Navigating the World of Internships: A Comprehensive Guide

Internships offer invaluable applied experience and connections in professional fields, putting students in a better position to land and succeed in the job market. They provide a taste of the professional world, allowing students to gain practical skills, explore career paths, and build a professional network. For employers, internships offer a chance to guide and evaluate talent, potentially leading to new hires with experience in their company. This article delves into the intricacies of internships, exploring their purpose, benefits, types, and best practices for both students and employers.

What is an Internship?

Internships are characterized by a defined start and end date, clearly defined project-based learning objectives and goals that align with the student’s academic pursuits, and supervision and regular performance feedback by a professional with education and expertise in the field. They are structured learning experiences in a professional setting. Internships can be paid or unpaid, and credit bearing or non-credit bearing. Experiential Learning is a process through which students develop knowledge, skills and values from direct experiences outside a traditional academic setting. Student work and observation experiences go by a number of different names, including internships, co-ops, practicums and externships.

Why Pursue an Internship?

Internships provide students the opportunity to gain valuable applied experience and make connections in professional fields they are considering for career paths. Research shows that students who participate in internships and co-ops complete college at higher rates than those who do not, are better prepared for the workplace and are better paid. The average offer rate for students that participate in internships for full-time opportunities is 73%, and the average hourly wage for interns seeking a bachelor’s degree is $17.50.

Benefits for Students

Real-world experience: Internships offer a valuable opportunity to apply what you’ve learned in the classroom to a real work setting.
Career exploration: Internships provide students the opportunity to gain valuable applied experience and make connections in professional fields they are considering for career paths. Maybe you discover your dream job. Perhaps you connect with an organization you want to stay with after graduation and beyond.
Skill development: An internship gives a student the opportunity for career exploration and development, and to learn new skills.
Networking: The connections you make at an internship can be just as valuable as the work experience.
Increased employability: In short, an internship will put students in a better position to land and succeed in the job market.
Higher completion rates and better preparedness: Research shows that students who participate in internships and co-ops complete college at higher rates than those who do not, are better prepared for the workplace and are better paid.

Benefits for Employers

Talent pipeline: They give employers the opportunity to guide and evaluate talent, as well as potential new hires with experience in their company once the student graduates.
New ideas and energy: It offers the employer the opportunity to bring new ideas and energy into the workplace, develop talent and potentially build a pipeline for future full-time employees.
Opportunity to assess potential hires: The paid intern can be given real work-not busy work-so you will be able to assess performance and make an informed decision about whether to offer the intern a full-time job.
Achieving workforce goals: Develop a pool of interns that matches up with your full-time hiring goals, and your program can help your organization meet its overall goals for its workforce.

Types of Internships

Internships can vary in several ways:

Paid vs. Unpaid: Internships can be paid or unpaid, and credit bearing or non-credit bearing.
For Credit vs. Non-Credit: Internships for college credit are usually arranged between the student and the college and are directly related to the student’s major.
Location-based vs. Virtual: More companies are offering remote work options, including internships. This opens up more internship opportunities for students, but it can also lead to more competition.

Related Opportunities

Are you looking for an internship, or something similar? Below are definitions of some other opportunities commonly used to explore your potential career:

Read also: A Guide to Social Work Internships

Cooperative Education (Co-op): Cooperative Education or Co-op provides students with multiple periods of work related to the student's major or career goal. The typical program plan is for a student to alternate terms of full-time classroom study with terms of full-time, employment. Since program participation involves multiple work terms, the student will work three or four work terms, gaining a year or more of career-related work experience before graduation. Most co-op positions are paid and acquiring academic credit. Co-ops are usually full-time positions that take place over a semester, and are often built into the curriculum as a graduation requirement. Co-ops are more rigorous than internships and are designed to help students apply their classroom learning to real-world projects.
Practicum: Practicum is generally a one-time work or service experience done by a student as part of an academic class. Some practicums offer pay, but many do not. Almost all are done for academic credit.
Externship/Job Shadow: Externship/Job Shadow is a short (usually 1-5 days) working experience, where the student shadows a working professional to observe and get a preview of the day-to-day activities needed for the career. Externships and job shadowing experiences are generally unpaid and are not related to receiving academic credit.
Micro-Internship: Micro-Internship is a short-term, professional experience that will typically last just a few weeks for the duration of a single project. Typically these experiences are conducted remotely and can be from 5 to 40 hours per week. Such opportunites can be found on Parker Dewey.

