their educational experience. Additionally, experiential education opportunities enable students to develop a professional network. This network not only helps students with advice, but can provide professional references, and connections for future opportunities.
Internships and co-ops are not just for students planning to go to work immediately after their first college degree. Students planning to pursue a master's or doctoral degree also benefit from experiences outside the classroom. Through these experiences, they can more effectively choose specialties, research areas and can also explore employment opportunities for those with advanced degrees. Students who have work experience prior to attending graduate and professional school bring much more to the classroom experience than those without work experience and students with work experience value their graduate education more.
Likewise, employers benefit from having interns beyond getting candidates in their recruitment pipeline. Interns bring cutting edge skills from their academic experience, as well as technology skills that are highly valued in the workplace. Many employers utilize the wide range of skills that interns possess to fill needs in a variety of areas within their organization. Smaller employers benefit from the staffing flexibility that interns can bring to their organizations. All employers benefit from the energy and creativity that interns can bring.
For both students and employers internship and co-operative education experiences increase options and with increased options comes greater likelihood of success!
Reference
*Impact of Internships on Salary Offers, Spotlight Online for Career Services Professionals, August 18, 2010 http://www.naceweb.org/so2010/0818/intern_salary/
Thomas (Tom) Halasz, joined the University of South Carolina as Director of the Career Center in July of 2008 and leads an office of seventeen career services professionals in providing comprehensive career services to University students and alumni, while working with employers to meet their recruiting needs.
Tom participated in the 2008 Fulbright Seminar for U.S. Administrators in International Education. He has conducted research on the effectiveness of career classes and has had his work published in the book: Career Counseling of College Students. He has presented at a number of national conferences including the National Association Colleges and Employers (NACE), American College Personnel Association and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Joint Conference, Society of Human Resource Professionals and American Counseling Association. He is active in professional organizations having served on the NACE Member Insights Committee and Future Directions Committee, the task force for Technology and the Attracting New Professionals Action Team. Over the last 15 years he has worked in career services at the University of Michigan, Virginia Commonwealth University, Duke University and the University of Florida. Prior to working in career services, Tom served in the US Air Force for ten years and was assigned to the Netherlands, Turkey, and a variety of stateside locations. Tom received his master's in Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and his bachelor's in Political Science at Western Michigan University.
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