Posts Tagged ‘internship’

Here’s one word of advice for college students thinking ahead to graduation and recent grads still looking for a job. And it’s not - as young Ben (Dustin Hoffman) was advised in the 1960s movie The Graduate - “plastics.” It’s “internship.”

While barely 30 percent of employers consider a college transcript useful when evaluating a recent graduate for employment, two-thirds of them would consider a supervisor’s assessment of an internship or community-based project “very” or “fairly” useful in evaluating their potential for success, according to a survey by Association of American Colleges and Universities. Be sure to keep copies of your positive evaluations and offer them as part of your packet of application materials.

Selecting an internship with a focus on science and technology, or one with an international flavor, can help a new graduate applying for a job stand out from his or her peers. The percentage of employers who want colleges to place more emphasis on these areas are 82 percent and 70 percent, respectively.

In addition to impressing prospective employers and gaining valuable experience, interning gives students a chance to examine a chosen career field from the inside out. Based on what they learn, they may decide to pursue a slightly different position, or even switch fields.

Those interested in moving to a new city may find that securing an internship before searching for a full-time job may make for a smoother transition.

Internships and co-op programs have become powerful recruiting tools for employers, according to research by The National Association of Colleges and Employers.

While budget cuts and downsizing have forced employers to hire fewer interns, the programs have become an important pipeline for new talent. Among the findings of the most recent NACE study, published in March 2009:

• About 35 percent of full-time entry-level college hires from the class of 2007-08 were from company internship programs.

• Employers extended offers of full-time employment to an average of 67.7 percent of their 2007-08 interns. More than four out of five of their offers, on average, were accepted, the highest intern acceptance rate NACE has reported since it began collecting data in 2001.

• Most internships (98.6 percent) are paid. The average hourly wage in 2008: $17.13.

This post was first published as a “Quick Study” column, available on philly.com and dozens of daily newspapers around the country.