Finding an Internship

One way to explore opportunities prior to committing to an internship is through an informational interview. The student can learn first-hand about their chosen profession by asking questions about tasks, business environment and educational background. Here are some questions a student might ask:

What is your typical workday like?
What do you like most (and least) about your job?
What skills/abilities are most important to succeed in this job?
What is your educational background?
How did you get started in this field?
What courses were most helpful to you and which would you recommend?
What is the best way to get started in this field?
Do you have any additional advice to help me prepare?

Handshake is an intuitive, easy-to-use job search system to help students connect with employers for part-time jobs, internships, co-ops and full-time career opportunities. Handshake is accessible to students using their name.# and password to log in. Students should complete their profile so that they can start taking advantage of everything Handshake has to offer: job searching, resume review, career events, career fairs, employer reviews and much more. If a student is considering an unpaid internship, they should familiarize themselves with Fair Labor Standards Act guidelines

There are many other ways to find an internship. Several are outlined below:

Utilize personal networks
Meet with a staff member in a college career services office
Meet with staff in Buckeye Commons
Find on-campus career and internship fair events on Handshake
Find opportunities state-wide at the Ohio Means Internships & Co-ops

You can start by speaking to your academic advisor or career services office to learn more about your college’s internship program. Is there a specific organization where you’d like to intern? You can search online job boards-some are even internship-specific. And don’t forget to take advantage of networking opportunities.

Preparing for Your Internship

You’ve aced your interview and scored a coveted internship. Now what? Preparing can help you feel more confident and less stressed, and the first day at your internship will go more smoothly.

Learn the company’s dress code to ensure you have the appropriate clothing.
Familiarize yourself with the commute. If your internship is location-based, make sure you know where you need to go, where you need to park, and how long it will take to get there. Don’t forget to take traffic into consideration.
Review your job description and the company’s history and mission. You want to be able to briefly explain what you do if your co-workers ask-and they will!
Remember to bring what you need for your first day. This might include any documents human resources will need, pen and paper for jotting down notes, a sweater in case the office is cold, and a water bottle.

Making the Most of Your Internship

When it comes to internships, you get out of it what you put into it. Come with a positive attitude, listen carefully and take notes, ask questions, and be willing to take on tasks that might be outside of your job description. If you take pride in your work, show an eagerness to learn, and act professionally, you’re sure to be a success. Most of all, don’t forget to build relationships with as many of your co-workers as you can, and make an effort to stay connected with them after your internship ends.

Best Practices for Employers

Many organizations use their internship programs to feed their full-time hiring: In fact, employers have reported that their internship program is the single-best strategy for recruiting new college graduates.

Best Practice #1: Pay your interns.Many students cannot afford to forgo a paycheck for the summer, so will not even be in your pool for consideration. Paid internships support an inclusive candidate pool.
Best Practice #2: Recruit for your internship program as you would for your full-time hiring.Take as much care in sourcing, recruiting, and securing interns as you would with full-time hires. Research shows that organizations that are intentional in recruiting their interns are rewarded with higher intern-to full-time-hire conversion rates.
Best Practice #3: Align your internship program with your organization’s overall goals for your workforce.As a start, consider your recent intern cohorts. Do your interns reflect your goals for your full-time, entry-level hires? Where are you doing well? Where are you falling short? If your recent cohorts don't match up, you have work to do to widen your pool of intern applicants. That may mean building relationships with additional schools or organizations, refocusing your virtual recruiting efforts, or considering what other tactics and strategies to engage to help you build your pool of interns.
Best Practice #4: Provide relocation and housing assistance.Few employers cover their interns’ relocation and/or housing expenses, but you’ll find a lot of appreciation if you can offer assistance. At a minimum, you should offer assistance to your interns in locating affordable housing. For those relocating to the job site, the prospect of finding affordable, short-term housing can be daunting. Easy availability of affordable housing will make your opportunity more attractive to students. The Ohio State University Events and Conferences offers a unique 12-week summer housing program for interns, researchers, and other guests from Mid-May through the beginning of August. Participants do not need to be an Ohio State University student to enroll in our Summer Intern Housing Program.
Best Practice #5: Offer scholarships.Attaching a scholarship can increase your pool of candidates with the desired qualifications.
Best Practice #6: Consider work arrangements that will work for your interns and your organization.According to research conducted by NACE, more than half of students have a preference for in-person work arrangements, while about two out of five are interested in hybrid work arrangements-working part of the time in person and part of the time remotely. Very few (about one in 10) wanted to work exclusively in a virtual environment. You could also consider keeping our interns on as part-time, remote employees after they go back to school (depending on the type of work they do for you and whether they have a willing manager), and/or having them come back and work over school breaks for a couple of weeks. These are excellent ways to keep communications open and build a stronger bond.
Best Practice #7: Provide interns with real work assignments.Feedback from interns indicates that real work assignments play a leading role in determining intern satisfaction. You can guarantee that hiring managers provide real work assignments by checking job descriptions, emphasizing the importance of real work assignments during manager/mentor orientation sessions, and communicating with interns frequently throughout the work term to determine how they perceive what they are doing.
Best Practice #8: Hold orientations for all involved.Orientations ensure that everyone starts with the same expectations and role definitions. If your program isn’t big enough to warrant a dedicated full-time staff member, one short-term solution is to hire a graduate student (look for a student working toward an advanced HR degree) to be your intern and put this college relations intern in charge of the daily operation of the internship program.
Best Practice #11: Encourage team involvement.Recruiting team members can serve as cooks at intern picnics, hosts at speaker events, and drivers for social outings such as ball games.
Best Practice #12: Invite career center staff and faculty to visit interns on site.By inviting them to your site, you will build a better working relationship with these groups.
Best Practice #13: Hold new-hire panels.Your interns get insights about your organization from your new hires-people who they perceive are like themselves and who they consequently view as credible sources of information. College relations staff should attend these sessions but remain unobtrusive, staying in the back of the room so as not to stifle the conversation.
Best Practice #14: Bring in speakers from your company’s executive ranks.Consequently, speakers from the executive ranks are very popular with students-it’s a great career development and role modeling experience for interns. Having a CEO speak is especially impressive.
Best Practice #15: Offer training/encourage outside classes.Providing students with access to in-house training-both in work-skills-related areas and in general skills areas-is a tangible way to show students you are interested in their development.
Best Practice #16: Conduct focus groups/surveys.Conducting focus groups and feedback surveys with these representatives of your target group is a great way to see your organization as the students see it. Focus groups in particular can yield information about what your competitors are doing that students find appealing. (Learn more about surveying your interns.)
Best Practice #17: Showcase intern work through presentations/expo.Setting up a venue for them to do presentations (formal presentations or in a fair-type setting such as an Expo) not only allows them to demonstrate their achievements, but also showcases the internship program to all employees.
Best Practice #18: Conduct exit interviews.Having the students fill out an exit survey and bring it to the interview gives some structure to the conversation.
Best Practice #19: Collect, track, and analyze your program’s statistics.The only way to ensure your program is effective is to track and analyze related data. This is critical to success-from ensuring you are attracting and securing the students you want to determining how effective your program is at converting interns into full-time hires.
Best Practice #20: Stay connected with your interns after they return to school.Maintain your ties with your interns throughout the academic year. Don’t assume that extending a job offer is the end of your work with your interns. It is also important to maintain ties to successful interns who aren’t eligible yet for job offers-students who are only entering their junior year, for example-if you want them to return for another internship experience.

tags: #how #internships #work